The Segmented Party System of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The party system of Bosnia and Herzegovina is complex and consists of several levels of interaction and party competition. Because of the politically relevant cleavages, researchers have claimed that party competition is centered withing the ethnically defined segments of Croat, Serb, Bosniak (and multiethnic) parties, but there has been no empirical evidence to back that claim. By analyzing election results for the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1996–2014, and by measuring the volatility among party segments, the author identifies four (or three and a half) ethnically defined party subsystems with almost non-existent voter fluctuation among them. At the same time, there is a significant volatility within these segments. The empirical analysis confirms the claim that the political party competition in Bosnia and Herzegovina exists solely inside the four segments of the party system among parties with the same ethnic label.