MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Social Studies
Department of International Relations and European Studies
Mgr. Petr Čermák
Local Ethnopolitics in the Balkans: An Opportunity for Post-Conflict Moderation?
Doctoral Thesis
Supervisor: Prof. PhDr. Zdeněk Kříž, Ph.D.
Brno 2021
Declaration
I hereby declare that this doctoral thesis is my own work, that it has been written on the basis of the sources listed, and that these have been referred to and acknowledged in the text.
Prague, 22 April 2021
2 Abstract
Presenting the outcomes of a research that has systematically mapped the local political dynamics in ethnically diverse post-conflict places across the Balkans, the thesis is based on a qualitative comparative study conducted on the local level of analysis within a sample of 81 post-conflict ethnically diverse municipalities across five post-Yugoslav states. Based on a methodological approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, the research builds on an in-depth knowledge of a large number of cases acquired through extensive field and desk research, investigating the local inter-ethnic relations in a comparative perspective. Political strategies of 165 local ethnic communities are examined through three main stages of the political process. First, the analysis of forms of political organisation shows that the local politics is dominated by ethnic political parties organised on the state level, while local and cross-ethnic political forces are rare and unviable. Second, the analysed patterns of ethno-political mobilisation on the group and intra-group level reflect the political dynamics on the state level rather than local demography, and replicate the structural inequality in groups’ access to the local political power. Third, the comparative analysis of power distribution shows that while both ethnic accommodation and exclusion develop in local politics, the ethnically inclusive form of governance prevails despite the lack of power-sharing mechanisms and the ethnicisation of political structure transmitted from the state level.
Keywords
Balkans, ethnic conflict, power-sharing, ethnic politics, local peace building
3 Acknowledgments
The research project whose findings are presented in this thesis would never be conducted in such an extent and depth without the support I received from my academic colleagues. Firstly, it was the supervisor of my PhD study Professor Zdeněk Kříž who provided me a most valuable guidance throughout my master and PhD studies and has always supported me during my research with his professional, yet friendly and patient approach. He has most contributed to my decision to keep up my research and scholar activities even at moments when I felt lost in many pitfalls, unable to find motivation for further work. Since the very start of my studies, I could also always rely on the institutional and personal background of my home Department of International Relations and European Studies at the Masaryk University in Brno. I have especially appreciated the help and the openness of Professor Vít Hloušek and Dr. Petr Suchý who have always been willing to meet my requests. They have also never hesitated to support my applications for financing of my research travels through various scholarships, which allowed me to conduct the research. My Department also financially supported several of my research trips to the region as well as my travels to international conferences for the sake of presenting my work.
My research would also not have been possible without the study and research visits to other institutions. First, the study visit to the Faculty of Political Science of University of Sarajevo back in 2011, supported through the CEEPUS scholarship program, provided me with a unique opportunity for my first long-term stay in the region and has helped me to establish contacts that I can rely on ever since. Second, my visit to the Faculty of Political Science of University in Zagreb in 2015, supported through the Erasmus mobility scholarship, connected me with the scholar community in Croatia that welcomed me warmly: my special thanks goes to Professors Mirjana Kasapović, Siniša Tatalović and Dr. Ružica Jakešević for their personal approach. Third, my research visit to the Centre for Southeast European Studies in Graz, financially supported from the AKTION scholarship programme of the Austrian government, helped me to connect with the international scholar community and provided me a valuable critical feedback on my work. I am particularly grateful to Professor Florian Bieber for hosting me at the Centre, and also to all researchers and the staff of the CSEES for sharing their ideas with me and commenting critically on my research.
During my research, I also benefited from cooperation with many academic collaborators from other universities who commented on my work. Among them, I am particularly grateful to Dr.
4 Timofey Agarin from the Queen’s University Belfast and Dr. Ondřej Žíla from the Charles University in Prague for sharing their ideas and working together with me during my research.
Collecting the huge amount of data through the field research would not have been possible without the willingness of my 114 informants in the 28 different locations across Bosnia and Croatia. I have always been fascinated by their openness and flexibility in replying to my requests for interviews and answering my questions, all the more so as I am aware that I frequently made them feel uncomfortable. Contacting and meeting the informants would also not have been possible without the generous help of my many local contacts who never hesitated to share their unique local knowledge and contacts with me, of which many have become my friends during the years of my research.
I am grateful to Bára Čermáková for her very helpful comments on the text and thorough proofreading.
I am also thankful to my family, friends, and colleagues both in the Czech Republic and in the Balkans, for their support and understanding during the years of my research.
The biggest thanks, one for analytical reflections, incredible patience and loving support, goes to my wife who has always stood by me.
5 Annotation
The dissertation thesis departs from the central theoretical and policy debate that has developed in the field of ethnic conflict resolution in response to the rising occurrence of ethnic conflict in the post-Cold War international system. Theoretically, the thesis follows on the debate between integrative and separationist models of post-conflict peace and reflects their assumptions empirically through the distinct stages of the political process from political organisation, through electoral mobilisation up to division of executive power.
Departing from these theoretical underpinnings, the thesis looks at political relations between previously belligerent ethnic communities on the local level in the post-Yugoslav space. Through a methodologically innovative comparative study of 81 ethnically diverse post- conflict municipalities, it maps the political dynamics within and between 165 local ethnic communities. The research is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, including an extensive field research conducted in 27 municipalities, where data were collected through 114 semi-structured interviews with direct actors of the investigated processes.
Political strategies of 165 local ethnic communities are examined through three main stages of the political process: organisation, mobilisation and power division. The first stage of the research systematically analyses electoral data about all locally active political subjects in order to comprehensively map the local patterns of political organisation in ethnically mixed areas. Based on their level of organisation and proved electoral appeal, 732 political parties were categorised along two conceptual dimensions: central vs. local and ethnic vs. cross-ethnic. The analysis of the electoral performance of these types of parties proves that the prevailing forms of political identification and organisation on the local level clearly reflect the ethnicised state- level political structure. The local political scenes are dominated by established ethnic parties organised on the state level which operate within ethnically defined segments of local politics. On the contrary, authentic local political movements are rare and so are cross-ethnic parties. In general, the local political landscapes do not develop autonomous forms of political organisation that would evade the top-down influence of the ethnically defined state political structures.
The political mobilisation of the local ethnic groups is examined in two subsequent steps. First, to uncover the levels of political mobilisation on ethnic basis in local politics, the ethnic structure of voting is systematically compared with the demographic structure of individual
6 municipalities. The results confirm deep ethnicisation of local politics with massive mobilisation along ethnic lines, but also reveal important structural differences in the levels of mobilisation of individual groups. Importantly, structural differences in the level of mobilisation are recorded between groups that are in a political majority position on the higher political level, and those that are politically disadvantaged as minorities. While the observed under-mobilisation of political minorities has structural causes in their long-term demographic and political dynamics on the state level, it has important consequences for their under- representation in local politics, which becomes a potential source of inequality and exclusion.
In the second step, the analysis examines the levels of intra-group political fragmentation and homogeneity to test the theoretical assumption of ethnic homogenisation driven by political stakes arising from the relative demographic position of the group. It confirms the assumption of high political fragmentation of local majorities, but largely disproves the assumption of the homogeneity of minorities and close-to-equal groups who, as has been found within the research, internally fragment in the local politics, despite the risk of losing relative political power. Importantly, the causes of intra-ethnic fragmentation are mainly transmitted from the state level politics, where these groups are politically divided to the extent that they cannot overcome their divisions on the local level.
Finally, the analysis focuses on the inter-group dynamics within the process of executive power division. First, the conceptual debate between two principal approaches to inter-ethnic power- sharing, the consociational and the centripetal approach, is applied to the local political level, which is specific for its absence of institutional power-sharing regulation. Ideal types of the two conceptually defined power-sharing models are developed on the local level and their underlying mechanisms identified, along with the ideal type of ethnic exclusion. Both power- sharing models proved to be applicable in the local political settings even in the absence of institutional regulation. However, while the consociational model develops relatively frequently when it comes to the local level, the centripetal model is observed only rarely and on a temporal basis because of the deeply ethnicised structure of the local politics.
In the final step, the analysis provides a systematic comparison of patterns of power distribution between 165 local ethnic groups in 81 mixed municipalities across the post-Yugoslav space. It qualitatively classifies all ethnic groups according to their access to local decision-making into categories describing the specific mechanisms of political exclusion and inclusion. Based on the recorded combinations of the groups’ political positions, the observed patterns of power distribution are described within two main categories of ethnic exclusion and ethnic
7 accommodation. Various levels and forms of exclusion and accommodation have been observed across cases with different demographic settings. In contradiction to theoretical assumptions of the effect that ethnic demography has on inter-ethnic relations, the collected empirical data show that groups of various demographic sizes can agree on power-sharing as well as exclude each other from decision making. Inter-group ethnic accommodation slightly prevails across the region, regardless of the local demographic structure and power relations on the state level, while instances of extreme exclusion through ethnic discrimination are very rare. However, ethnic exclusion is still commonly present on the local level in the region, even though mainly in softer forms, regardless of the local demographic settings.
The presented analysis of the local political dynamics across the three principal stages of the political process shows that the structure of local politics remains mainly determined by the state-level political dynamics. In the first two stages of political organisation and mobilisation that shape the local political structures, the top-down factors stemming from the state level heavily affect local dynamics and foster ethnicisation of the local politics. In contrast to that, the political dynamics on the local level becomes much more localised and distinct from the state level in the decisive stage of the political process when actual executive power is divided through post-election government formation.
The observed situation on the local level across the post-Yugoslav space shows that even in political settings where sharing power is not regulated institutionally, authentic power-sharing mechanisms can develop between local actors, preventing ethnic exclusion. On the contrary, a significant part of the local minorities still ends excluded from the executive, yet mainly through locally specific mechanisms. In general, while the local political structure is defined by the state-level factors, the actors of political processes are largely autonomous in their bargaining over power division and primarily follow their locally specific interests in the final stage of the political process.
The thesis concludes that it would be naïve to expect that decentralisation of political power to the local level would automatically bring more stability and inclusion to regions characterised by long-term political instability, and ethnic exclusion on higher political levels. The empirical record from the post-Yugoslav region shows that the unregulated local politics provides enough space for inter-ethnic cooperation, but also for conflict. The potential of local level politics to facilitate political moderation should thus not be taken for granted, especially in ethnically diverse countries whose top-level politics is characterised by deep ethnic divisions and persisting nationalist rhetoric.
8 Table of contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4
LIST OF TABLES ...... 11
LIST OF FIGURES ...... 12
ANNOTATION ...... 6
1 INTRODUCTION ...... 14
1.1 INTENDED CONTRIBUTION OF THE RESEARCH ...... 20 1.2 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ...... 22
2 SITUATING THE RESEARCH AGENDA ...... 24
2.1 ETHNIC CONFLICT AND ITS RESOLUTION: EMPIRICAL TRENDS ...... 24 2.2 SEEKING FOR RESOLUTION ...... 25 2.3 SEPARATION VS. INTEGRATION DEBATE ...... 27 2.4 COMPETING THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS ...... 30 2.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 35
3 METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...... 37
3.1 LEVEL OF ANALYSIS: LOCAL TURN ...... 37 3.2 LOCALISED NATURE OF THE (POST)-CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN THE BALKANS ...... 40 3.3 UNIT OF ANALYSIS: MUNICIPALITIES AS SUB-STATE POLITICAL ARENAS ...... 44 3.4 SUBJECTS OF ANALYSIS: LOCAL ETHNIC GROUPS AS PRIMARY POLITICAL ACTORS ...... 47 3.5 SAMPLE OF CASES COVERED BY THE RESEARCH ...... 48 3.6 DATA COLLECTION METHODS ...... 54 3.7 PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND LIMITS RELATED TO THE FIELD RESEARCH 57 3.8 INTERVIEWING PROCESS ...... 62 3.9 DESK RESEARCH ...... 67
4 LOCAL ETHNOPOLITICS IN MIXED AREAS OF POST-CONFLICT BALKANS: BETWEEN EXCLUSION AND POWER-SHARING ...... 71
4.1 FORMS OF POLITICAL ORGANISATION: ETHNIC AND CROSS-ETHNIC, STATE- LEVEL AND LOCAL POLITICAL PARTIES ...... 73 4.1.1 ETHNIC PARTIES IN THE POST-YUGOSLAV SPACE ...... 74 4.1.2 PARTY CODING PROCEDURE ...... 76 4.1.3 PERFORMANCE OF ETHNIC, NON-ETHNIC AND LOCAL PARTIES ...... 83 4.1.4 KOSOVO ...... 85 4.1.5 SERBIA ...... 90 4.1.6 MACEDONIA ...... 94 4.1.7 BOSNIA ...... 98 4.1.8 CROATIA ...... 111
9 5 ETHNO-POLITICAL MOBILISATION ...... 123
5.1 EXTENT OF ETHNO-POLITICAL MOBILISATION: POLITICAL SALIENCE OF ETHNICITY ...... 124 5.1.1 INDEX OF ETHNO-POLITICAL MOBILISATION ...... 125 5.1.2 VARYING LEVELS OF ETHNO-POLITICAL MOBILISATION: MAJORITY-MINORITY MISBALANCE ...... 126 5.1.3 EXPLAINING THE VARIATION ...... 134 5.1.4 CONSEQUENCES FOR POLITICAL REPRESENTATION ...... 138 5.2 PATTERNS OF ETHNOPOLITICAL MOBILISATION: INTRA-ETHNIC FRAGMENTATION VS. HOMOGENEITY ...... 141 5.2.1 SMALL MINORITIES ...... 148 5.2.2 STRONG MINORITIES ...... 151 5.2.3 CLOSE TO EQUAL GROUPS ...... 154 5.2.4 STRONG MAJORITIES ...... 158 5.2.5 DOMINANT MAJORITIES ...... 162
6 ETHNIC POWER DISTRIBUTION ...... 165
6.1 POWER-SHARING DEBATE APPLIED TO THE LOCAL LEVEL ...... 167 6.1.1 LACK OF LOCAL LEVEL POWER-SHARING MECHANISMS ...... 169 6.1.2 POLITICAL EXCLUSION ...... 172 6.1.3 IDEAL TYPES OF POWER-SHARING: CONSOCIATIONALISM OR CENTRIPETALISM? ...... 179 6.1.4 CONSOCIATIONAL ACCOMMODATION: ETHNIC PARTIES AND GRAND COALITIONS .... 180 6.1.5 CENTRIPETAL ACCOMMODATION: MULTI-ETHNIC PARTIES AND GOVERNANCE ...... 185 6.2 MIXED AREAS IN THE BALKANS: BETWEEN EXCLUSION AND POWER-SHARING 189 6.2.1 BETWEEN EXCLUSION AND ACCOMMODATION: A CONTINUUM ...... 189 6.2.2 RELATION BETWEEN DEMOGRAPHIC AND POLITICAL POWER ...... 193 6.2.3 ETHNIC EXCLUSION ...... 197 6.2.4 ETHNIC ACCOMMODATION ...... 206
7 CONCLUSIONS ...... 214
LIST OF INTERVIEWS ...... 221
REFERENCES ...... 224
10
List of tables
Table 1: Competing theoretical assumptions on causal link from different levels and dimensions of ethnic heterogeneity to conflict and peace...... 33 Table 2: Distribution of post-conflict municipalities across the post-Yugoslav states...... 50 Table 3: Distribution of relevant post-conflict and ethnically mixed municipalities across states and conflict dyads...... 54 Table 4: Overview of field research trips...... 56 Table 5: Number and structure of interview in municipalities covered by field research...... 66 Table 6: Parties with cross-ethnic appeal that entered local parliaments in mixed municipalities in Bosnia...... 111 Table 7: Electoral support of parties with cross-ethnic and ethnic appeal in mixed municipalities of Croatia...... 119 Table 8: Recorded values of ethno-political mobilisation for states, regions and ethnic groups...... 127 Table 9: Average number of candidate ethnic parties and levels of ethnic party fractionalisation for single states, groups, and regions...... 147 Table 10: Average values of intra-group political fragmentation for groups of various relative size. 148 Table 11: Definitions of concepts applied in the Ethnic Power Relations dataset ...... 190 Table 12: Distribution of observed coded EPR categories...... 192 Table 13: Distribution of observed power categories across states...... 193 Table 14: Coded values for EPR categories...... 194 Table 15: Observed cases of political self-exclusion...... 199 Table 16: Observed cases of exclusion – discrimination ...... 200 Table 17: Observed cases of exclusion – powerless...... 202 Table 18: Observed cases of exclusion – symbolic partner...... 204 Table 19: Observed cases of asymmetric power-sharing...... 208 Table 20: Observed cases of symmetric power-sharing...... 212
11 List of figures
Figure 1: Incidence of ethnic conflict through the modern history ...... 25 Figure 2: Territorial distribution of post-conflict municipalities across the post-Yugoslav space ...... 50 Figure 3: Territorial distribution of relevant post-conflict and ethnically mixed municipalities ...... 53 Figure 4: Territorial distribution of municipalities covered by the field research ...... 57 Figure 5: Major parties with mono-ethnic appeal organised on the state level ...... 80 Figure 6: Share of votes received by parties with ethnic and cross-ethnic appeal in single states...... 84 Figure 7: Share of votes received by state-level and local parties in single states...... 84 Figure 8: Kosovo: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments ...... 86 Figure 9: Kosovo - Albanians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties...... 87 Figure 10: Kosovo - Albanians: Overall distribution of votes ...... 87 Figure 11: Kosovo - Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties ...... 89 Figure 12: Kosovo - Serbs: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities ...... 89 Figure 13: South Serbia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments...... 91 Figure 14: Serbia – Albanians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties ...... 92 Figure 15: Serbia – Albanians: Overall distribution of votes ...... 93 Figure 16: Serbia – Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties...... 94 Figure 17: Serbia – Serbs: Overall distribution of votes ...... 94 Figure 18: Macedonia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments...... 95 Figure 19: Macedonia – Macedonians: Frequency of candidacy...... 96 Figure 20: Macedonia – Macedonians: Overall distribution of votes...... 96 Figure 21: Macedonia – Albanians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties ...... 98 Figure 22: Macedonia – Albanians: Overall distribution of votes...... 98 Figure 23: Bosnia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments...... 100 Figure 24: Bosnia – Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties...... 102 Figure 25: Bosnia – Serbs: Overall distribution of votes...... 102 Figure 26: Bosnia – Bosniaks: Frequency of candidacy...... 104 Figure 27: Bosnia – Bosniaks: Overall distribution of votes...... 105 Figure 28: Bosnia – Croats: Frequency of candidacy of single parties...... 106 Figure 29: Bosnia – Croats: Overall distribution of votes...... 107 Figure 30: Croatia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments...... 113 Figure 31: Croatia – Croats: Frequency of candidacy of single parties...... 114 Figure 32: Croatia – Croats: Overall distribution of votes...... 114 Figure 33: Croatia – Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties...... 116 Figure 34: Croatia – Serbs: Overall distribution of votes...... 116 Figure 35: Average levels of ethno-political mobilisation for categories of groups...... 136 Figure 36: Relation between relative demographic size, level of ethno-political representation, and status of political minority/majority...... 140 Figure 37: Relation between groups' relative demographic size and number of candidate ethnic parties...... 143 Figure 38: Relation between groups' relative demographic size and ethnic party fractionalisation. .. 144 Figure 39: Relation between groups' absolute population and number of candidate ethnic parties. .. 145 Figure 40: Relation between groups' absolute population and ethnic party fractionalisation...... 146 Figure 41: Structure of ethnic voting in Bosniak-Croat mixed municipalities in Central Bosnia...... 157 Figure 42: Structure of ethnic voting in municipalities with returnee minorities ...... 160 Figure 43: Ethnic structure of voting in two Macedonian municipalities with Albanian minority. ... 161 Figure 44: Ethnic structure of voting in two municipalities in with strong majority ...... 163 Figure 45: Political exclusion of local minority from executive ...... 176 Figure 46: Political exclusion of local minority from executive ...... 177 Figure 47: Political exclusion of an ethnic group as a result of its internal political fragmentation. .. 178 Figure 48: Consociational model of inter-ethnic cooperation ...... 183 Figure 49: Consociational model of inter-ethnic cooperation ...... 184
12 Figure 50: Semi-centripetal model of cross-ethnic cooperation ...... 187 Figure 51: Relation between group's relative demographic size and its access to power...... 195 Figure 52: Relation between group's relative demographic size and its access to power, political majorities vs. minorities...... 197
13 1 Introduction
Ethnic conflict paradox
Through the modern history, ethnic conflict proved to be a central driving, yet destabilising force of the international politics. Ethnic conflicts have shaped the structure of the international order as they have commonly defined borders between the ethno-territorially defined nation- states. Meanwhile, ethnic conflict has been, in the recent decades, increasingly understood as a threat to be eliminated from the international system. In the wake of the Cold War, the emerging international community reconsidered ethnic conflicts as an undesired element that spreads instability and divisions in the otherwise globalising and integrating world. As Horowitz argued in his pioneer work in the field ‘Ethnic groups in conflict ’ published in 1985, “The importance of ethnic conflict, as a force shaping human affairs, as a phenomenon to be understood, as a threat to be controlled, can no longer be denied” (Horowitz 1985, XI). Through the last centuries and decades, the stability of many regions and the international system as a whole have repeatedly been endangered by escalations of inter-ethnic violence (Wolff 2007). The permanent presence of ethnic conflict in the international system stems from the territorial definition of the nation-state sovereignty and its inconsistency with the much less territorial socio-political reality. During the formation of the modern international order driven by territorial nationalism, state borders have frequently not corresponded with what the emerging nations considered to be their political territories (Wimmer and Min 2006a). Because of this contradiction, the recent history has proven that ethnic conflicts are not only the driving forces but also the central threats to the stability of the modern international system (Fearon 2004b). The rapid rise of ethnic conflicts after the end of the Cold War has shown that ethnic conflict is a phenomenon that can potentially threaten not only the stability of single states and regions but also the groundings of the international system as a whole (Ayres 2000b; Cordell and Wolff 2016). Even though ethnic conflict has been gradually reconsidered as a major threat to the international system, it has remained widespread around the globe in the recent decades (Cederman, Gleditsch, and Wucherpfennig 2014): almost forty years after the publication of Horowitz’ work, ethnic conflicts are still burning around the world. From Central Africa, through the Middle East, Caucasus and Southeast Asia, up to the European periphery, different groups are fighting for power over areas of ethnic diversity which they consider to be parts of their nation-states (Vogt et al. 2015).
