David Chandler (ed.), Peace Without Politics? Ten Years of International State-Building in Bosnia. London, New York: Routledge, 2006. 176 pp., GBP 65.00, ISBN 0-415-34822-6 (hardcover, previously published as special issue of the journal International Peacekeeping, Vol. 12, No. 3, Autumn 2005).
Reviewed by Anne Jenichen (University of Bremen, Bremen), Email: anne.jenichen@...
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At the end of 2005 it was ten years that the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was officially ended by the Dayton Peace Accords. On this occasion David Chandler edited a compilation of essays on the first extensive project of international administration and external assistance in post-war state reconstruction after the Cold War in order to contribute to the debate on success and failure of international state-building in BiH and beyond. The eleven contributions, written by acknowledged experts, are guided by Chandler’s main argument that the international administrative authority in BiH tends to separate state-building from politics by viewing it only as a technical process. He argues that the disregard to build a domestic consensus for policy-making led to the creation of a state with no real basis in Bosnian society and only little popular legitimacy, which is, therefore, not capable of overcoming the political divisions of war.
The compilation is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the Dayton peace agreement and its subsequent institutionalisation. Sumantra Bose argues in his essay that the consociational and confederal paradigm established by the Dayton agreement provided the most feasible and democratic form of government possible in BiH’s precarious situation. Furthermore, he criticises oversimplified assessments of international state-building efforts as either naïve and uncritical (the only affirmative view) or exaggerated and tendentious (the merely negative one). He points out that a complete denial of international state-building as imperialism does not sufficiently take into account the context of post-war BiH and some real benefits provided to BiH’s populations by the international presence and activity. David Chandler, in contrast, argues that the Dayton peace agreement has facilitated external regulation and enabled external powers to permanently postpone any transition to Bosnian ownership. In his view the gradual transfer of political oversight to the European Union represents only a transition from one heteronomy to another preventing that the Bosnian polity gains legitimacy with its population.
The second part of the book is devoted to the assessment of internationally imposed reforms. Dominik Zaum analyses the transformation of the payment bureaux. He concludes that, measured against its goals of furthering economic liberalisation and weakening parallel structures, the reform was quite successful. However, by treating it as a technical, rather than a political enterprise, the international community compromised local ownership in the course of the reform which may in turn compromise the sustainability of the reformed institutions. In the next essay Gemma Collantes Celador assesses the internationally-led police reform efforts. Although the UN-led International Police Task Force positively contributed to reconstruction in post-war BiH, its efforts to reform and restructure Bosnian police forces fell short of the international actors’ expectations. Furthermore, she challenges the assumption that “democratic policing” could act as a catalyst for broader social change by demonstrating how in BiH such unrealistic expectations led to an undermining of basic police functions. In the last essay of the second part Daniela Heimerl examines international policy on return of refugees and internally displaced persons. She criticises that the international community expected returnees to erase consequences of ethnic cleansing and to contribute to the rebirth of a multi-ethnic state, without recognising the transformed economic and social framework and, by this, even advancing the returnees’ already great vulnerability.
The essays of the third section concentrate on efforts encouraging reform from below. Vanessa Pupavac considers international gender policies and the prospects they offer for women in BiH. After analysing the impact of the quota system, the role of internationally-funded women’s groups in political advocacy and micro-credit initiatives, she concludes that these programs empower only a few female members of the urban elite while excluding ordinary Bosnian women. Adam Fagan analyses the changing nature of international approaches to civil society development and assesses the role of international donors, their interaction and their support of local NGOs. He argues that the view of NGO development as instrumental in the envisaged transition to a democratic and multi-ethnic state exaggerates their capacity to deliver fundamental change, which, in contrast, would essentially depend on institutional and political change. Although the international approach has turned more appropriate than in the earlier years, many of the problems of external dependency still exist. Subsequently, Florian Bieber compares local institutional engineering in the two multi-ethnic cities of Mostar and Br ko. He finds that the model applied to Brcko was more successful concerning questions of political integration and economic opportunities because of its status as protectorate, directly administered by an international appointee, which allowed for tax advantages, divorce from power struggles and parallel power structures based along ethnic lines. In the last essay of the third part, Roberto Belloni focuses on the relatively successful case of refugee return to Prijedor in order to analyse local-level dynamics of peace-building. He draws two lessons for international and local contributions: First, arrest and removal of war criminals and war-time leaders by international forces had a ripple effect on minority return. Second, however, ultimate success or failure depends predominantly on the choices, determination and resilience of local actors.
The fourth and last part deals with the economic and political situation in BiH today. In the first essay of this section, Michael Pugh focuses on the political economy of the post-war period. He criticises that the external agenda of privatization has done little to stimulate economic growth or suppress and divert shadow economies. In contrast, he argues that the removal of the state from economy and social protection has reinforced reliance of the poor on the shadow economy and encouraged former war elites to participate in such reducing of public spheres. Richard Caplan, finally, considers different concepts of accountability and how these relate to the operation of the international administration in BiH. He analyses its limited accountability to the citizens of BiH and concludes with recommendations how accountability could be enhanced.
Altogether, Chandler compiled a very interesting and valuable collection of essays. But although his argument, on which the whole book is based, highlights an important objection to international state-building in BiH and beyond, the presentation of his criticism could be further scrutinised. It does not fully take into account the political context of post-war BiH. But most of the book’s contributors do not follow his one-dimensional view and present a much more differentiated perspective, not only focusing on failures but also considering achievements and trade-offs of international state- and peace-building in BiH. Especially thankworthy is the fact that the editor also invited contributions on yet under-researched subjects, such as gender issues and local initiatives in BiH. Therewith, the compilation presents an exceptionally comprehensive perspective on international state-building in BiH ten years after Dayton. Despite minor shortcomings in argumentation, the book will be of great interest for students of external assistance in South Eastern Europe and elsewhere, as well as for practitioners who are engaged in similar issues.
Book Review Editors: Jelena Obradovic (jelena_obradovic@...) and Cristina Bradatan (cbradata@...)
© 2007 Balkan Academic News. This review may be distributed and reproduced electronically, if credit is given to Balkan Academic News and the author. For permission for re-printing, contact Balkan Academic News.
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