Professional paper
Beyond Ethnicity? Exploring Cleavages at the 2022 Election in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Višeslav Raos
orcid.org/0000-0003-2651-1813
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In this paper, I analyzed the 2022 election in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the perspective of territorial, rather than voter differences. Thus, instead of relying on survey data to build a model predicting party vote outcomes, I used municipality-level data. I considered the three main self-described non-ethnic or civic party lists, SDP B&H, DF-GS and NS, as well as two self-described non-ethnic or civic presidential candidates, Denis Bećirović and Željko Komšić. I examined the role of the urban-rural divide, the ethnic cleavage, the religious cleavage and the educational cleavage. The results have shown that SDP B&H and DF-GS tend to gain support in areas with less highly educated people. However, for both parties, the share of Bosniaks was a far better predictor. In the case of Our Party, we could truly detect non-ethnic voting, as its variance of the vote could be explained to a large percentage with the share of non-believers and others. In the case of presidential candidates, ethnicity was, again, the most important predictor. Also, for Komšić, the share of Croats was a very strong negative predictor, which again confirms the argument that his electoral victories are due to heavy support in Bosniak majority areas, and not because of any kind of substantial support in those municipalities where a tangible number of ethnic Croats live.
Keywords
election; cleavage; ethnicity; Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hrčak ID:
287135
URI
Publication date:
1.7.2022.
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