14 Conflict resolution debate
With the changing understanding of the malign character of ethnic conflict, the emerging international community started to develop new strategies for its prevention and resolution in the second half of the 20th century. Departing from a traditional, and a rather passive, approach accepting territorial and political partitions of divided societies, the mainstream approach to ethnic conflict has in time turned more towards integrative solutions grounded in the ideas of liberal peace (Richmond 2009). The debate that has developed between the two principles has framed the theory and practice of conflict resolution until today, as the world is still searching for durable solutions that would halt the inter-communal violence and bring peace to internally divided societies. In situations where states are hit by an ethnic war, proposed peace frameworks usually range from the partition of the country into ethnically homogenous units, through autonomous or federalist arrangements to the re-integration of the country and its society (Chapman and Roeder 2007). In Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, is partition the only solution to the protracted ethno-religious wars, as some suggest (Byman 2015; Joseph and O’Hanlon 2007; Blackwill 2011)? Would federalisation of Macedonia or partition of Kosovo bring stability to the volatile post-Yugoslav space (Less 2017; Mujanović 2017)? Or, conversely, could the once politically partitioned territories and societies of Cyprus, Nagorno Karabkh or Bosnia be peacefully reintegrated (Caspersen 2018)? These and similar questions resonate in regard to most of the ongoing as well as latent ethnic conflicts in the world.
Recent history of ethnic conflict presents us with voluminous, yet inconclusive empirical evidence on the issue of ethnic conflict resolution. Since the rise of the modern nationalism in the 18th century, the world has witnessed dozens of cases of ethnically heterogeneous states hit by internal strife, leading to different outcomes with varying durability (Ayres 2000a). These range from more or less successful re-integrations of societies, through federalist and autonomous solutions, de facto and de iure partitions of contested territories, up to one-sided victories and suppressions of defeated groups (McGerry and O’Leary 2005). This ambiguous empirical record of ethnic conflicts and their varying outcomes brings us to the fundamental question of both theory and practice of ethnic conflict resolution: Can previously hostile ethnic groups live together peacefully after experiencing a violent inter-communal conflict? As a result of the rapid spread of ethnic conflicts in the early 1990s, the question has attracted extensive scholar attention within theoretical and empirical research. During the last two decades, a debate around the issue has developed along a continuum between two theoretical poles - the separationist perspective on the one hand and the integrationist on the other
15 (Kaufmann 1996; Kumar 1997). While advocates of separationist solutions call for political partitions of contested territories or even territorial separations of hostile groups, integrationists defend the liberal assumption that re-integration of communities divided by ethnic conflict is not only desirable but also feasible (O’Leary 2011). The central question of the whole debate is that of the causal link between ethnic diversity and ethnic conflict and peace. In this regard, the record of presented theoretical arguments is extensive, yet largely inconclusive: scholars from different disciplines have presented contradictory theoretical assumptions and empirical evidence on the causal link between particular levels and patterns of ethnic heterogeneity and prospects for peace (Bleaney and Dimico 2016; Van der Meer and Tolsma 2014). While advocates of partitionist approaches generally warn that ethnic diversity increases the risk of conflict and prevents the achievement of a durable peace, integrationist oppose them with the argument of the accommodating effect of ethnic heterogeneity.
Local turn in conflict research and resolution
The extensive empirical research of ethnic conflict conducted in the last three decades has brought voluminous insights into its causes, its dynamics and the consequences for post- conflict order, as well as into possible strategies of conflict prevention, its management and resolution. However, the whole field has been dominated by the state-level approach to the study of conflict, while the internal and sub-state dimensions of conflict and post-conflict dynamics have been left aside largely unexplored. Only recently, both conflict research and the practice of conflict resolution took their local turn and refocused more on the internal dynamics of sub-state conflict structures and actors (Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013; Chadwick, Debiel, and Gadinger 2013). Researchers of conflict have argued that the local dimensions of conflict are distinct from the macro-level dynamics, and therefore the black boxes of state and conflict actors need to be disaggregated and examined in local contexts (Weidmann, Rød, and Cederman 2010; Restrepo, Spagat, and Vargas 2006). In parallel, the conflict resolution theory and practice also turned to the local level as the conceptual and political space where conflict causes and consequences need to be primarily sought and resolved to find durable solutions providing long-term stability (K Dyrstad et al. 2011).
Manifestations in the Balkans
All of these empirical and conceptual developments manifested extensively in the region of Southeast Europe over the last three decades. Through the 1990s, the western part of the Balkans region became a battleground of various ethnic groups fighting for their own political
16 units during the process of the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. Newly emerging international community responded to these conflicts in an unprecedented way and stepped in through interventions in various forms and extent with the aim to halt the violence and restore peace (Siani-Davies 2004). In the post-conflict period, international actors actively engaged in the regional political affairs and imposed mechanisms intended to produce political compromises that would bring long-term stability to the region. The principal aim of the international involvement was not only to restore and keep peace, but also to preserve what was left of the ethnic diversity in the post-Yugoslav space, to prevent further ethno-territorial divisions, and to establish conditions for inter-ethnic accommodation within multi-ethnic states (Bieber 2011). For the purpose, international actors got deeply involved in the domestic politics of post- Yugoslav states and experimented with the imposition of various types of institutional mechanisms for both partition and power-sharing between the previously hostile groups (Jenne 2009; Kasapović 2016).
While the international engagement was primarily centred on the state level politics where the major deals between ethnic groups were negotiated and implemented, it has also increasingly taken into account the local dimension of the post-conflict politics. Decentralisation as a tool for overcoming the inter-ethnic divide has gradually grown into the central principle of post- conflict peace building in the Balkans (Huszka 2007; Lyon 2015a). Its implementation has been based on the conceptual assumption that taking a substantial part of the political process to the very local level would evade the nationalist trap of the high politics. In contrast to the state-level political structures and actors, local politics is arguably less burdened by the conflict legacy and provides favourable conditions for moderation (Kříž and Čermák 2014). While in Bosnia in the late 1990s the international community only cautiously experimented with local- level mediation in a few problematic conflict hotspots (Dahlman and Tuathail 2006), decentralisation became a central strategy of post-conflict stabilisation in Macedonia in the 2000s and Kosovo in the 2010s. In Macedonia, shifting the decision-making process over the ethnically sensitive issues to the politically enhanced municipal institutions was a cornerstone of the 2001 Ohrid peace agreement that ceased the inter-ethnic violence in the country (Lyon 2015b). In Kosovo, the decentralisation of the otherwise centralised decision-making to the level of municipalities was one of the ruling principles intended to grant the Serb minority partial autonomy in the newly declared state, politically dominated by Albanians under the Ahtisaary plan in 2008 (Loew 2013). Most recently, the new US administration under President Biden has already mentioned strengthening the local level of governance as part of the possible
17 solution to the longstanding political stalemate in Bosnia, with a clear reference to the past decentralisation experience in Kosovo and Macedonia (Čermák 2021). Apparently, the local level of decision-making has been increasingly considered by theorists and practitioners of peace building in the Balkans as a distinct political space that is more favourable to inter-ethnic moderation than the state-level politics deeply divided along ethnic lines and dominated by the nationalist rhetoric.
Specificity of localised (ethno-)politics
Nevertheless, the principal question that should be asked prior to any shift of power to municipalities is whether the local level of governance is truly different and independent form the ‘bad ’ state-level politics. Does municipal politics as such provide better governance and does it facilitate inter-ethnic compromise and moderation? Considering the above presented developments within both theory and practice of conflict resolution, not only within the post- Yugoslav space, but also worldwide, this question is of high theoretical and political relevance. The empirical record of local inter-ethnic politics across the post-Yugoslav space provides a mixed record in this respect.
In many ethnically diverse places of the region, the local ethnic communities successfully cooperate and share political power despite the tense relations of their political representations on the state level. Irrespective of the legacy of mutual conflict and the lack of any institutional regulation, stable grand coalitions between leading ethnic parties have in time developed in many mixed places in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia. While these instances of smooth inter-ethnic governance show the ability of the competing ethno-political forces to cooperate on the local level despite the absence of any power-sharing mechanisms, there are also numerous cases where local majorities exploit their political advantage at the cost of local minorities. Despite the assumption that ethnicity is less politically salient in local politics driven by micro-level issues, the dominance of exclusive ethnic politics has been observed on the lower political levels too. In fact, some of the fiercest recent ethno-political battles between political representatives of formerly adversary communities took place on the very local levels and have therefore proven that lower levels of politics are far from being spared of ethno- political conflict. Several of the ethnically mixed places across the region appeared as new ethnic battlegrounds where the wars of the 1990s in fact continued through political means of exclusion, discrimination and majority rule. The mixed towns of Vukovar in Croatia, Mostar in Herzegovina and Mitrovica in Kosovo, among others, are infamous for their deep local ethnic divisions and political malfunction.
18 Some of the recent local political developments across the region also clearly indicate that the nominally local municipal politics in ethno-politically exposed areas is frequently closely interconnected with the top-level national politics and its divisions. Local developments in the ethnically mixed towns of Mostar, Travnik and Srebrenica after the 2020 local elections in Bosnia grew into a focal point of the national politics where the interests of the leading representatives of the three constituent nations intensely clashed on nominally local topics . Local escalations of inter-ethnic tensions in the Croatian town of Vukovar have been repeatedly inter-connected with the major (ethno-)political developments on the state level in Croatia. Even a seemingly local issue such as the formation of the local government in the ethnically mixed Albanian-Serb municipality of Bujanovac in south Serbia after the 2020 local elections was consulted by the local Albanian leaders with the official state representation of Albania in Tirana (Bujanovačke 2020). Apparently, the political dynamics on the local level is not fully autonomous from the traditional state-level ethnic politics. Quite the contrary, it can affect but also be affected by the political dynamics on the top political levels.
Overall, the recent record of institutionally unregulated political relations between ethnic communities on the local level presents both promising cases of localised inter-ethnic accommodation as well as alarming situations of top-down and bottom-up majority rule and discrimination. To uncover the real potential of the local ethno-politics in regard to facilitating ethnic accommodation and exclusion, this thesis presents the outcomes of an original research that has systematically mapped the local political dynamics in ethnically diverse post-conflict places across the Balkans. The research is based on a comparative study conducted on the local level of analysis within a large-n sample of 81 post-conflict ethnically diverse municipalities located across five post-Yugoslav states. Based on an innovative methodological approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, the research builds on an acquired in-depth knowledge of a large number of cases and investigates the local inter-ethnic relations in a comparative perspective. The comparative analysis of intra- and inter-group political dynamics of 165 local ethnic communities through the main stages of political process aspires at contributing to the above presented conceptual and policy debate by addressing the question of the specificity of local ethnic politics and its potential in facilitating inter-ethnic accommodation.
19 1.1 Intended contribution of the research
The motivation of the research project presented in this thesis stems from a desire to contribute to the above outlined debate in empirical, theoretical, methodological and policy fields. Besides being designed in a direct link to the prominent theories and concepts of conflict resolution, the research aims at contributing to the empirical and policy areas as well as at bringing methodological and conceptual novelty into the field.
Description based on the collection of original data
While the whole research design is developed from and directly linked to the existing conceptual debate and the theoretical state of the art, its primary ambition lays within the field of empirical description. Notwithstanding whether any of the theoretical assumptions are robustly confirmed or disproved, a great amount of original primary data on local level inter- ethnic relations in the post-Yugoslav space has been collected, processed, and presented in a comparative perspective within almost a decade of research. As such, the research provides a comprehensive evidence on local level post-conflict developments in the post-Yugoslav space, an area that has been studied intensely during the last two decades from the state-level perspective, but its local dimensions has remained largely unexplored.
In the first stage of the data collection, based on field research conducted directly in the region, a large amount of original data was collected from 114 semi-structured interviews with local key informants involved in the investigated political processes in 28 ethnically diverse post- conflict municipalities across Bosnia and Croatia. In the second stage of data collection through desk research, additional extensive secondary evidence was collected from available sources on local ethno-political affairs in other 61 mixed municipalities in five states of the region. All collected data were qualitatively processed and coded into a dataset consisting of comparative evidence on local political dynamics in 81 ethnically diverse political units and 165 politically relevant local ethnic groups. The collected data can thus serve as a basis for further comparative research on post-conflict developments both within the region and in relation to other post- conflict areas. Hence, the data acquired through the innovative qualitative large-n study and the field research can be used further and inform other scholars’ work
Theoretical relevance
From the theoretical point of view, the research has the ambition to become an evidence-based contribution to the ongoing debate between partitionist and integrationist theorists of ethnic
20 conflict resolution. Through the comparative analysis of individual stages of the political process, the research directly communicates with general theoretical arguments on political organisation, mobilisation, and power-distribution in ethnically diverse polities. More specifically, the existing contradictory theories on the link between ethnic diversity and intra- group and inter-group political dynamics are discussed in the empirical context of the local politics in post-Yugoslav space, and some of them also directly tested through the collected evidence.
Methodological and conceptual novelty
The whole research is also designed in a way to contribute to the existing state of the art in the field of peace and conflict research with its methodological and conceptual novelty in several aspects. First, it focuses on the largely under-studied local level dynamics of ethnic conflict and its resolution instead of on the predominantly applied state-level of analysis. Second, to apply a mixed-method approach on a large-n sample of cases and to triangulate different methods of data collection and analysis is still a rather unique approach for an empirical comparative research in general: as such the method can provide new insights into the study of post-conflict dynamics. Finally, the research investigates the post-conflict political processes within a long-term perspective that has often been overlooked by mainstream peace research focused predominantly either on the dynamics of conflict as such or its immediate termination rather than a long-term resolution and consequences with regard to inter-ethnic relations.
Policy relevance
Finally, the findings of the research have a certain policy relevance as they can potentially communicate to conflict resolution and peace building strategies both within the post-Yugoslav region as well as in other post-conflict areas. Since the mutual relations among the nations in the post-Yugoslav region have generally remained tense both on the nation level as well as in many local communities, the findings of the research could inform practitioners in formulating guidelines for further direction of the peace building process. Likewise, the findings might potentially be of a general relevance for structurally similar areas in geographically different post-conflict zones. Thus, the research contributes to finding an answer to the general question directly relevant for other post-conflict local communities, states and regions in the world: under what conditions can previously hostile ethnic groups succeed in a peaceful coexistence, cooperation and reintegration after a severe ethnic conflict?
