CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2009
| Author | Falconer-Stout, Zachariah James |
|---|---|
| Title | THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SUB-STATE DEVELOPMENT IN POST-CONFLICT BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: an Assessment of the Entities |
| Summary | While post-war development in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has received excellent attention at the state level, there has yet to be a systematic comparison of the economic experience of the entities. This study contributes to the literature on post-war BiH firstly by filling this gap, and secondly by drawing on relevant theoretical insights to explain the trends. It observes that RS initially lagged behind FBH in reconstruction and reform, but caught up early in the present decade. In recent years, RS has conducted an active reform agenda surpassing FBH, but the quality of these reforms is questionable. FBH has exhibited a more consistent pace, typified by deadlock. These findings are explained by the political competition theory of post-communist transition in conjunction with ethnic politics scholarship, under a general rubric of the ethnicities and growth literature from economics. Consociational arrangements have minimized political competition and reinforced ethnic cleavages to the detriment of economic reform. In RS, a centralized structure has enabled reform, but the minimal political competition inherent to consociational guarantees produces a lack of accountability resulting in a reform process benefiting insiders who now prefer a rigged game to one of uncertain political and economic outcomes. In FBH, the lack of accountability has meant that when the consociational deadlock is broken, it remains difficult to ensure transparent reforms that foster market competition. Throughout the post-war period, external lobby actors have often played a role in shaping bargaining dynamics. |
| Supervisor | Duman, Anil |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2009/falconer-stout_zachariah.pdf |
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