Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.56550/d.3.2.4
BORROWED SOVEREIGNTY AND ITS INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTS IN DEEPLY DIVIDED SOCIETIES: Case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo
Dražen Barbarić
orcid.org/0000-0003-1744-9392
; University of Mostar
*
Ana-Mari Bošnjak
orcid.org/0009-0003-5170-4470
; University of Mostar
Domagoj Galić
orcid.org/0000-0002-3236-9326
; University of Mostar
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The main goal of this paper is to evaluate international community approaches towards resolving institutional problems in deeply divided societies that have experienced the trauma of civil war in their recent past. International actors decided to “borrow sovereignty” to these countries through different international interventions. With temporal distance, we can now conclude that the cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are proof that similar intervention arrangements can have completely different outcomes. The main problem in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is that the Office of High Representative (OHR) has transformed a “permanent peace process” into a “permanent Berlin Congress.” In comparison to Kosovo, the different outcomes in the two cases are the result of two different paradigms of foreign intervention: one is a “parasitic paradigm” (BIH), in which external actors perpetuate an extraordinary state without stability and democratisation; the second is a “decomposing paradigm” (Kosovo), in which the same actors slowly weaken their positions by transferring powers to domestic institutions.
Keywords
State-building; Foreign intervention agencies; Post-conflict societies; Paternalist proxy governance
Hrčak ID:
330695
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2025.
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