21 1.2 Structure of the thesis
The thesis is organised into two main blocs subdivided into five major chapters. The focus of the first bloc is general and presents the theoretical underpinnings and methodological framework of the research project. Its first part is focused theoretically and looks into the general empirical and theoretical trends in the area of ethnic conflicts and their resolution to set the research agenda into its broader context. Departing from the empirical record of ethnic conflict in the modern history, it follows the major debate that has developed in the field between partitionist and integrationist approaches to ethnic conflict resolution. Subsequently, competing theoretical arguments focused specifically on the link between ethnic heterogeneity and ethnic conflict and peace are presented and further developed into research questions addressed later in the empirical part. The second chapter of the first part presents in detail the whole methodological framework of the research. It discusses in detail the conceptual and methodological background of the local turn in the conflict research, which is directly reflected in the research design. The chapter further delineates the central concepts of the research design: level, unit, and actor of analysis, and defines the sample of relevant cases. Finally, it describes the methods and actual process of data collection divided into two stages of field and desk research.
The second part of the thesis is focused empirically and presents the findings developed from evidence collected in 81 ethnically mixed municipalities across the former conflict zones of the Balkans. It is organised along the three main stages of the political process: political organisation, mobilisation, and power division. The intra- and inter-group dynamics of each of these stages on the local level is analysed comparatively through the empirical evidence collected for the relevant cases under examination.
The first part focusing on the patterns of political organisation maps comprehensively the local political scenes in the investigated mixed areas and categorises the locally present forms of political organisation along two conceptual dimensions: ethnic and cross-ethnic, and central and local. Its aim is to uncover to what extent the local party politics is autonomous of the state-level forms of political organisation and the ethnic divisions stemming from it.
The second part then focuses on the levels and patterns of political mobilisation of local ethnic groups in the elections. The first section of the second part examines the ethno-political mobilisation on the inter-group level with the aim to compare the levels of mobilisation between different groups and to examine to what extent the ethnic structure of the population
22 translates into the local political structure. It discusses specific structural differences in the level of mobilisation between minorities and majorities and their consequences for political representation. The second section of the chapter further develops the discussion with an analysis of intra-group patterns of ethno-political mobilisation. Specifically, it compares and analyses the levels of intra-group political fragmentation and homogeneity and discusses them in a theoretical perspective in relation to the local demographic structure.
The third chapter of the empirical part deals with the final stage of the political process when the actual executive power is divided and shared by political actors. The first section of the third chapter applies to the local level of politics the theoretical debate between consociational and centripetal approaches to power-sharing in divided polities. Based on the collected empirical evidence, it further elaborates on the debate through designing ideal types of locally specific forms of ethnic accommodation as well as ethnic exclusion. The second section of the chapter then systematically analyses the collected data on ethnic power distribution across the 81 examined municipalities and categorises all the 165 politically relevant local ethnic communities according to their access to local executive power. Based on the observed patterns of power division, it defines possible types of ethnic accommodation and exclusion and identifies their political mechanisms within six forms of power distribution. The concluding part then summarises the findings of individual empirical sections and reflects on them with a more general discussion that goes back to the underlying research questions defined in the Introduction and the theoretical part of the thesis.
23 2 Situating the research agenda
2.1 Ethnic conflict and its resolution: empirical trends
Despite accelerating processes of globalisation and regional integration, the current international order is still primarily organised along the territorial system of nation states whose roots go back to the revolutions of late modern history. The formation of the international system can thus be interpreted as an era of the nation state and nationalism. Since the 19th century, old-fashioned multi-ethnic empires, modern colonial realms, and multi- national socialist federations, all one after another have split apart into ethnically homogenous national units (Wimmer and Min 2006b). Massive shifts of political frontiers in Europe, Africa, or Asia during the 20th century and the rising number of states well illustrate the process of territorial fragmentation of multi-national realms into smaller nation states. However, the process of territorial disintegration also brought a lot of instability to the international system as it was accompanied by a long and extensive record of ethno-territorial conflict. The following figure clearly shows the increase of incidence of wars fought along ethnic lines over the borders of newly created nation states since the early 19th century.
While the modernisation theory presumed the opposite, ethnic conflict persisted as one of the driving forces of world politics through the post-Second World War decades and its importance was even to rise in the end of the 20th century (Ellingsen 2000; Fox 2004). Since 1945, internal wars, a majority of them ethno-territorial, outweighed the traditional form of interstate conflict and their incidence, duration and intensity have continually risen (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Cederman, Min, and Wimmer 2010). This trend culminated in the 1990s when a new wave of ethno-territorial wars burnt up in the Balkans, the Post-Soviet Space and Africa (Druckman and Stern 2000; Wallensteen 2011). While many expected the end of the Cold War to bring stability and peace into the international system, the world in fact witnessed a rapid increase of both incidence and intensity of local conflicts in the 1990s. From the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes, through Central Asia and the Caucasus, up to the Balkans on the European periphery, internal and regional conflicts, most of them ethnically framed, escalated into the spiral of inter-communal violence (Gurr 1994). As many times before in modern history, old multi-ethnic entities were again partitioned, populations separated and new nation states have arisen from these conflicts (Brown 2001; Wolff 2007).
24
Figure 1: Incidence of ethnic conflict through the modern history – ongoing ethnic conflicts by year (author's calculation based on data from Wimmer, Cederman, and Min 2009). The first decades of the 21st century did not bring any fundamental change in this trend. Despite a partial decline of the overall incidence of ethnic conflicts in the world, new ethno-territorial struggles emerged and some old-new were reignited in recent years (Cederman, Gleditsch, and Wucherpfennig 2014). From the European periphery, through the Middle East and the Caucasus up to Central Africa or Central Asia, areas of ethnic diversity were again hit by inter- communal wars in the first two decades of the 21st century. According to Vogt et al. (2015), there were 25 active violent conflicts based on ethnic claims located in 15 states in 2013. Dozens of others have remained frozen yet not conclusively solved, including many on the European periphery. The long-lasting empirical trend is clear: despite opposite expectations of modernising societies, integrating regions, and globalising world, ethnic conflict has remained a constant category of modern history in the ethnically diverse space of the international system. 2.2 Seeking for resolution
Witnessing the rapid spread of ethnic conflicts and their destabilising effects on the regional and international political order, the world has been trying to find durable solutions that could halt inter-communal violence and return stability to ethnically diverse areas. Throughout history, the emerging international community has significantly changed its stance towards the resolution of ethnic conflicts, shifting from a traditional, passive partitionist approach towards more active integrative policies. With the massive rise of modern nationalism, most inter-ethnic struggles were resolved through a partition of territories and separation of their populations
25 (Ther 2001; Wimmer and Min 2006b). Until the late 20th century, the world has witnessed dozens of such scenarios. Partitions of territories accompanied by population transfers, both voluntary or forced, were considered not only as legitimate but also legal and appropriate solutions to imminent or active ethnic conflicts (Adelman and Barkan 2011). The well-known cases of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey (1923) or Pakistan and India (1947), expulsions of Germans from the Eastern Europe (1945), or the acceptance of the ethnic partition of Israel/Palestine (1947) and Cyprus (1974) illustrate this historically prevailing approach (Ther and Siljak 2001; Kaufmann 1998). On the contrary, attempts to reintegrate diverse societies divided by internal strife were rather rare until the late 20th century.
However, the international approach changed sharply on the eve of the 20th century. With the end of the Cold War and the outbreak of new internal conflicts throughout the world, ethnic wars became a central point of interest not only for policymakers but also for scholars and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution. While ethnic wars were burning in different parts of the world, the quest for feasible and durable solutions to ethnic conflicts intensified, and new approaches to conflict management were developed and tested on the ground. Importantly for political and theoretical underpinnings of the new approach to conflict resolution, the end of the Cold War was widely interpreted as an ultimate victory of liberal and universalist ideas and as such brought new moral imperatives into world politics in general, and into the field of conflict resolution in particular (Mason and Meernik 2005; Sorenson and Wood 2005; Caplan 2006; Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall 2011). Based on the victorious ideas of democracy and cooperation, a new agenda was set within the field of conflict resolution seeking integrative and inclusive solutions to violent conflicts and introducing new strategies of liberal peace building (Boutros-Ghali 1992). Partitions of territories and population transfers, which had been the main tool of ethnic conflict resolution for most of modern history, were no longer accepted as legitimate solutions under the new liberal approach (Kaufmann 1996; Kumar 1997).
This brought the conflict resolution theory and the actual reality of the conflicts on the ground into a sharp mutual contradiction. The violent history of nation-state building was still going on in its old manner with ethnic cleansing and partitions taking place from European Vukovar to African Kigali. Meanwhile, both scholars and politicians, facing the challenge of escalation of ethnic wars across the world, were desperately searching for new integrative solutions. Confronted with the first major failures of such inclusive approaches to ethnic wars in Bosnia or Rwanda, some of the more realist-profiled scholars stepped back from the new moral
26 imperatives and presented controversial arguments and recommendations that inclined to less peaceful and integrative solutions to ethnic conflicts and rehabilitated the old partitionist approaches (Mearsheimer 1993; Mearsheimer and Van Evera 1995; Kaufmann 1996; Pape 1997; Luttwak 1999). In response, the liberally grounded advocates of inclusive approaches came with their counter-argumentation advocating and improving the proposed integrative solutions (Kumar 1997; Sambanis 2000; Fearon 2004b). Thus, during the last decades, a lively debate has developed along a continuum between two principal approaches to ethnic conflict resolution: the realist-rooted partitionist perspective on the one hand and the liberal integrationist on the other. 2.3 Separation vs. integration debate
Since the 1990s, the debate on appropriate solutions to ethnic conflict has developed along the continuum between two extreme arguments grounded in different theoretical paradigms. The first can be called integrationist and is based on the general assumption of (neo-)liberalism that cooperation can outweigh conflict even in an anarchic system as the common interests prevail over security concerns. The second approach can be labelled separationist or partitionist and has its groundings in the contrary assumptions of the (neo-)realist tradition which considers conflict and self-help as the primary elements of international relations. While integrationists interpret the conflict and post-conflict settings in terms of non-zero-sum game and consider inter-ethnic coexistence cooperation as both possible and desired, separationists rather see the post-conflict period as a zero-sum continuation of the previous conflict and emphasize the necessity for physical and/or political division of belligerent communities. The debate that has developed along the continuum between these two most pronounced arguments relates to many fundamental issues of conflict resolution and has so far offered a full scale of various strategies and instruments, usually situated somewhere between its extreme poles. As such, the separation vs. integration debate frames the overall debate on conflict resolution strategies, over-arching more specific debates, such as that on post-conflict institutional settlements between consociationalism and centripetalism (Lijphart 1977; Horowitz 1985) or on ethnic diversity management and elimination (McGarry and O’Leary 1993).
The roots of the integrationist argumentation can be traced back to Horowitz’s (1985) centripetal argument for accommodation within ethnically divided societies or even to the contact theory of conflict resolution developed empirically in social psychology by (Allport 1954). While they differ in the suggested effective causal mechanisms, the proponents of the
27 two theories commonly argue that any forms of ethnic separation, both territorial and political, actually deepen and replicate the conflict attitudes and that only inter-group contact and integration can bring stable peace. The proposed causal mechanism is generally based on the assumption that various forms of inter-ethnic contact, from politics through the economy to everyday life, create a cross-ethnic social capital, and that emerging cross-cutting cleavage and common interests effectively prevent recurrence of the inter-group conflict (Byman 1997; Pickering 2006; Jenne 2010; Rydgren and Sofi 2011).
The reverse separationist argument in its extreme form emerged in response to international failures to prevent and stop mass ethnic killings in the early 1990s, and in fact intended to rehabilitate past partitionist approaches to ethnic conflicts. In 1996, the international community was still shocked by the images of the recent atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia and their own inability to halt them. In that delicate moment, Kaufmann (1996; 1998) formulated the core of the separationist argument in his daring thesis about the necessity of ethnic separation for sustaining stable peace after ethnic conflict. Departing from the empirical record of post-WW2 ethnic conflicts, Kaufmann argued that atrocities and nationalist rhetoric accompanying the conflict produce a deep inter-ethnic security dilemma that prevents de- escalation of the conflict even after the cessation of hostilities. Once the conflict intensity threshold is reached, the only way to reduce the inter-ethnic security dilemma is a physical separation of the ethnic groups into defensible territorial units (Posen 1993; Roe 2004). While Kaufman's radical version of the partitionist argument has been widely criticised and mainly rejected by the scholar community as morally unacceptable (Kumar 1997), its soft versions calling for a political partition have been considered viable and legitimate. Federalism, consociationalism, or autonomism all propose certain levels of political separation along ethnic lines and have remained the mainstream tools on the spectrum of possible conflict resolution strategies.
Since the late 1990s, the debate between partition and integration has even intensified together with empirical developments in the field of ethnic conflict resolution (for more comprehensive overview of the debate, see Downes 2001; O’Leary 2006; Pischedda 2008; Sambanis and Schulhofer-Wohl 2009; Licklider and Bloom 2013). While some scholars (Downes 2001; Carment and Rowlands 2004; Roe 2004; Chapman and Roeder 2007) further developed the separation argument, others opposed it from more integrationist positions and advocated alternative conflict resolution strategies (Byman 1997; Kumar 1997; Walter 1997; Kuperman 2004; Laitin 2004; Jenne 2009). Along with the theoretical discussion, the application of
28 different conflict resolution strategies to various cases has been discussed (Byman 2015; Totten 2015; Downes 2001; 2004; Joseph and O’Hanlon 2007). Furthermore, competing arguments have been subject to empirical tests conducted within large-n datasets, the outcomes, however, have been largely inconclusive (Mason and Fett 1996; Sambanis 2000; Johnson 2008; Ayres 2000a; Kuperman 2004; Laitin 2004). Despite the extensive scholarly attention, the debate has remained unresolved and tools developed from both approaches have recently been considered for the resolution of major ethnic conflicts around the world.
Hence, the principle question of the debate is still open: under what conditions can the once belligerent ethnic groups coexist peacefully after an ethnic conflict? Undoubtedly, such a question is not purely theoretical as it poses direct policy implications for the practice of conflict resolution. Both camps have used the inconclusive empirical record of ethnic conflict outcomes to support their arguments. Indeed, the empirical record of outcomes of different approaches is mixed globally (Licklider 1993; Mason 2009) as well as in the regional context of the Balkans. The attempted re-integration of societies in Zimbabwe or Northern Ireland and the partitions of contested territories, whether de iure or de facto, in Sudan, Georgia, or Eritrea alike show ambivalent results in regard to the durability and quality of the achieved peace (Kumar 1997). Considering the Balkans, the region has witnessed integrationist post-conflict strategies in Macedonia or Croatia as well as (semi-)separationist approaches in Bosnia and Kosovo, all of them commonly producing rather uncertain outcomes (Jenne 2009).
With no definite theoretical or empirical answer, the debate continues until today, holding not only scholars' attention but also a high political relevance. Both paradigms have ambitions and also real opportunities to influence the processes of conflict resolution. Recently, in situations where states are internally divided by ethnic war, suggested peace frameworks still range from a partition of the country into ethnically homogenous units, through autonomous or federalist arrangements to the re-integration of the country and its society. Debates between the different approaches can be hard and long as the recent cases of quests for the sustainable solution for Syria (Groarke 2016; Paasche and Gunter 2016; Mitton 2016; D. Byman 2015; Selcen 2015; Radin 2014), Iraq (Totten 2015; Arango 2016), Ukraine (Wilson 2016; Wade 2015; Oklopcic 2015; Kuzio 2015; Motyl 2014), Sudan (Medani 2011), Caucasus (German 2016; Venhovens 2016; Gerrits and Bader 2016), or persisting tensions in the Balkans (Less 2016; Less 2017; Mujanović 2017) have shown. Apparently, the separation-integration debate is still alive.
This research aims to contribute to the debate by empirically testing the central theoretical assumptions that stand behind the most pronounced approaches on the one hand, and the
29 shifting of focus to the sub-state level of local communities on the other. In order to do so, the research investigates the intensity and quality of inter-ethnic relations within the sample of 81 post-conflict, ethnically diverse local communities in the post-Yugoslav region. 2.4 Competing theoretical assumptions
It is evident from the above presented brief overview of the separation vs. integration debate that both competing arguments consider ethnic diversity as a crucial variable that strongly determines the prospects for peace and conflict in divided societies. Yet, the assumed causal effect of diversity on peace is completely contradictory in their argumentation. According to their logic, the separationists assume that peace can be sustained, and inter-ethnic coexistence restored only if the belligerent groups are sufficiently territorially or politically separated from each other into mostly homogenous units (Johnson 2008). On the contrary, the integrationists ’ logic suggests that peaceful inter-ethnic relations will be more easily restored and sustained in ethnically diverse settings (Byman 1997).
Hence, one of the central questions of the whole debate is that of causal links from ethnic diversity to conflict and peace. In the last two decades, scholars coming mainly from the field of conflict and peace research have devoted extensive attention to the link between ethnic demography and inter-ethnic relations, trying to capture possible correlations and causations between the two phenomena. Scholars have investigated and empirically tested the effects of different patterns and levels of ethnic diversity on different phases of ethnic conflict, from its onset, through intensity and dynamics, to its termination and post-conflict peace building. Despite great attention devoted to the issue, the existing state of the art remains largely inconclusive and presents contradictory theoretical assumptions and even mutually conflicting results of the empirical tests.
It is neither possible nor desirable to cover the extensive debate comprehensively within the limited scope of this chapter, therefore only the main schools of thought and their central arguments will be presented. More complex overviews of the debate were presented among others by Bates (2008), Bleaney and Dimico (2009) and Ellingsen (2000). The whole search for a causal link between ethnic heterogeneity and quality of inter-ethnic relations was ignited by robust findings acquired in the field of development economics that proved negative relation between levels of ethnic diversity and economic performance and public policies (Alesina, Baqir, and Easterly 1997; Easterly and Levine 1997). Departing from these empirically supported findings, many scholars developed theories of a link from ethnic diversity to ethnic
30 conflict and tested them empirically. However, both their assumptions and empirical findings significantly diverged. Some scholars consistently assumed and proved that ethnic diversity increases the risk of ethnic conflict (or conversely decreases inter-ethnic peace), yet through different causal mechanisms (Vanhanen 1999; Blimes 2006). The elementary principle of the logic is based on the assumption that ethnic diversity as such weakens societal cohesion and cleaves the common interest of the society as a whole into the particular interests of single ethnic groups. The negative effect of ethnic diversity on inter-ethnic peace was also confirmed by several empirical studies (Hegre 2001; Schneider and Wiesehomeier 2006). Looking at the duration and termination rather than the onset or incidence of ethnic conflict, several studies found a positive relationship between ethnic diversity and duration of violent conflict and its resistance to mediated termination (Collier, Hoeffler, and others 2001; Elbadawi and Sambanis 2000; Fearon 2004a). Contrary to all these findings, other scholars presented empirically grounded arguments on the opposite effect of ethnic diversity on inter-ethnic relations. Horowitz (1985) argued that the more diverse a society is, the more pronounced is the rational incentive for all groups to find a common interest and mobilise along other than ethnic lines. Furthermore, situated between the two main arguments on positive vs. negative effect of ethnic diversity, Collier and Hoefler (2002) presented an argument on the negative effect of intermediate level of ethnic diversity on inter-ethnic peace as it produces ethnic dominance, an argument later confirmed by empirical tests by Bates (2008) and Ellingsen (2000). However, several empirical large-n studies disproved any correlation or even causation between ethnic diversity and ethnic conflict (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Hegre and Sambanis 2006; Wimmer, Cederman, and Min 2009a).
Among those who found no link between ethnic diversity and conflict, some scholars shifted their attention towards more specific dimensions and patterns of ethnic structure and power relations they produce. Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2002; 2005) investigated the link between ethnic polarisation and inter-ethnic relations and found a direct link from high levels of polarisation to inter-ethnic conflict. In their view, inter-ethnic conflict is more likely to occur if there are two similarly strong groups or when a slight majority faces a strong majority, since the coordination costs of the groups for conflict are at their lowest (see also Collier and Hoeffler 1998; Horowitz 1985). Nevertheless, Esteban and Ray (2008) challenged this assumption in their own empirical study and found that intermediate levels of polarisation rather than high polarisation are the risk factor for ethnic conflict since stakes are at their highest. As they stated: “Highly polarized situations may be fairly peaceful. […] At the same time, when polarization
31 is extremely low, there is little to fight about. Consequently, we would expect the overall degree of conflict to be maximal in societies with intermediate levels of polarization” (Esteban and Ray 2008, 180).
Going beyond the pure statistical demography, many authors focused on the spatial dimension of ethnic diversity. In contrast to the demographic understanding of heterogeneity that can only capture the overall ethnic structure of the population, the spatial conceptualisation uncovers the actual distribution of ethnic groups within a territory. The spatial dimension of heterogeneity thus characterises to what extent members of different groups actually live separated or intermingled. Similar to the demographic dimension of heterogeneity, the research on links between the spatial dimension of ethnic diversity and ethnic conflict and peace has produced contradictory arguments and findings. From the radical separationist perspective, Kaufmann (1996), in accordance with Posen (1993), argue that ethnic intermingling increases the risk of conflict as it produces an inter-group security dilemma. For Kaufmann, the effective causal mechanism lies in the distrust and hatred that had developed between the groups in the previous ethnic conflict. Thus, he assumes that ethno-territorial separation is necessary for stable peace to be achieved after an ethnic conflict. For Posen, the inter-ethnic security dilemma occurs specifically in delicate situations of state power dissolution that effectively create an anarchical structure and increase the role of group-based self-help. Furthermore, Bleaney and Dimico (2009) argue that uneven distribution of ethnic groups within the territory of a state leads to local polarisation and escalation of conflicts. Looking at micro dynamics of local communities, Putnam (2007) argues that in ethnically intermingled communities, individuals tend to ‘hunker down ’ due to inter-ethnic barriers that lead to weaker inter-group social trust and solidarity.
On the contrary, advocates of integrationist approaches to ethnic conflict resolution suggest a reverse effect of the ethnic intermingling on inter-ethnic relations. While the effective causal mechanisms differ depending on the primary level analysis, they all assume positive effects of ethnic intermingling as a process that creates more incentives for inter-ethnic cooperation and produces common interests cross-cutting the inter-ethnic divide. Back in the 1950s, Allport (1954), focusing on individuals' behaviour in diverse settings, developed his resonant contact hypothesis which assumes that direct contact between members of different groups under equal conditions weakens prejudices and facilitates cooperation (Uslaner 2006; Van der Meer and Tolsma 2014). Advocates of social capital theory focus on the structure of inter-ethnic relations and argue that more shared space creates more cross-cutting links and inter-group social capital
32 that eventually weakens the conflict (Semenas 2014). Similar to them, yet speaking from more rational-choice positions, authors focusing on common interests assume that more ethnic intermingling makes cooperation a vital interest of opposing groups as more heterogeneity prevents the domination of one group and facilitates inter-group coalitions based on common interests (Horowitz 1985; Byman 1997).
The above presented overview of various and often contradictory theoretical assumptions on the effect of ethnic diversity on prospects for conflict and peace clearly captures the inconclusiveness of the central debate within the field of ethnic conflict resolution. Competing hypotheses on the role of specific dimensions, levels, and patterns of ethnic heterogeneity to prospects for peace after ethnic conflict are presented in the following table according to the suggested link between dimension (column) and level (row) of heterogeneity.
DIVERSITY POLARIZATION INTERMINGLING
-> CONFLICT -> CONFLICT -> CONFLICT (Vanhanen 1999; Blimes 2006) (Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (Posen 1993) HIGH 2002) -> PEACE -> PEACE -> PEACE (Horowitz 1985) (Esteban and Ray 1999) (Horowitz 1985)
-> CONFLICT -> CONFLICT (Collier and Hoeffler 2002) (Esteban and Ray 1999) MEDIUM
-> CONFLICT (Allport 1954) LOW -> PEACE -> PEACE (Esteban and Ray 1999) (Kaufmann 1996)
Table 1: Competing theoretical assumptions on causal link from different levels and dimensions of ethnic heterogeneity to conflict and peace. From the theoretical perspective, all the above presented arguments are grounded in well developed, yet mutually contradictory causal mechanisms. None of them is based only on pure empirical trends or recorded correlations, and all of the presented arguments have been subject to large-n empirical tests: however, when all combined, these have brought no conclusive results. Despite their solid theoretical groundings and elaborated empirical tests, none of the presented arguments have offered convincing findings and most of the theoretical assumptions have been both confirmed and disproved in alternative empirical studies.
33 To contribute to the inconclusiveness of the existing state of the art, this research attempts to empirically test the implications of competing theoretical arguments on the local level using a large-n sample of post-conflict multi-ethnic municipalities in the post-Yugoslav space. While there have been conducted numerous cross-case large-n empirical tests of the competing arguments within the field of peace research, most of them were based on the state-level of analysis (Mason and Fett 1996; Ayres 2000a; Sambanis 2000; Laitin 2004; Kuperman 2004) or micro-level of individuals ’attitudes (Andrighetto et al. 2012; Mironova and Whitt 2014; Dyrstad, Ellingsen, and Rød 2015). In contrast to the prevailing state-centric approach, this research will shift the focus to the sub-state dimension of post-conflict dynamics, investigating relations between local ethnic communities.
The underlying conceptual and theoretical questions addressed in this research are developed directly from the above presented competing theoretical arguments on the link between ethnic diversity and interethnic conflict. However, to be addressed and investigated empirically on the local level in the current post-Yugoslav space, two important conceptual considerations need to be taken into account when formulating the research questions from the general theory discussed above.
First, the presented theoretical arguments need to be transformed into post-conflict settings. As noted above, scholars investigating the link from ethnic heterogeneity to inter-ethnic peace and conflict focus on different stages of conflict (de)-escalation curve: from the conflict onset, through its intensity, dynamics and duration, up to its termination and post-conflict peace. Since the focus of this research is on the long-term post-conflict developments, all the examined theoretical assumptions need to be reconsidered and their applicability for the post- conflict settings assessed. Second, the addressed causal mechanisms need to be shifted to the local level of analysis. Most of the works presented in the previous section were based on macro- or micro-level of analysis, mostly using states or individuals as their primary units of analysis. In contrast to these prevailing perspectives, this research shifts the focus towards the largely understudied meso-level and uses municipalities as units of analysis and local ethnic communities as main actors of the post-conflict political processes. While this shift is applied to bring new insight into the local dynamics of ethnic relations, it also poses conceptual challenges on developing locally-oriented assumptions from theories formulated on macro- or micro-level. Hence, for all the tested causal mechanisms, their applicability on the meso-level needs to be considered.
34 2.5 Research questions
By focusing empirically on the sample of 81 ethnically diverse local political units across the post-conflict parts of the Balkans, the research seeks answers to underlying research questions developed from the general theoretical puzzle of ethnic conflict resolution. Generally, the whole research is framed by a key question: is it possible for previously adversary ethnic groups to coexist peacefully and cooperate after a violent conflict? While the integrationist theory argues that such coexistence is possible and desirable in ethnically diverse settings, the partitionist approach claims that it is not possible unless the groups are physically or politically separated. Translated into terms of hypothesis, the integrationist perspective assumes that ethnic diversity contributes to stable peace after an ethnic conflict, while the partitionist perspective presumes that ethnic diversity prevents stable peace after an ethnic conflict.
This general question is further developed into three sets of more specific research questions related to particular dimensions of post-conflict political processes but still developed from the overarching theoretical debate. Each of the sets is related to a specific stage of the political process, for which the competing theoretical arguments envision different pathways in post- conflict ethnically diverse polities.
The first set of questions looks at the role of ethnicity in the diverse post-conflict communities and examines to what extent ethnicity is salient in political identification and organisation. Chapter 4.1 answers this question through comprehensive mapping of local political landscapes of the post-conflict parts of the region and identifies the ethnic and non-ethnic forms of political organisation.
The second set of questions further develops this dimension and looks into the dynamics of political mobilisation along ethnic lines by examining its levels and specifics patterns. Chapter 5.1 focuses on the group-level dynamics of ethnic mobilisation and investigates to what extent the local ethnic diversity is transformed into local politics by political mobilisation along ethnic lines. Chapter 5.2 then investigates the intra-group dynamics and analyses under what conditions the local ethnic communities internally politically fragment and homogenise.
The third set of questions then finally looks at inter-group dynamics in ethnically diverse post- conflict settings. In the first step, Chapter 6.1 answers the rather theoretical question whether and how the models of inter-ethnic power sharing developed on the state level can be translated to the local settings in ethnically diverse areas to prevent ethnic exclusion. Chapter 6.2 follows with a comparative analysis of empirically observed patterns of exclusion and power-sharing
35 across the region. It contributes to answering the principal question of the whole theoretical debate on ethnic conflict resolution: whether, and under what conditions, can the previously hostile ethnic communities cooperate after a violent ethnic conflict.
36 3 Methodological considerations
The whole research project presented in this thesis is framed as a large-n comparative qualitative study based on a mixed method approach (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004). As such, it applies various elements and tools developed within conventional methodological approaches and merges them into an innovative research framework. Contrary to the traditional quantitative approaches, based mainly on statistical analysis of large-n populations of cases, as well as to traditional qualitative methods, limited to in-depth studies of single cases or small-n samples, the research builds on the detailed qualitative knowledge of a large population of relevant cases. Using diverse data collection methods and a large variety of primary and secondary sources, it constructs a dataset composed of both qualitative and quantitative evidence on local post-conflict political processes in 81 ethnically diverse sub-state political units across the post-Yugoslav space. The observed local political dynamics in general, and the relations between 165 local ethnic communities in particular, are analysed in a comparative perspective that applies both quantitative statistical methods and qualitative case studies. This methodological section discusses in detail individual aspects of this unconventional approach. 3.1 Level of analysis: Local turn
Empirical research within the field of peace and conflict studies has been, from its very onset, largely dominated by a macro-level approach focusing primarily on the state as its primary level of analysis. Most of the theories have been developed from the national perspective, and their empirical tests were conducted on the state-level of analysis focusing on characteristics of whole societies (Mason and Fett 1996; Ayres 2000a; Sambanis 2000; Laitin 2004; Kuperman 2004). Parallel to that, in research of conflict dynamics, single conflicts, conflict dyads and conflict years were analysed on this macro-level. The same can be said for most of the existing research on inter-ethnic relations where whole ethnic groups and their (political) centres on the national level have played a central role (Gurr 1994; Vogt et al. 2015). These macro-level approaches undoubtedly play a crucial role in the conflict research as they offer a comprehensive comparative perspective through examination of various cases from across space and time. On the other hand, these large-n macro studies are usually limited in their qualitative interpretation of the aggregated cases as they mainly consider their units of analysis as a ‘black box ’ without entering its internal sub-state dynamics. As a necessary trade-off between comprehensiveness and detail, states, conflicts, conflict years, dyads and ethnic groups are not further disaggregated into single elements. Alternatively, the socio-
37 psychological stream of empirical conflict and peace research has focused primarily on the micro-level of individuals ’ attitudes (Andrighetto et al. 2012; Mironova and Whitt 2014; Jelić, Uzelac, and Čorkalo Biruški 2020). However, while this micro-level approach can provide unique data and findings about individual responses to conflict and diversity, it generally does not consider the political dimension of the inter-group dynamics based on aggregation of political interests.
In contrast to these prevailing ‘macro ’ and ‘micro ’ approaches, this research project shifts the focus to the intermediate ‘meso ’ level of local (post-)conflict dynamics. To bridge the gap between the state and the individual, it investigates relations between ethnic communities on the local level of municipalities, that is sub-national self-governed political units. Such an approach has some features in common with both the micro- and the macro- perspective. As is the case with the state-centric approach, political structures and institutions are its central focus, with local ethnic communities and their representatives considered as political actors. In line with the micro-level approach, it also accents the attitudes and actions of (political) individuals that play an important role in the local political dynamics. On the other hand, the meso-level approach is in some ways distinct from the macro- and micro- perspectives. In contrast to the macro-perspective, it disaggregates the national political structures into their sub-national units consisting of local communities, local political forces, and municipal institutions. Contrary to the traditional socio-psychological approaches, the meso-level perspective does not systematically examine attitudes of individuals, yet it looks at particular groups of individuals and their representatives as social actors that aggregate political attitudes and interests of individual citizens. As Bollens (2007, 9) explains, sub-national political units such as cities “are not solely mirrors of larger societal dynamics and that there exist spaces of autonomy within which urban politicians and practitioners can act. Cities have their own spatial, political and social dynamics, certainly influenced by extra-urban forces, but never fully controlled by them.” The local politics is thus an autonomous space where interests and actions of both the state and individuals meet with the local forces and create a unique political environment with its own dynamics that can differ from the state-level developments (Amin 2002; Varshney 2008).
This methodological shift to the local level is in line with the recent conceptual and methodological developments within the conflict resolution theory as well as the practice of peace building. In the last two decades, both peace research and peace building strategies have taken a‘ local turn’ (Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013; Chadwick, Debiel, and Gadinger 2013).
38 The global conflict environment changed rapidly after the end of the Cold War as traditional inter-state conflicts vanished, while the incidence and intensity of intra-state conflicts rapidly increased (Fearon and Laitin 2003). Many scholars, both from the quantitative and the qualitative stream of research, have responded to the changing nature of violent conflict by shifting their focus from the once dominant state-level towards the largely understudied local- level conflict dynamics. As Weidmann, Rød, and Cederman (2010, 1) clearly noted: „Whether qualitative or quantitative, contemporary civil-war studies have a tendency to over-aggregate empirical evidence. In order to open the black box of the state, it is necessary to pinpoint the location of key conflict parties.” In line with this turn, Restrepo, Spagat, and Vargas (2006, 99) call scholars engaged in empirical conflict research to move their attention from the aggregated level of states to the micro level and “prioritize the construction of more micro datasets that will facilitate detailed studies of conflict intensity and its dynamics.” Verpoorten (2011), focusing specifically on the post-conflict dynamics rather than the conflict itself, also identifies the main challenge of research on conflict resolution in the micro-research of underlying internal and local mechanisms of the conflicts.
Conceptually, the local focus can provide a better understanding of causal mechanisms at play beyond the general state-level manifestations of conflict and peace (Buhaug and Rød 2006). Hence, it provides an opportunity to reconsider and refine established theories in the different context of the local conflict dynamics and develop new arguments on locally acting causal mechanisms. This shift is also based on the assumption that in contrast to the escalation dynamics of the ethnic conflict, the de-escalation process in general and peace building process in particular are in principle much more tied to the local socio-political structures and processes (see also Humphreys and Weinstein 2007; Ringdal, Simkus, and Listhaug 2007; Dyrstad et al. 2011; Arjona and Kalyvas 2006). While the state-level politics and rhetoric commonly play the accelerating role in the spiral of inter-ethnic violence, local communities on their own need to find a way out of that spiral and internally reconcile and reintegrate, once the violent conflict is over.
Besides the conceptual turn, local level of analysis also offers an interesting space in methodological terms as it allows to work with much larger samples of comparable cases than the clearly limited state-level analysis consisting of very diverse units. The local turn has thus been most visible within the quantitative branch of peace and conflict research where states have been frequently replaced with micro-regions as primary units of analysis and, instead of country-level data, disaggregated geo-referenced local data have been used (Dorussen and
39 Raleigh 2009; Raleigh et al. 2010; Eck 2012; Sundberg and Melander 2013; Weidmann and Ward 2010). 3.2 Localised nature of the (post)-conflict dynamics in the Balkans
The post-Yugoslav region can serve as a model area for a locally focused research as described in the previous section. All the conflicts that hit the region between 1991-2001 had one thing in common: a highly localised nature that led to varying local dynamics of war and peace (O’Loughlin 2010). Today, the region consists of various local post-conflict environments that went through different conflicts and post-conflict processes, leading to locally differing outcomes. The post-Yugoslav space thus presents a unique internal variation of respective explanatory and dependent variables related to the conflict dynamics. Even though the conflict zones of the former Yugoslavia are currently organised into five different states with diverse political structures on the state level, it can still be easily divided into comparable local political units because of their common political legacy of municipal organisation and local self- governance. These features make the region suitable for locally focused exploratory comparative research and theory testing; this opportunity remains largely unexploited, though. In the quantitative field of research, there are some inspiring pioneer works on the local level conflict dynamics in Bosnia (Slack and Doyon 2001; Costalli and Moro 2012; Costalli 2014; Weidmann 2011; Weidmann and Ward 2010) and post-conflict inter-group relations in Macedonia (Ringdal, Simkus, and Listhaug 2007; Dyrstad et al. 2011; Buhauga et al. 2007), Bosnia (Becker 2017; Dyrstad, Ellingsen, and Rød 2015) and Kosovo (Mironova and Whitt 2014). Approaching the local level inter-ethnic political dynamics through qualitative methods, Bochsler (2011; 2020), Stewart (2019) and Kříž and Čermák (2014) presented insightful comparative studies on ethnic politics in mixed municipalities across the region. Aside from these original contributions, the field generally remains understudied, and despite its appropriate structural features, any comprehensive cross-regional analysis of post-conflict inter-ethnic dynamics is still missing. This research contributes to filling this conceptual and empirical gap by providing a comparative qualitative study of 81 ethnically diverse post- conflict municipalities across the former conflict zones in the five states of the region.
The regional focus of the research on the local post-conflict dynamics in the post-Yugoslav region is intentional and is based on both the methodological and empirical considerations as the area presents great internal variation in the observed conflict and post-conflict dynamics
40 within structurally comparable environments. With its inter-case variation, the population of post-Yugoslav municipalities can thus serve as a unique ‘laboratory area ’ for investigating various causal paths leading to different post-conflict outcomes. While there has been an ongoing discussion on causes of the violent break-up of Yugoslavia, there is a broader agreement that ethnic conflicts in the region were triggered by a combination of destabilising political and economic factors on both the state and the sub-state level, as well as of consequences of the changing international order (see Ramet 2005). Hence, the inter-group conflicts were not local in their original substance. Nevertheless, once the violent conflicts erupted, they quickly became largely localised (Dragojević 2019; Weidmann 2011). Based on specific societal, political and demographic factors, local conflict dynamics varied widely not only within single states and conflict-dyads, but even within particular sub-state regions.
Such localised differences can be illustrated by two completely different dynamics of the Bosniak-Croat conflict in the micro-region of the northern part of Central Bosnia. The two groups were in fierce mutual conflict in the area of the Croat ethnic enclave of Žepče, where Croat forces coordinated their operations with Serbs against Bosniaks (Sudetic 1993). Just about 40km to the north, in the Usora enclave, Bosniaks and Croats remained tactically aligned and fought together against Serbs (Marijan 2018). In Vareš, 40km south-east from Žepče, local Bosniaks and Croats initially preserved fragile peace despite their mutual conflict burning around, yet the influx of refugees from the neighbouring areas later in the course of the war ignited massive local violence and led to the expulsion of Croats (Sadkovich 2006). Similar locally different situations were recorded in Bosnia in Tuzla and Bihać areas through the war (Armakolas 2011; Hoare 2011). Another ‘deviant ’ case of ethnic tolerance despite ethnic violence burning around is the town of Vrbovsko in north-west Croatia. The local Croat majority and Serb minority had preserved peace through the whole war, while the frontline was located just 30km to the south-east (Pušić 2017; Arbutina 2018; Katunarić 2010). In Macedonia, the violent ethnic clashes between Albanians and Macedonians were limited to several isolated zones of conflict in the northern part of the country, while most of the mixed areas in the west of the country preserved a relative stability during the turbulent months (Phillips 2004). Similar localised defiance to inter-communal conflict was also found in Kosovo. Cocozzelli and Chung (2010, 133) investigated locally specific conflict dynamics in the eastern town of Kamenica, where he found that “locals reported accounts of Serbs protecting the property of their Albanian neighbours during the height of the conflict in spring 1999, and the reverse during the post-conflict violence of that summer.” On the other hand, in most of the conflicts, ‘deviant ’
41 cases of extreme local inter-communal violence were also recorded as the conflict intensity was unequally distributed in space. In Bosnia, one fifth of casualties came from only 6 (out of 109) municipalities with the highest casualty rate of above 6-10% of population (Tokača 2012). Regional differences are less pronounced in Kosovo where localised mass killings of civilians were not so widespread as in Bosnia, but almost half of casualties also came from just 6 (out of 30) municipalities (Krüger and Ball 2014). In Croatia, no systematically collected data have been published so far on the disaggregated local level but the single battleground of Vukovar is estimated to be a place of killing of 2000 people or about 10% of total casualties in the war (Živić 2012; Živić and Pokos 2004).
The localised conflict dynamics also led to varying local outcomes of the conflicts. One-sided victories were generally more common on the local level, reflecting the overall military and political victories achieved by majority groups on the state level in Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia, and single ethnic parts of Bosnia. Nevertheless, cases of conflict ending in local stalemate or mediated compromise settlement can also be found across the region, thus providing unique internal variation in local conflict dynamics. In Bosnia, instances of both one-sided victories and local stalemates can be found, reflecting the locally diverse military developments in the late stage of the war. Most of the stalemate outcomes were recorded in areas of Bosniak-Croat conflict that ended in negotiated ceasefire in 1994, while the Croat-Serb and Bosniak-Serb conflicts were mostly fought locally until full local military victories in 1995 (Burg 2000). In Croatia, locally various conflict outcomes are rooted in the sharply different conclusions of the war in the specific region of Eastern Slavonia and other conflict zones (Barić 2011). While the conflict has been resolved through a regional negotiated settlement in the Eastern Slavonia, which was peacefully reintegrated, in all the other conflict zones the war ended in a definite defeat of Serbs by the Croat forces. In Kosovo, some Serb enclaves persisted during the whole conflict period inside the Albanian-dominated territory, while other areas were lost by Serbs. In Macedonia, the conflict ended in a stalemate both generally and locally thanks to the overall compromise nature of the Ohrid conflict settlement that prevented any large-scale military operations possibly leading to local victories of either conflict side (Phillips 2004). In contrast to that, the conflict in south Serbia ended in a clear one-sided victory due to the Serbian military takeover of the disputed area that effectively ended the Albanian insurgency in 2001 (Bacevic et al. 2011). These intra-conflict variances of conflict dynamics prove the localised nature of post-Yugoslav wars and suggest subsequent localised character of post-conflict processes.
42 In the post-conflict period, different parts of the region also went through various demographic and political processes. As a result of the localised ethnic violence, various conflict outcomes and different post-war demographic dynamics, the post-Yugoslav space presents a unique variation in post-conflict levels of ethnic diversity. Once being highly intermingled prior to the turbulent 1990s on both the macro and the micro level, the region went through a general process of ethnic un-mixing resulting from the ethnic cleansing and massive displacements during the breakup of Yugoslavia (Campbell 1999; Mojzes 2011; Mulaj 2008; Hayden 1996). Nonetheless, this process was largely driven by local conflict dynamics that led to different outcomes in otherwise structurally similar areas. Hence, while some areas, once intermingled, were ethnically cleansed and local communities fully separated, diversity was preserved in other places throughout the war era. Furthermore, many areas have gone through specific demographic developments during the post-conflict years resulting both from refugee returns and new displacements, thus further changing the local levels of ethnic separation and intermingling (Harvey 2006; Tuathail and Dahlman 2011). Nowadays, the once ethnically highly intermingled region in fact consists of areas that were effectively cleansed during the war and have remained fully or largely homogeneous since, as well as of areas where local ethnic diversity persisted during the conflict or that has been at least partially restored in the post-conflict period by the refugee return (Englbrecht 2004; Čermák 2018; Tuathail and Dahlman 2011).
Single parts of the region were also to various extent subjected to international peace interventions during and after the conflicts. While extensive international engagement is a common feature of all post-Yugoslav wars (Siani-Davies 2004), its actors, form and extent varied widely not only regionally across countries but also locally within single conflicts. The international factor was represented by different actors starting from the UN and EC/EU in the initial phase of wars in Croatia and Bosnia, succeed by NATO later in Bosnia, an ad hoc coalition during the Kosovo crisis and finally the NATO-EU tandem in Macedonia, Bosnia and Kosovo after 2000. The forms and scopes of the interventions varied too: in Croatia and Bosnia in early 1990s, the international community unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the escalation of conflicts by the UN-sponsored first-generation peacekeeping operation UNPROFOR. Later on, peace enforcement was applied to deescalate the war in Bosnia and was followed by massive second-generation peacekeeping operations in the country, combined with extensive political peace building that intervened into politics and civilian affairs (Belloni 2008). In contrast to that, Croatia as a whole was left out of any massive international presence in the
43 post-conflict stage, except for the UN-sponsored observation mission UNTAES whose weak mandate was limited to the region of Eastern Slavonia (Šimunović 1999). In Kosovo, massive military intervention against the Serbian forces in the late stage of the war in 1999 was followed by an extensive international peacekeeping presence and civilian peace building engagement in the post-conflict period that was comparable to Bosnia in its width and depth (Hehir 2010). In contrast to that and based on the experience from Kosovo, an eruption of large-scale inter- ethnic violence in Macedonia was prevented by a timely international intervention in the form of rapid preventive military engagement that subsequently transformed into soft peacekeeping and observation mission with limited mandate and duration (Gounev 2003). Finally, the brief and localised violent episode in south Serbia was the only ethnic conflict in the region where the international community did not intervene militarily in any form, and the external engagement was limited to mediation services of OSCE in the post-conflict period (Bacevic et al. 2011).
Finally, the varying conflict and post-conflict dynamics led to locally different outcomes in regard to the quality and intensity of local inter-ethnic relations. In some areas that suffered intensely from the conflict in the 1990s, such as the Bosnian town of Brčko, the rural area of Bosanski Petrovac or the Kosovar mountain area of Štrpce, once belligerent ethnic groups are managing a peaceful coexistence and cooperation (ICG 2009; Sadiković 2016; A. Moore 2013). On the contrary, inter-ethnic tensions accompanied by radical ethno-national rhetorics or even occasional violent episodes have persisted in other places, as publicly well known cases of Mitrovica in Kosovo, Vukovar in Croatia or Mostar in Herzegovina show (Burema 2012; Kosic and Byrne 2009; Björkdahl 2011). Overall, the zones of previous ethnic conflict across the former Yugoslavia present a unique internal variation in conflict and post-conflict dynamics within a political space with common political and societal legacy and comparable structural features. 3.3 Unit of analysis: Municipalities as sub-state political arenas
Based on the above presented focus on the local level post-conflict dynamics, the primary unit of the analysis is defined as a local political community, i.e. a distinct segment of the society delineated by geographic boundaries and political institutions. This rather vague concept is operationalised in a territorial manner using the municipality administrative unit. In the regional context of the post-Yugoslav space, municipalities are self-governed entities and represent the lowest level of socio-political organisation. Territorially, municipalities usually
44 comprise one central settlement (with population ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands) and its adjacent and functionally tied surroundings (Pejanović 2006c). Since the original Yugoslav-era municipalities have recently been divided into smaller units in Croatia, and some parts of Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia (Stewart 2019; Osmanković and Mulaomerović 2009; Hrženjak 2009; Raos 2010), the research uses the new structure which defines the rules of the current local politics. In line with the main focus of the research limited to the political dimension of inter-ethnic relations, municipal institutions are considered as local political arenas where both competition and cooperation between the ethnic groups and their political representatives takes place.
In contrast to the state level, where the institutional designs of post-Yugoslav countries widely differ, the local political systems are very similar across the region. They are generally based on the principle of local self-governance delegated to municipalities as the local administrative and politically distinct units. The actual extent of competences allocated to the municipal level of governance varies across the region. In Croatia, municipalities (and towns) are geographically smaller and politically somewhat weaker than in other states of the region because of the reform of territorial administration in 2003 that introduced the two-layer system of local self-governance consisting of smaller municipalities and larger counties (Koprić 2010). Within the asymmetrically decentralised institutional structure of Bosnia, the actual political powers allocated to municipalities vary across the two entities and even between single cantons of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBaH), but in general include all areas of local importance such as communal and social services, primary healthcare, local infrastructure or culture (Zlokapa et al. 2008). In a few specific sui generis cases, the competences of single municipalities are further strengthened to provide an enhanced autonomy of minorities in ethnically sensitive issues otherwise decided on higher institutional levels, such as education, culture or public media (Vukoja and Sitarski 2016; Dahlman and Tuathail 2006). Similar to Bosnia, in both Kosovo and Serbia, municipalities are also primarily responsible for issues and services of local importance, including among others primary healthcare, a part of education agenda, social services and local economic development. In Macedonia, the competences of municipalities were significantly strengthened by the Ohrid peace agreement which included municipal decentralisation as one of the principal tools for the de-escalation of the conflict between Albanians and Macedonians in 2001 (Wolff 2009). To enhance the scope of local autonomy, the new law on self-governance in 2002, has transferred to municipalities some of
45 the powers commonly held by the state that are, however, critical for inter-ethnic stability, including control over the police sector (Lyon 2015a).
Despite the varying extent of political powers, municipalities across the region have very similar institutional designs based on independent representative institutions whose legitimacy stems from local elections. Analogously to the state level division of power, municipalities have their own independent and mutually separated legislature and executive branches. In all states the legislature power is held by municipal parliaments (called municipal councils in Croatia, Macedonia and Federation of BaH) elected directly in the local elections under the party-list proportional electoral system (Koprić 2010; Jerinić and Milosavljević 2019; Mujakić 2010). The same as on the state level, local parliaments as representative bodies are responsible for issuing legal acts within the competences of municipal self-governance. From their position they also oversee the work of local executives by approving annual municipal budgets and regular reports of the executive officials and institutions, and by appointing local executive officials.
The local executive is headed by the mayor as the top official responsible for the functioning of the municipality. Across the five post-conflict states of the region, mayors are elected to the function through different mechanisms. In Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia, they are elected directly through a two-round majority electoral system (Koprić and Škarica 2017). In Bosnia, mayors are elected through a one-round plurality electoral system based on a first-past-the-post method (Pejanović 2006b). In contrast to that, mayors (called presidents) in municipalities of Serbia are elected indirectly by a majority vote in local parliaments, thus enhancing their responsibility to the local legislature (Jovanović 2015). Mayors lead the local administration which is composed of various departments organised on a sectoral basis, analogously to state- level ministries. The number of these sectoral units varies depending on the size of the municipality, from a single ‘joint administrative unit’ in the smallest municipalities in Croatia up to more than ten departments in large towns of Bosnia and Macedonia. Each of the departments is led by a director nominated by the mayor: the nomination needs to be approved by the local parliament and the director is responsible to the local legislature. The distribution of the directors’ position is thus a central mechanism of local politics and power relations. Analogously to the state-level, municipal politics is based on the principles of coalition-making within the local legislatures, and a mutual division of power between local parliaments and executive administration led by mayors.
46 3.4 Subjects of analysis: Local ethnic groups as primary political actors
As the primary focus of the research is on the inter-ethnic relations, local ethnic communities are considered as primary actors of the investigated political processes within the municipalities as units of analysis. Municipal politics is thus understood as a structure where ethnic groups as agents meet, compete, and cooperate. The main post-Yugoslav ethnic groups directly involved in previous conflicts and, i.e. groups that are politically recognised as conflict parties thus serve as primary analytical categories. In Bosnia, these include the three formally equal constituent nations of Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats that fought each other in different stages of the 1992-1995 war. In Croatia and Kosovo, the state-nation majorities of Croats and Albanians are considered, next to the politically and militarily ‘defeated ’ minorities of Serbs. In Macedonia and Serbia, the parties considered are the respective state-level majorities of Macedonians and Serbs and the regionally concentrated Albanian minorities.
Such an ethno-centric approach of the research can potentially attract reasonable criticism from the advocates of the alternative non-ethnic perspective on the conflict dynamics (Cooley and Mujanović 2016),1 yet it is based on solid empirical and methodological grounds. While scholars have extensively discussed the actual causes and nature of the Yugoslav wars, the whole process of conflict settlement in the region has been from its beginning politically defined in ethnic terms. Regardless of their actual socio-economic and political roots, all conflicts of the 1990s were in their course mainly framed along the ethnic lines and resulted in large-scale ethnic cleansings perpetuated in the name of competing ethnically exclusive political projects. The ethnic groups involved in these projects quite self-evidently later became the primary categories of the whole conflict resolution processes at their very start and have remained so until today. The initial conflict settlements reached between the warring parties in Washington (1994), Erdut (1995), Dayton (1995), Kumanovo (1999) and Ohrid (2001) were negotiated between political representatives whose legitimacy was drawn exclusively from their ethno-political background (Bieber 2004). While the pre-war societies were by far not fully ethnicised and even the conflicts had their non-ethnic causes and dimensions, ethnicity became the central category for the local as well as the international actors when seeking settlement.
1 For an inspiring discussion on appropriateness of using ethnicity as the central analytical category see the debate between Bochsler and Schläpfer (2016b; 2016a) and Cooley and Mujanović (2016). 47 As Bieber (2004) argues, this ethnic principle of conflict resolution consequently led to ‘[the] institutionalization of ethnicity’ in the post-conflict states and their societies. The centrality of the ethnicity has been occasionally challenged by both local and external promoters of various non-ethnic and civic alternatives (Touquet 2015; 2011; Belyaeva 2017; Murtagh 2016; Stefanovski 2017). Though, it was empirically proved that ethnic identification has, with a few exceptions, largely persisted as the ruling principle in the politics and societies across the region through the post-conflict decades (Dyrstad 2012; Dyrstad et al. 2011; Dyrstad, Ellingsen, and Rød 2015; Ringdal, Simkus, and Listhaug 2007; Buhauga et al. 2007). Hence, even today, top-level political negotiations on crucial regional issues are defined in ethnic terms, as the current Pristina-Belgrade dialogue, the recurring talks on the resolution of internal instability of BaH or the constitutional arrangement of Macedonia have recently shown (Zdeb 2017; Gashi and Musliu 2017). The post-Yugoslav ethno-national groups and their respective representatives thus still dominate the regional post-conflict politics.
Considering the persisting centrality of the ethno-political principles while avoiding the debate on the political and social nature of the Yugoslav wars and the subsequent post-conflict developments, this research follows the ethno-centric approach and accepts the dominant ethnic paradigm of the conflict resolution process. Hence, the local communities of ethnic Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs in BaH, Croats and Serbs in Croatia, Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo and Serbia, and Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia are considered as primary actors of the investigated processes and their identities are not further discussed or problematised, while other ethnic or non-ethnic categories are not systematically taken into account in the study of inter-group political dynamics. 3.5 Sample of cases covered by the research
From the above developed definitions of the level and unit of analysis, the population of cases can be derived to be relevant for the theories discussed above. For the purpose of the research, the population of cases consists of all post-conflict AND ethnically mixed municipalities in the post-Yugoslav region. These criteria imply that all municipalities of the region that were directly hit by a violent inter-ethnic conflict since 1990 and are populated by different ethnic groups involved in these conflicts are included within the scope of the research.
The population of cases to be examined in the research consists of all post-conflict (PC) and ethnically mixed (EM) municipalities. The precise criteria that define membership of cases in the set of post-conflict ethnically mixed municipalities (PC*EM) are formulated as follows:
48 Post-conflict (PC) = substantial part of the territory and population of the municipality was directly exposed to organised inter-ethnic violence during the previous conflict.
The very substance of the research is the question of how to sustain peace between groups after an ethnic conflict. Therefore, the research focuses exclusively on those cases of local communities that actually went through a direct violent conflict. The criteria of substantial part of the territory and/or population excludes the cases where the conflict was very brief, of very low intensity or hit only a small part of the area. Direct exposure means that the violence took place physically in the area and thus directly affected the local population. The condition of organised inter-ethnic violence excludes those municipalities where only isolated violent acts took place. The post-Yugoslav wars differed a lot in regard to the forms and intensity of the violence. Conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia escalated from localised clashes between regular security structures and local (para)military units as well as from acts of one-sided violence against civilians, both on ethnic basis. Later on, the conflicts developed into a regular war between centrally organised armed forces with clearly delineated frontlines. In contrast to that, the war in Kosovo and low-intensity conflicts in Macedonia and south Serbia were fought for most of the time as guerrilla wars between Albanian insurgents and official state security structures. In Kosovo, the conflict was also accompanied by frequent acts of one-sided violence against civilians of the other ethnicity. In most of the areas across the conflict zones, the inter- ethnic violence was not only accompanied but also carried out by ethnic cleansings on all sides and multiple population displacements (Mulaj 2008; Mojzes 2011). Nevertheless, the actual form and extent of the violence is not relevant for the assessment: cases of post-conflict municipalities are included regardless of whether the violence took the form of regular fighting, one-sided violence or forced population movements.
Through qualitative desk research drawing from available data describing the course and territorial dynamics of the conflicts, all post-Yugoslav municipalities were categorised as either post conflict or non-post conflict, based on the above developed criteria. Out of the 976 current municipalities in the post-conflict states of the former Yugoslavia, 310 were coded as post conflict. The territorial distribution of these post-conflict areas across single states and in space is recorded in Table 2 and Figure 2. As the map shows, while all or most of the territory of Bosnia and Kosovo was directly hit by the inter-ethnic violence during the conflicts, only clearly delimited peripheral parts of Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia can be considered as locally post-conflict.
49
Table 2: Distribution of post-conflict municipalities across the post-Yugoslav states.
Figure 2: Territorial distribution of post-conflict municipalities across the post-Yugoslav space (the map was generated from author’s data by Jan Chloupek). The second defining condition regarding the ethnic diversity is formulated as follows:
Ethnically mixed = at least two ethnic groups involved in the previous local ethnic conflict count for more than 10% of the current local population and together represent more than 50% of the current population.
50 At the very centre of the research are relations between local ethnic groups. Therefore, examined cases necessarily need to be diverse enough in terms of the ethnic structure of the local population to be relevant for any analysis of inter-ethnic dynamics. The benchmark of ethnic diversity was operationalised in the sense that at least two ethnic groups involved in previous local ethnic conflicts count for more than 10% of the local population each and together represent more than 50% of the population. The threshold of 10% for each community was set arbitrarily and is based on the conceptual assumption that groups consisting of 10% of population are already politically significant minorities with not only ambitions but also realistic prospects to be politically organised and represented in local politics. Furthermore, 10% or a similar demographic share is politically and legally considered as a formal threshold for a municipality to be considered as ethnically mixed in some states of the region. In Kosovo, municipalities with a minority population of more than 10% are legally treated as heterogeneous, in Croatia and Serbia 5% and 15% thresholds are applied for the activation of minority protection mechanisms (Petričušić 2002). In Macedonia, a 20% population threshold was introduced in the Ohrid peace agreement as a threshold for the recognition of special minority rights (Lyon 2015b). The 10% threshold applied for the definition of ethnically heterogeneous municipalities is thus generally in line with the regional conception of local- level ethnic diversity.
In assessing the criteria of ethnic diversity, only groups directly involved in the conflict are examined since the research is focused solely on their mutual relations. While there are other politically relevant ethnic groups present in some of the post-conflict zones in substantial numbers, such as Hungarians or Czechs in some parts of Croatia or Bosniaks and Turks in Kosovo and Macedonia, their role is not a subject of the research and these are not therefore considered (Perić Kaselj, Škiljan, and Vukić 2015; Cocozzelli 2008; Agarin and Čermák 2019). Importantly, only those of the post-conflict groups that were locally involved in mutual conflict in the area are considered. This rule excludes cases where different ethnic groups that fought each other elsewhere remained locally aligned during the conflict. Specifically, this is the situation in some otherwise ethnically mixed Bosniak-Croat municipalities in the north-east part of Bosnia where the relations between the two communities remained peaceful through the war despite mutual conflict being fought in other regions.2 The emphasis on the presence of at least two post-conflict groups is specifically due to the triangular nature of the conflict in
2 Otherwise ethnically mixed cases excluded from the set of post conflict municipalities based on that rule are Orašje, Odžak and Tuzla in Bosnia. 51 some parts of Bosnia: it implies that the case is considered as relevant only if two of the three locally conflicted groups are currently present in the area. By applying the above specified criteria of ethnic diversity, a subset of post conflict ethnically heterogeneous municipalities is defined, consisting of 120 cases across the region.
The last criterium applied to the set of post-conflict ethnically mixed municipalities for the selection of relevant cases is the minimal limit of population of single ethnic groups. The threshold was arbitrarily set at a population of at least 1000 people for each relevant ethnic group present in the area. The reasons for this procedure were two-fold: the first is conceptual and is constructed upon the assumption that local ethnic communities counting for less than 1000 individuals have limited prospects for a political organisation based on shared group interests going beyond individual needs. The second reason is practical and is formulated on behalf of the feasibility of the research. For tiny ethnic communities counting for less than 1000 people the data collection would be extremely difficult and time-consuming due to the virtual non-existence of secondary sources. Therefore, as a trade-off between comprehensiveness and time efficiency, the limited resources were invested into field and desk research focused on localities where more numerous communities live. The application of this rule excluded 42 of cases with population of a group under 1000 from the original dataset of PC*ME municipalities.
These criteria imply that all municipalities of the region that were directly hit by a violent inter- ethnic conflict and that are presently settled by relevant numbers of previously hostile ethnic groups are covered by the empirical research. By subsequent application of these criteria a set of 81 post-conflict ethnically mixed municipalities in total is defined. The cases included in the set were involved in different conflicts between various actors and now belong to different state structures. Geographically, these areas range from central and eastern Croatia, through all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Preševo valley in south Serbia up to northern Macedonia, as can be seen in the Figure 3.
52
Figure 3: Territorial distribution of relevant post-conflict and ethnically mixed municipalities across the post- Yugoslav space (the map was generated from author’s data by Jan Chloupek). Municipalities matching these parameters are distributed across various states and post-conflict ethnic dyads/triads, as can be seen in the following table presenting their distribution. Within the 81 municipalities included in the set, 165 local ethnic communities involved in previous conflict and currently residing in relevant relative and absolute demographic numbers are identified as relevant for the research. While 78 of the municipalities have bi-ethnic structure as they are populated by two post-conflict communities, 3 municipalities in different parts of Bosnia (Brčko, Glamoč, Vukosavlje) have a unique tri-ethnic structure with a population consisting of three ethnic groups involved in the previous conflict – Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Distribution of single cases across individual states and post-conflict dyads is presented in Table 3.
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Table 3: Distribution of relevant post-conflict and ethnically mixed municipalities across states and conflict dyads. 3.6 Data collection methods
As underlined in the introduction, one of the main intended contributions of this research is description through a collection of original primary data on local ethno-politics in the post- Yugoslav space. This intention is a reaction to the empirical under-exploration of localised ethno-political relations in the region, and the misbalance between scholar attention paid to the macro dimension of the post-Yugoslav ethnic conflicts and politics and their local dimensions. Departing from these objectives, the research, the principal outcomes are of which are presented in this thesis, emerged from the author's ambitious plan for an extensive data collection across the region. The initial ambition of the author was to cover all of the 81 relevant cases included in the above defined sample through his own fieldwork that would be based on personal interviews with direct actors of the investigated post-conflict processes. However, through the course of the research, the number of cases included into the sample turned up to be too large to be covered properly by the author's own fieldwork within a feasible time frame. Due to the need to approach local actors in person, fieldwork conducted in one municipality usually demanded one or two personal visits of the author to the area that lasted for several days. A sizeable workload was also required for preparations of such a single trip, both logistic- wise and content-wise, and for the processing and analysing the collected raw data once the trip was over. Furthermore, single cases covered by the research are scattered across different parts of the region, the northernmost municipality of Vojnić in central Croatia being almost 1000 km far away from the southernmost municipality of Brvenica in Macedonia. Many of the
54 relevant municipalities are located in peripheral areas with weak transport infrastructure, which also made the fieldwork logistically demanding. Considering the limited time and resources available to the author for the fieldwork in the region, comprehensive coverage of all relevant cases proved to be impracticable.
Therefore, the process of data collection was divided into two subsequent stages that applied different methods. In line with the initial plan, the first stage was based on the collection of comprehensive primary data for a subsample of 19 intentionally selected typical cases across Bosnia and Croatia that were successfully covered by the author's own intensive field research, together with other 7 supplementary cases not fulfilling the selection criteria. In the second stage, the author conducted an extensive desk research to collect available secondary data covering all other 62 cases not examined directly through fieldwork. This solution was a necessary trade-off between the initial ambitions of the research and its feasibility.
The selection procedure of cases included into the subsample to be covered by the field research was driven mainly by conceptual considerations with the aim to include ethnically diverse municipalities of various characteristics related not only to the conflict and post-conflict dynamics, but also to structural factors and observed political settings. Since the primary focus of the research questions is the role of ethnic demography, municipalities with varying levels of ethnic diversity were included in the sample, consisting of cases with almost equal ethnic structure (B. Petrovac), as well as cases with strong minorities (Obrovac, Erdut,) and small minorities (Čapljina). In regard to the intensity and outcome of the previous conflict, the sub- sample covered cases with high (Prijedor) and low (Kistanje) levels of violence, as well as areas where the conflict locally ended in a one-sided victory (Knin) or a stalemate (Žepće). In terms of structural conditions, the field research encompassed both urban (Vukovar) and rural (Gračac) areas, and also municipalities situated centrally (Doboj) and on the periphery (Glamoč). Furthermore, cases that fall under different states, regions and post-conflict dyads have been included into the sub-sample to make it more representative for the post-Yugoslav region and to increase the generalisability of findings. While the selected subsample can by far not be considered representative of the whole sample, its internal variation between selected cases allowed the author to examine the investigated post-conflict processes in various local settings.
In total, 19 cases out of the population of 81 post-conflict and ethnically mixed municipalities have been covered in the first stage by the author's fieldwork. Besides them, fieldwork was also conducted in other 7 post-conflict municipalities that were later excluded from the sample
55 examined in this thesis because they did not fit the demographic criteria: the collected data were, however, used as supplementary evidence within the exploratory stage of the research.3 The data collection in these localities was conducted in 8 research trips conducted in the period between 2012 and 2019. The overview of all research trips including the dates, number of research days, list of municipalities covered, and number of interviews conducted is presented in the following table. Single research trips usually lasted from one to three weeks and were focused on regional clusters of selected cases that are located in mutual proximity that allowed relatively easy travels from one place to another. The distance between single locations was an important practical factor, considering the need for time-consuming and sometimes complicated transport from one place to the other.
Dates Municipalities covered Interviews Research (cases excluded from the sample in italics) conducted days 10/2012 Brčko, Čapljina, Glamoč, Rogatica, Banja Luka, Jablanica, 35 13 Orašje, Sanski Most, Sarajevo, Trebinje, Zenica
4-5/2013 Čapljina, Glamoč, Rogatica, Orašje, Sanski Most, 14 9 Sarajevo, Trebinje, Zenica 5-6/2015 Vojnić, Brčko, Vukosavlje, Glamoč, Topusko 16 9
4-5/2017 Darda, Erdut, Vukovar, Obrovac, Knin, Kistanje, Skradin 23 12
9/2017 Gračac, Doboj, Žepče, Vareš 11 6 9/2018 Prijedor, B. Petrovac, Stolac 12 5 4/2019 Stolac 1 1
12/2019 Čapljina 2 2
Total 114 57
Table 4: Overview of field research trips. The territorial distribution of municipalities covered by the field research is presented in the following map.
3 Banja Luka, Jablanica, Orašje, Trebinje, Sanski Most and Zenica in Bosnia, and Skradin, and Topusko in Croatia.
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Figure 4: Territorial distribution of municipalities covered by the field research (the map was generated from author’s data by Jan Chloupek). 3.7 Practical considerations and limits related to the field research
The primary goal of the fieldwork in these relevant areas was to collect original first-hand information about local ethno-political affairs directly from their actors, that is (exclusive) information that cannot be found elsewhere. In general, municipal politics is relatively weakly covered by local media or other secondary sources that could provide a comprehensive understanding of local ethnic politics. The only exception are larger towns that have wider political impact on higher politics, as well as politically sensitive hotspots that are in the centre of interest of the national media or NGOs. Local (ethno-)political developments in the large town of Prijedor, or in a small but exposed municipality of Stolac are thus closely followed by Bosnian newspapers. However, local politics in most of the smaller and less monitored mixed areas is usually out of the range of the major media. Furthermore, as in other post-conflict areas, the evidence available in media or presented officially by local authorities may tend to privilege
57 those who hold the political power and avoid critical local voices (Campbell 2017). In Bosnia, local politics in many post-conflict areas is solely covered by local portals who are frequently politically biased (Analiziraj.ba 2018). In the smallest peripheral municipalities, it is difficult to find any relevant primary or secondary sources informing about local political affairs at all. Collecting the primary data directly through the fieldwork was therefore not only the best, but in some cases also the only way to gather the information needed for further analysis. During the fieldwork the author faced several important practical challenges that limited the number of cases covered, interviews conducted, and amount of primary data gathered from the field.
The main structural limit of the field research was its reduction to post-conflict areas of Bosnia and Croatia. The fieldwork omitted relevant cases of ethnically mixed post-conflict municipalities with the Albanian populations in Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia due to purely practical reasons stemming from the author's limited language proficiency. The author is fluent in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language which allowed him to approach the informants directly and conduct the interviews personally without need for an interpreter. In contrast to that, the author has only a very limited knowledge of Albanian that merely allows him to collect and process secondary data. He would certainly have not been able to conduct interviews with informants in their native Albanian in the same direct way that he did in the Slavic-speaking environment. The option of using an interpreter was avoided because it would completely change the process of data collection and put additional demands on its interpretation (Ficklin and Jones 2009). This decision was also based on the author's awareness that using an interpreter would considerably limit his research freedom in the whole process and it would also make the research more consuming in terms of both time and resources. The author also found the possibility of using Serbian or English language for approaching and interviewing Albanian-speaking informants as too limiting for the data collection and misbalanced to the direct approach applied in the Serbo-Croatian speaking areas as it would certainly limit the potential sphere of relevant interlocutors. In general, data collected directly from informants in their mother tongue would be hardly comparable with those gathered through an interpreter or in a non-native language.
Therefore, the author rather targeted the whole fieldwork into the Slavic-speaking areas where he could fully use his knowledge of local language and approach all informants directly. Still, the author is convinced that the Albanian-Slavic mixed areas are so crucial for a complex understanding of the local post-conflict dynamics in the region that they need to be included into the analysis even if only described by data from available secondary sources in the second
58 stage of data collection. However, the author is also aware that the misbalance of collected primary data across the region is one of the important empirical limits of the whole research. Therefore, any possible structural differences emerging from the data between cases within Slavic speaking post-conflict areas and those from the mixed Slavic-Albanian ethnic space need to be controlled and interpreted with special caution.
Another significant limit of the field research was the limited time the author was able to invest into the fieldwork. Because of the author's other work, study and personal obligations in the home country, the fieldwork was concentrated into short-term research trips to the region. While the author always strived to use the available time of presence in the region in the most effective way, he usually realised that more time would be needed to cover the cases more comprehensively or gather some important additional information missing in the puzzle to be complete. Staying in single locations just for a few single days sometimes turned out to be insufficient to set up personal contacts with all the pre-selected interviewees since their availability was also limited. Repeated second (or in some cases even third) visits to some single locations significantly helped to solve this problem as it allowed the author to fully use the previously established networks and contact local interlocutors more effectively. However, the author always faced the dilemma whether to use the limited time for another visit or an already covered case, even if incompletely, and travelling to another new and possibly important location. In these situations, the author generally applied the cost-benefit approach and weighted up practically current transport possibilities and the interviewees availability. However, this dilemma often led to frustration stemming from the fact that the author was not able to meet all the possibly available interviewees and gather the maximum amount of data. Overall, the process of data collection was thus a continuous trade-off between the depth of the knowledge about single cases, and the width of that knowledge and the number of cases covered.
Yet another limiting factor, which is closely related to the previous one, was the difficult accessibility of some areas. It is important to underline that the author is fully aware of the fact that while being considered as post-conflict states, Bosnia and Croatia were stable and relatively well functioning countries throughout the fieldwork period: the research work was thus safe and practicable without any institutional and security obstacles. This becomes clear when these territories are compared to the time more than two decades ago (Armakolas 2001) or to other places where violent conflicts are still going on during the time of the other scholars' field research (Wood 2007). However, the author still had to face several practical limits in the
59 fieldwork which stemmed primarily from the underdeveloped transportation networks in some peripheral parts of Bosnia and Croatia. Many of the post-conflict areas covered by the fieldwork are distant from the main centres and as such hardly reachable by public transport, which was the preferred means of travel for the author, for its low costs and contact with the locals. Locations like Glamoč, which is cut off on the periphery of Western Herzegovina and is not served by almost any public transport, can be in fact only reached by hitch-hiking from nearby larger towns.
One more limiting factor that is only hardly assessable but needs to be considered was the author’s initial inexperience with the field research, its methods and practice in general, and also with the Bosnian local context in particular. Especially during his early research trips to Bosnia, the author often felt confused and lost in the unfamiliar local reality where he was considered a foreign element. While these feelings have never fully disappeared, the author gained more self-confidence after each new research trip to the region, based on the gathered experience and the newly established contacts. Nevertheless, even now, when looking back at the research trips and individual interviews, the author still sees many missteps and unused potential.
On the other hand, there were several factors that the author could profit from and that have certainly eased his access to the locations and relevant interviewees as well as the field research in general. Certainly the most crucial of them was the author's language proficiency in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language acquired during his study and research stays in the region, that allowed him to access potential interviewees and other relevant contacts in the field directly. Being fluent in local language gave the author full autonomy during the research as he was independent of services of interpreters or local fixers both in contacting the interlocutors and during the actual interviews. While the language proficiency perhaps prevented the author from benefiting from interpreters' local knowledge (Peral 2016), it also allowed him to avoid numerous practical, ethical and methodological challenges accompanying the involvement of an interpreter in the interviewing process (Ficklin and Jones 2009).
The second important factor that helped the author to conduct the fieldwork in such a scope was an extensive network of local contacts gathered during his previous study and research visits to the region. Two central clusters of this network developed during the two semester- long study visits to universities in Sarajevo (2012) and Zagreb (2015) where the author established numerous relations mainly with other students and scholars from the political science field who were generously willing to help with organising his future research and
60 finding relevant contacts. This network then naturally grew with every new research trip to the region as the author met new locals willing to help with the work. While the author did not directly interview these casual contacts for the purpose of the research as such, the facilitating role proved to be essential for the planning of and carrying out the whole fieldwork. In practical terms, these people, coming from different parts of the region and working in different fields, were willing to advise the author as a foreigner on every-day practical issues such as transportation and accommodation. While such help might sound banal at first sight, it was in fact crucial for the organisation of the fieldwork as the locals' readiness to share their knowledge saved the author a large amount of time and resources that he would have otherwise had to devote to finding the information on his own. Even more importantly for the research as such, thanks to their own networks, many of these local contacts were also able to point the author to relevant informants or facilitate the contact with them. The priceless role of these informal fixers (Schiltz and Büscher 2016) or gatekeepers (Cohen and Arieli 2011) can be illustrated in the case of a Herzegovian town where a local vendor met by the author accidentally became a crucial contact point during the two author's research visits to the place. The vendor did not only facilitate an affordable private accommodation but also managed to provide phone numbers of pre-selected interviewees the author intended to contact in the town. In some locations, pre-selected interviewees from the non-political sector also played a similar role thanks to their good personal access to local political and official structures and great local knowledge. In another Herzegovian municipality, a local NGO worker smoothly facilitated the interviews with local politicians from different ethnic parties who would otherwise be only hardly reachable directly for the author.
Perhaps another important facilitating factor that the author had not been aware of prior to the field research was his personal background. Being a white man of Slavic origin coming from the Czech Republic possibly made the fieldwork easier on many occasions. Most importantly, the language and cultural proximity allowed the author to move in the region and communicate with locals more smoothly. This certainly does not mean that the author became part of the investigated environment, nor that he intended to do so. He was still recognised as a stranger by locals, especially in smaller places in remote areas. Speaking the language and coming from a nearby country only increased the mutual feeling of familiarity. On the other hand, maintaining the position of an external observer coming from outside of the region that suffers from inter-ethnic mistrust possibly provided the author with a certain neutrality in the eyes of locals, something that local researches may miss. In contrast to the experience of other foreign
61 scholars engaged in fieldwork in the region (Clark 2017; Armakolas 2001), the author did not find his national background to have a varying effect when speaking with people of different ethnic backgrounds. Generally, the author gained an impression that his Czech background was considered as a neutral-positive factor by the interviewees, regardless of their ethnicity. Finally, in practical terms, being based in the Czech Republic made the frequent short-term trips to the region relatively easy and affordable. 3.8 Interviewing process
The field research was based on interviewing direct actors of the investigated political processes who were expected to be well informed about the local political affairs. The selected interlocutors thus played a role of key informants who can, thanks to their special insider position, provide the exclusive information to an external researcher (Marshall 1996). For the sake of identification of relevant key informants, a method of purposive sampling was applied with an aim to include well-informed representatives of different segments of a local political structure. The underlying questions addressed by the research are focused on political relations along two cleavages that may cross-cut or reinforce each other: between power and opposition, and between different ethnic groups. To gather most valid and reliable information for answering these questions, top officials representing different ethnic groups, as well as both power and opposition were pre-selected for the interviews. The aim of this purposive sampling was to compile a balanced depiction of local politics based on voices from different ethnic and political segments of the local society. Political stakeholders in post-conflict environments, both from the government and the opposition, may tend to control the information flows or even provide manipulated data (Wood 2007; Campbell 2017). The purposive selection of informants from different and mutually opposing political sectors was tailored to provide control over such possibly biased answers.
Also, to further check the validity and reliability of the data collected from the local political officials, prominent representatives of the local civic sector independent of politics were identified and addressed in each municipality. These mainly included leaders of local non- governmental initiatives or journalists covering the local political affairs. The aim of this step was not only to further cross-check the information collected from politicians with non- political yet well-informed observers, but also to acquire possible independent insights into local affairs that may be ignored or concealed by politicians for their own purposes. To reach this specific goal, identification of these interlocutors was based on two selection principles.
62 First, to provide reliable politically unbiased information, the informant was required to be unaffiliated to local political structures. Second, to provide valid information, he or she was required to be very well informed about local political affairs. Overall, the aim of the fieldwork in each municipality thus was to conduct interviews with representatives of all relevant ethnic groups represented both in power and opposition, and with a politically independent informed observer(s). Collecting information on central issues from informants with different ethnic and political backgrounds allowed for comparison and mutual verification of the answers. Relevant information gathered during the preliminary desk research from available primary and secondary sources were also used in this triangulation process.
Potential key informants were identified and pre-selected within the preparatory stage of the field research. An extensive desk research of available primary and secondary sources was conducted for each selected municipality prior to the actual fieldwork to gain a preliminary overview of local political affairs and identify central political issues and actors. This stage of the initial research was based first on the collection and analysis of quantitative data from primary sources, such as demographic figures and election results that allowed for identification of main ethno-political actors. Current local socio-political situation was then explored through available secondary sources to pre-select appropriate and potentially well- informed interlocutors both from the political and the non-political sphere. This exploration was primarily based on available reports in local media and information published online on official websites of municipal administration, political parties, and other local subjects. It was also supplemented with information gathered from publicly available profiles of local political or non-governmental organisations and individuals on their public social network profiles (Facebook and Twitter). Recommendations received from local informal contacts and informants from other municipalities were also considered in the purposive sampling process.
Once the potential interlocutors representing different political sectors had been identified within a municipality, these were usually contacted in advance with a formal request for an interview. In the request, which was delivered via email or phone depending on the contact information available, the intended focus and form of the interview were briefly presented. However, contacted individuals or institutions they represented only rarely responded to these distant and preliminary requests, or only replied to the author to contact them once he will be present in the area and available for a personal meeting. Therefore, in most cases the author only managed to reach the pre-selected informants directly during his stay in the locality, which made the interviewing process difficult to plan and also very unpredictable. On many occasions,
63 a facilitation of a meeting by local contacts or other previously interviewed informants was necessary to get direct access to some informants. Some of the informants thus also served as gatekeepers who facilitated the further process of interviewee selection, but using their intermediation did not imply an extensive use of the snowballing sampling technique which was generally avoided.
Overall, the author was able to establish contact with the majority of the pre-selected informants either directly, through their institutions or with the assistance of other local contacts. In this first interaction, the author briefly presented the focus of the research and proposed the form of the interview. The communication between the author and the potential informants was from the very first moment led by two critical ethical principles: transparency about the research purpose and confidentiality of the interviewing process (Campbell 2017). The approached interlocutors were openly informed about the author's academic background and about his research project, its focus and intended publication outcome. To explain the research interest concisely, the author informed them in a rather general way that he is primarily interested in questions related to the local socio-political situation in general and the inter- ethnic relations in particular. Because of the potential sensitivity of the topic for the informants, confidentiality of the interview and gathered data was guaranteed in the initial stage of the contact. During the first contact, the author also declared that the interview will not be recorded and offered full anonymity to most informants. The only exceptions were those of them who hold top official functions such as mayors or vice-mayors and were supposed to speak officially from their position. Since these informants were contacted through formal channels of their secretaries or municipal administration, providing anonymity to them would be pointless. Those of them who agreed with the interview also usually openly declared that they answer the questions officially as representatives of their institution.
On the contrary, confidentiality was critical for some informants representing more vulnerable political segments of society. Speaking openly about their relations with local power holders was sensitive for some opposition politicians or minority representatives who insisted on full anonymity. However, more of them considered the interview with the author as another opportunity to express their views or even a way to make their voice heard. Similar was the interaction with informants from the non-political sphere: most of them spoke openly about the local ethno-political affairs, while only a few felt uncomfortable and welcomed the offered anonymity.
64 However, the author did not succeed to interview all of the pre-selected informants contacted with the request. One part of those who were not interviewed was willing to accept the interview but were not available during the time of the author's stay in the locality. While the author attempted to reschedule these interviews for subsequent research trips to the region, because of limited time it was not feasible to pay second visits to all localities and some of the potential informants were thus not interviewed. The second group of unrealised interviews consists of those who directly or indirectly refused to take part in the research. This category of non-informants has potentially important negative implications for the overall validity of the collected data as it certainly limits the space for the triangulation and verification of sensitive findings. Therefore, this category will be discussed more in detail.
Typically, the interview was refused by officials holding local power and representing the local ethnic majority. The refusal was rarely expressed directly by the intended informants themselves but rather by their collaborators or secretaries. These people usually served as gatekeepers of the local institutional structures and their role proved to be crucial for getting access to elected chief officials such as municipal mayors or presidents of local parliaments and their deputies. Those of the gatekeepers who appeared to be truly willing to arrange the meeting in the initial stage eventually did for the most part. Municipal secretaries in many locations proved to be extremely helpful in arranging the interviews with top officials despite their limited time capacities and apparently no potential profit from the interview. Nevertheless, some of them seemed reluctant from the very first contact and rather served as protectors of the officials. It was not unusual that gatekeepers formally promised to facilitate the meeting but apparently obstructed it later on. In several institutions the author was requested to make an official plea for an interview after he attempted to contact local officials directly without prior request. However, it was often the case that nobody replied to the pleas and after repeated questions the author has usually been told that the local officials are too busy. The author attempted to reach these reluctant interviewees repeatedly but never put pressure on them and accepted their refusal as final after two or three unsuccessful attempts. It is important to note that in contrast to the experiences of some other scholars involved in field research in the post- conflict parts of the Balkans (Clark 2010), the author did find an ethnically based tendency of pre-selected informants ’ refusal to be interviewed. The reluctance was generally more pronounced among officials representing the ruling parties and ethnic majorities, regardless of their specific ethnic and political background. This is also confirmed by the relative proportionality in the representation of informants of various backgrounds as presented in
65 Table 5. Overall, the author successfully conducted interviews with 114 informants from different socio-political and ethnic segments of local communities in 28 locations. The distribution of interviews across municipalities, political sectors and ethno-political groups is presented in Table 5.
Non- Municipality State Region Majority-minority PC*ME Majority Minority aligned Darda CRO East Slavonia Croat-Serb yes 1 1 0 Erdut CRO East Slavonia Serb-Croat yes 1 1 0 Gracac CRO Krajina Croat-Serb yes 1 0 1 Kistanje CRO Krajina Serb-Croat yes 0 1 0 Knin CRO Krajina Croat-Serb yes 3 1 1 Obrovac CRO Krajina Croat-Serb yes 1 1 1 Vojnic CRO Krajina Serb-Croat yes 2 2 0 Vukovar CRO East Slavonia Croat-Serb yes 2 2 2 Capljina BaH Herzegovina Croat-Bosniak yes 1 3 0 Stolac BaH Herzegovina Croat-Bosniak yes 1 3 0 Vares BaH Central Bosnia Bosniak-Croat yes 1 1 0 Zepce BaH Central Bosnia Croat-Bosniak yes 2 2 0 Bosanski Petrovac BaH West Bosnia Bosniak-Serb yes 1 1 0 Doboj BaH Central Bosnia Bosniak-Serb yes 1 1 1 Prijedor BaH West Bosnia Bosniak-Serb yes 1 3 2 Rogatica BaH East Bosnia Bosniak-Serb yes 1 1 1 Brcko Distrikt BaH Posavina Bosniak-Serb-Croat yes 5 1 3 Glamoc BaH Herzegovina Serb-Croat-Bosniak yes 2 1 2 Vukosavlje BaH Posavina Bosniak-Serb-Croat yes 2 1 0 Banja Luka BaH West Bosnia Bosniak-Croat 1 2 3 Jablanica BaH Herzegovina Croat-Bosniak 2 0 1 Orasje BaH Posavina Croat-Bosniak 2 1 1 Sanski Most BaH West Bosnia Bosniak-Serb 2 0 1 Sarajevo BaH Central Bosnia Bosniak-Croat-Serb 2 3 2 Trebinje BaH Herzegovina Serb-Bosniak 3 1 2 Zenica BaH Central Bosnia Bosniak-Croat 1 1 2 Skradin CRO Krajina Croat-Serb 3 2 0 Topusko CRO Krajina Croat-Serb 2 3 1 Table 5: Number and structure of interview in municipalities covered by field research. The interviews were generally led by the author as semi-structured. The guiding topics and essential questions were thus prepared in advance and used for all informants, but the actual direction and scope of the interview mainly depended on the knowledge of the particular informant and their openness and willingness to discuss the issues in detail. All of these factors were continuously assessed by the author during the course of individual interviews and the structure of the questions asked was adapted along the way. As a result of this flexibility, the interviews widely varied in their duration and the quality and level of detail of the acquired information. The interviews usually lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, with the shortest only taking a few minutes and the longest several hours, depending on the informant's time availability and willingness to elaborate on the provided answers. The locations of interviews were chosen by the interviewees and most of them took place in local cafes or offices of local
66 institutions, political parties or NGOs where the interviewees are engaged. Except for one, none of the interviews was recorded and the author only took hand-written notes during the interview that were transcribed immediately after into a full transcription. Furthermore, the structure of interviews continuously developed through the 8 years when the data were collected in various areas of Bosnia and Croatia. While the general focus of interviews on the local inter-ethnic relations continued during the whole time, the specific direction of single interviews was gradually narrowed as the whole research was more targeted and the author's sensitivity to crucial issues developed with more information acquired. With the increasing number of interviews conducted in single locations and with the recurring visits to some of them, it was not necessary to address the already covered general issues in each single interview. The author thus gradually inclined to use the limited opportunities for interviews to focus on specific critical issues raised by other informants, or on the verification of questionable statements from other informants.
In general, the fieldwork conducted directly in the localities provided the author with a much more detailed picture and understanding of the local post-conflict dynamics of inter-ethnic relations than a distant perspective acquired through other data collection methods and sources. The observations gathered in the field were not only used for the production of in-depth empirical description of single cases, but also conceptually through the whole process of formulation of the research framework. In all stages of the research, from its design, through the data collection, the processing and the analysis, up to the theoretical discussions of empirical findings, the author intensely communicated with the detailed empirical knowledge acquired directly in the field. The whole research presented in this volume is thus methodologically grounded in a mixed inductive-deductive approach. Established theoretical assumptions on possible pathways and models of post-conflict inter-ethnic relations have served as conceptual guidelines in a deductive way. Simultaneously, empirical evidence collected in different areas of the post-Yugoslav space has been used inductively to apply the general concepts to the context of the local post-conflict politics in the region in accordance with its specificity. 3.9 Desk research
As explained above, the fieldwork conducted in the first phase of the research only covered the sub-sample of 19 selected crucial cases of post-conflict ethnically diverse municipalities. The remaining 62 relevant cases of the whole population thus only had to be covered by the
67 subsequent desk research based on the collection of relevant data from publicly available primary and secondary sources. While the data collection method was different, the desk research generally followed the same conceptual procedures that were previously applied in cases covered by the field research. In each of the examined cases, the author first collected primary demographic and electoral data to map the local ethno-political structure and identify the main actors on the local scene in each municipality. Subsequently, available information about power relations between these actors and about local socio-political affairs in general were searched in local languages in publicly available sources. In parallel to the ruling principle of the field research, the objective was to collect data from different sources reflecting the possibly varying views of different ethnic and political segments of local politics. The data collection was based on the assumption that such a representative amount of data would provide understanding of local relations between political power and opposition and between ethnic majorities and minorities. The data were collected from a variety of publicly available primary and secondary sources that mainly reflected the presumed diversity of views coming from single ethnic and political segments of the local communities.
To get a basic insight into the positions and opinions of major political actors, the author reviewed their official communication platforms such as websites of municipalities and their institutions and local branches of political parties, both in power and in opposition. Publicly available information and statements on social media profiles of political organisations or their single representatives proved to be very useful as they revealed political views on local affairs expressed directly by relevant actors. Besides that, interviews with local politicians in local media were important not only for mapping their views, but also for providing the elementary first-hand information about local politics dynamics in general. These categories of data sources were valuable as they provided insights into views of main political actors and as such could at least partly substitute the data that would otherwise be collected directly by interviews in the field. However, similar to the personal interviews, this sort of information also potentially suffers from limited data validity as it only reflects one-sided views by single actors. Information provided directly by local stakeholders was thus treated critically, and all collected statements were mutually triangulated to control for possible bias and misinterpretation.
Media reporting about local political affairs was the second important set of data sources within the desk research. Articles were gathered online from a wide variety of media outlets covering political developments in all states and regions under examination. To discover relevant media content, keyword search was conducted by using general website search techniques as well as
68 local news search engines such as infobiro.ba in Bosnia, daily.mk and time.mk in Macedonia, naslovi.net in Serbia, and lajme.al for Albanian speaking areas. Media reports were collected from central news agencies, big nation-wide newspapers and also from smaller regional and local media. Besides written content, information was also collected from video reporting of public and private TV channels covering local political developments in their news.
In contrast to the information gathered from one-sided statements and interviews with political actors, media reporting was supposed to provide a more balanced assessment of local political situations. However, the assumed impartiality of media reporting can certainly also be limited in politically or ethnically divided communities where the official media can limit their coverage to the ruling groups and inform about them in a biased way (Campbell 2017). Frequent politically and ethnically imbalanced informing of media has been documented across post-Yugoslav states by various monitoring projects both on the state level (Opačić and Čolović 2017; Turčilo 2010) and the local level (Analiziraj.ba 2018; Fondacija Slavko Ćuvurija 2018). To reduce the risk of using invalid or biased data, information was searched in the media of different ethnic and political backgrounds. Across the post-Yugoslav region, the media scene is largely organised along ethnic lines. The ethno-political cause of that division is mostly profound in Bosnia where, despite linguistic proximity, most public and private media are affiliated to one of the three ethnic groups (Agović 2016). In Croatia, a rather small Serb minority only has a single nation-wide ethnically affiliated media platform (Portal Novosti) within the media scene otherwise dominated by a Croat-majority or ethnically non-affiliated media. In Kosovo, Macedonia and south Serbia, the division of media on ethnic basis is certainly deepened by complete linguistic difference between Albanian and Slavic languages and low levels of bilingualism in general. While public TV broadcasters in Kosovo and Macedonia provide information in both main languages, most of the major private media are only available in single language and speak exclusively to one ethnic community (Thompson 2018). In the mixed areas of south Serbia, the local political developments are mainly covered in Albanian by media from the neighbouring Kosovo, while local and nation-wide media channels are almost exclusively available in Serbian. To compensate for potentially imbalanced information provided by ethnically affiliated media reporting, information about local political affairs were collected from sources published in different languages and representing all relevant ethnic groups.
For each single municipality covered by the research the author was usually able to collect between 10 to 30 relevant secondary sources consisting of media articles, TV reports,
69 interviews and political content published by relevant local figures on social media. However, the author faced a problem of limited data availability for some of the municipalities and had to deal with the imbalance in data coverage between single cases. In some places the local politics is covered closely by local or even national media. These are mostly larger towns and regional capitals where local political dynamics has direct relevance for higher politics, such as Travnik or Bijeljina in Bosnia, Tetovo in Macedonia or Bujanovac in Serbia. The media also usually cover political developments in the infamous hotspots of ethnic tensions, like the divided Stolac and Srebrenica in Bosnia or Vukovar in Croatia. In such cases the desk research and data collection were relatively easy thanks to the availability of multiple secondary sources that, when compiled and triangulated, provided a relatively comprehensive picture of the local political reality. On the contrary, it sometimes proved rather difficult to find any relevant secondary sources that would inform about the local political affairs in smaller and peripheral municipalities that are under the radar of the national and local media. However, except for a few smaller municipalities where only single data sources were found, it was possible to cover sufficiently all cases with relevant sources of various origin. In total, over 730 media articles, interviews and public statements informing about local political affairs in various languages and from different perspectives were collected across all 81 municipalities. These single sources were indexed through the Zotero software and relevant information from them were collected in a OneNote file for further use. Within the subsequent analytical steps, all collected data were triangulated and compiled for the construction of in-depth description of single cases that was further used in the comparative analysis.
70 4 Local ethnopolitics in mixed areas of post-conflict Balkans: between exclusion and power-sharing
This empirical part of the volume presents the findings of the extensive research on local ethnic politics conducted in the post-conflict areas of the Balkans. It builds on the qualitative and quantitative evidence collected in 81 ethnically mixed post-conflict municipalities with the aim to present a comprehensive picture of the role that ethnicity plays in local-level politics. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, it maps the political behaviour of ethnic communities through the political cycle: from political identification and organisation into parties, through electoral mobilisation and representation in local representative bodies, up to the government formation and access to local executive power. The presentation of findings is structured along the following three primary stages of the political cycle: organisation, mobilisation and power division.
The first part focuses on patterns of political identification and organisation in ethnically diverse post-conflict settings. It focuses on the local political landscapes of mixed post-conflict areas across the region, looking at political parties as the main agencies in the post-conflict political processes. Using a large dataset composed from election records, the first part of the empirical part systematically maps all political actors active on the local level, categorising them along two conceptual dimensions: according to their ethnic and cross-ethnic appeal, and in regard to their local or national organisational basis. Electoral performance of these broader categories of political actors is examined on the regional level as well as within single states whose local party systems are discussed in light of the state-level politics.
The second chapter further analyses the political actors and looks closer at the ethno-political mobilisation of voters by the identified ethnic parties at the election stage of the political process. Its first part examines the political salience of ethnicity by assessing the overall extent of political mobilisation along the ethnic cleavages. It also compares the levels of ethno- political mobilisation on the inter-group level to test Horowitz's (1985) theoretical assumption on ethnicization of elections in deeply divided societies, identifying structural discrepancy between mobilisation of minority and majority groups. The causes of these differences are discussed as well as their implications for political representation of minority groups. The second part of the chapter looks at the internal mobilisation dynamics of local ethnic groups and investigates the intra-group political fragmentation. It departs from the theory of ethnic
71 outbidding and tests the theoretical assumptions formulated by Stroschein (2011) that expect intra-ethnic political pluralism to develop only in majority groups that do not feel endangered by losing their dominant political position to the minority.
The third chapter looks at the post-election stage of the political process and deals with the division of executive political power between ethnic groups. Its first part discusses possible forms of political inclusion and exclusion of groups in local decision-making and applies the theoretical debate on models of power-sharing between consociationalism and centripetalism to the local level politics. Departing from the leading theories, it develops ideal types of local power-sharing arrangements on the one hand, and of ethnic exclusion on the other, and confronts them with the empirical evidence collected across mixed areas of the region. The second part of the chapter provides a comprehensive empirical overview and comparative analysis of observed patterns of political power and its division across 81 mixed post-conflict municipalities of the region based on an assessment of 165 ethnic groups' access to local power. It classifies the recorded outcomes according to the level of their inclusiveness into 7 categories that are linked to the broader concepts previously developed from the theories of post-conflict power-sharing.!
72 4.1 Forms of political organisation: ethnic and cross-ethnic, state- level and local political parties
In ethnically heterogeneous societies, political identification and organisation can take specific forms. Instead of traditional forms of organisation based solely on the common political and socio-economic interests (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Kitschelt 1995), citizens in ethnically diverse communities tend to politically identify with their ethnic kin (Chandra 2004; Ishiyama 2001; Coakley 2008). The political salience of ethnicity is particularly high in post-conflict societies as violent inter-ethnic conflicts increase the in-group ethnic mobilisation and harden ethnic identities (Posen 1993; Kaufmann 1996). As a result of high levels of ethno-political mobilisation, ethnicity frequently becomes the primary or even the only political cleavage in areas that have suffered ethnic wars. As Horowitz claims, as a matter of fact elections in politics deeply divided along ethnical axes therefore become an ethnic census (Horowitz 1985).
Political parties are central to processes of post-conflict political organisation and identification. They act as the main agencies within the post-conflict political processes and as such become a crucial part of the puzzle of the post-conflict peace building. However, the two leading theories of post-conflict political moderation posit contradictory assumptions about the prescribed role and type of ethnic parties in ethnically diverse societies. Advocates of the consociational theory consider ethnic parties legitimate representatives of ethnic groups, whose cooperation on the elite level is the most secure way to keep stability in the divided polity (Lijphart 1977). According to the consociational theory, grand coalitions consisting of major ethnic parties representing all ethnic groups guarantee political representation of all groups regardless of their relative position. As explained by Ishiyama (Ishiyama and Breuning 2011, 224), “a longstanding argument made by advocates of the consociational school is that ethnic parties actually help dampen conflict by channeling demands through legal channels, thus increasing “voice” and preventing “exit” of ethnic groups via conflict.” Ethnic parties are thus considered a desired form of political representation by the advocates of the consociational argument.
On the contrary, the centripetal theory argues that ethnic parties are in fact deepening the ethnic division and cementing the conflict. Its advocates see a way to stability in political moderation facilitated by parties with cross-ethnic appeal that consequently represent interests of citizens regardless of their ethnicity (Horowitz 1985). Parties organised on multi-ethnic or non-ethnic basis are supposed to exploit and strengthen the existing cross-cutting political cleavages and
73 thus decrease the political salience of ethnicity (Reilly 2006b). The main difference between the two theoretical approaches thus lies in the stage of the political process where the interests of different ethnic groups should be accommodated. While consociationalism presumes post- election accommodation on the elite level within the government, centripetalism calls for pre- election accommodation on the public level within political parties.
Departing from these competing assumptions, this chapter maps the local political landscapes of the ethnically mixed areas in the post-conflict parts of the Western Balkans. The aim of the chapter is to identify who the relevant actors are representing the citizens ’ interest in the post- conflict politics, and whether these are organised on ethnic or non-ethnic basis. Parallel to that, it also explores to what extent the local party systems are connected to the party structures organised on the state level, or whether they develop genuinely on the local level.
Specifically, the chapter comprehensively maps the political parties active on the local level in ethnically mixed post-conflict areas and categorises them along two conceptual dimensions. First, it classifies all relevant political organisations according to their ethnic and cross-ethnic appeal. Second, it distinguishes those that are linked to the state-level politics from authentic local movements. The chapter thus provides a comprehensive overview of who the main political actors on the local level are and to what extent the local party systems in ethnically mixed post-conflict areas differ from the ethnicised politics on the national level.
4.1.1 Ethnic parties in the post-Yugoslav space
Across the post-Yugoslav space, national politics has been dominated by ethnic parties since the onset of the multi-party system in the early 1990s (Kapidžić 2014; Kubo 2007). The ethnic conflicts of the 1990s deeply hardened ethnic identities and made them the primary political cleavage across the post-Yugoslav region. Through the post-war period, the high political salience of ethnicity has largely persisted in the ethnically heterogeneous parts of the region in the sphere of state-level politics. In Bosnia and North Macedonia, the primacy of the ethno- political cleavage inherited from the conflict was embedded in the consociational political systems that implicitly favour ethnically oriented parties (Belloni 2004; Stroschein 2014). The party systems have developed within clearly defined ethnic arenas with almost no cross-cutting of the ethnic cleavage (Hulsey and Keil 2019; Šedo 2013b). In Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia the ethnic cleavage is not central to the state-level politics due to the relatively small size of ethnic minority communities, but political relations between the state-level majorities and minorities have been mainly framed in ethno-political terms by ethnic parties. In Kosovo and Serbia,
74 where respective Albanian and Serb communities represent only smaller and territorially concentrated minorities, the substance of the national politics is concentrated within the bloc of parties representing the majority, while minorities are situated both geographically and politically on the periphery, organising in distinct minority parties on ethnic basis. The political position of the minorities in Kosovo and Serbia has been framed in ethnic terms, thus deepening the ethnic minority-majority cleavage (Huszka 2007; Cocozzelli 2008). The case of Croatia is the only partial exception to this general trend of ethnicisation of party politics in the region, as the left-wing bloc of parties, to a certain extent, gained political legitimacy among both the Croat majority and the Serb minority and thus developed a cross-ethnic appeal in the long term (Petričušić 2008). However, in ethnically relevant issues, the Serb minority has still been represented by its traditional ethnic parties that have enjoyed stable support from the ethnically identifying part of the community, while a large part of Croats has also been supporting the ethnically exclusive Croat parties (Škiljan 2012). All post-conflict ethnic groups in the region, regardless of their majority and minority status on the state level, have been politically represented almost exclusively by parties with mono-ethnic appeal. Political identities in the whole post-conflict region are thus closely tied with ethnic identification. On the national level, all post-conflict groups across the region have politically identified and mobilised primarily on ethnic grounds. Overall, ethnic identification has dominated over other political cleavages in the national politics across the region.
The aim of the first stage of the research was to investigate if the dominance of ethnic politics in general, and ethnic parties in particular, on the national level is equally mirrored on the local level. The main indicators applied for assessing the level of ethnicisation of local politics are the presence of ethnic and non-ethnic parties that reveal forms of political identification along or across ethnic lines, and more importantly the electoral performance of these parties, which reveals the legitimacy that these forms of identification have among citizens. To comprehensively analyse these indicators, a dataset consisting of all political actors active in the local politics was compiled from the election results. The electoral data about all candidate parties running in the last elections for municipal parliaments and their voting support were collected for all 81 municipalities covered by the research from the official elections records. Since the state bodies in the region mostly do not present the election results in a form that would be suitable for automated data collection and analysis, the data were collected manually for all municipalities and transformed in a comparable form into a new dataset suitable for further analysis. The integrated dataset contains basic electoral data for the total of 732 parties
75 running in the most recent (2015/16 in Serbia, 2016 in Bosnia, 2017 in Macedonia, Croatia and Kosovo) local elections. Only parties with electoral support above 0.1% of votes in the elections were included in the dataset to exclude those political subjects that are politically irrelevant or only run in the elections formally without actual intention and prospect to gain legitimacy.
The structure of the data recorded for each single party consists of the name of the party, the count of votes received, and the number of mandates gained in the local legislature. These three input values, complemented with calculations of percentages of votes and seats received, thus comprise the basis of the dataset. The above specified raw data compiled in the dataset serve as the primary input for further qualitative coding and subsequent comparative analysis of electoral performance, within which they are combined with the extensive qualitative evidence.
4.1.2 Party coding procedure
To distinguish between the ethnic and non-ethnic categories with regard to political parties, it was necessary to first identify those political subjects that are representing the ethno-political interests of single communities on the one hand, and those that are effectively cross-cutting the ethnic cleavage on the other. Existing research on ethnic politics provides various definitions of ethnic parties. These range from very narrow and strictly delineated definitions based on the party's actual ethnically exclusive agenda to broader concepts looking solely on the party's mono-ethnic appeal (Ishiyama 2009; Gherghina and Jiglau 2011; Chandra 2011). Chandra (2004) in her reputable work on ethnic parties offers a rather narrow definition of an ethnic party that needs to fulfil the conditions of ascription (to an ethnic group), exclusion (of the other ethnic groups), and centrality (of the ethnic category). On the contrary, Horowitz (1985, 291) in his seminal research of ethnic conflict defines ethnic parties in somewhat broader terms primarily through their electoral appeal that is limited to specific ethnic groups, regardless of whether it makes explicitly exclusive ethnic goals central to its agenda.
“An ethnically based party derives its support overwhelmingly from an identifiable ethnic group and serves the interests of that group. In practice, a party will serve the interests of the group comprising its overwhelming support or quickly forfeit that support, so the test of an ethnic party is simply the distribution of support.“
Both sets of definitions have been applied in empirical research of political systems in the post- Yugoslav space in classification of political parties along the ethnic category (Bieber 2006;
76 Piacentini 2019; Mujkić and Hulsey 2010; Touquet 2011; Murtagh 2016). In line with Horowitz's assumption on the representation of voters ’ interest, the broader definition by electoral appeal is applied in this research for two main reasons, one of them being conceptual and the other methodological. First, this broader conceptualisation of ethnic parties through their appeal better serves the purpose of identifying those political forces that have ethnically exclusive political legitimacy limited to single ethnic groups. Since the local ethnic communities are the main subject of the analysis, it is primarily interested in their actual representation through political parties, rather than on the declaratory content of the parties’ agendas. Second, due to the large number of 732 political units participating in the single local elections, the coding of their ethnic or non-ethnic profile based on their political agendas would be extremely methodologically challenging since the political program is often difficult to clearly identify on the very local level of municipal politics. Instead of that, looking at the distribution of voting support from single ethnic communities is easier to operationalise and measure through empirical data.
Based on this definition of the ethnic party, all 732 parties included in the dataset were classified according to their electoral appeal to one or more ethnic groups. If a party appeals exclusively to a single ethnic community, it is coded as ethnic for the purpose of the research and labelled with the group it appeals to. In line with thresholds introduced by Horowitz (1985), Scarritt (2006), and Ishiyama (2012), those parties that gain at least 85% of electoral support from members of a single group are conceptually considered as ethnic, yet the exact measurement of voting distribution is frequently impossible, as will be further discussed below.
On the contrary, all parties that effectively appeal to voters of various ethnicities were classified as cross-ethnic. Both Horowitz (1985) and Chandra (2004) further distinguish between multi- ethnic and non-ethnic parties as the two mutually distinct categories opposite to ethnic parties, the former representing more ethnic groups, while the latter organised and acting fully independently on ethnic categories. However, these parties are not further scrutinised: instead all of them are categorised as cross-ethnic, based on their appeal cross-cutting the ethnic cleavage and thus not linking them to specific ethnic groups.
While this classification may seem to be technically straightforward, the coding of all 732 political subjects participating in local politics by their (cross-)ethnic appeal was not without challenge as it frequently required careful assessment on a case-by-case basis. Due to the specificity of the local party systems, the coding procedure of the parties’ ethnic profile was done separately for each of the cases, reflecting the locally specific political reality. As defined
77 above, the coding procedure was based on the assessment of the parties’ electoral appeal. While the applied definition of an ethnic party includes the clear-cut threshold of at least 85% of votes coming from a single ethnic group, it is not feasible to calculate the exact ethnic distribution of votes from the election results that do not include information about the voters’ ethnicity. Therefore, the ethnic structure of votes received by single parties was estimated based on a combination of available qualitative and quantitative evidence. While most of the major state- level parties in the region can be clearly linked to one ethnic group because of their admitted or proven ethnic orientation, local party systems do not necessarily fully reflect that distinction. Similar to that, the parties with cross-ethnic appeal on the state level can, under locally specific circumstances, only appeal to a single ethnic community. Furthermore, all local political movements have to be coded manually on a case-by-case basis due to their specificity. Therefore, a thorough assessment of all locally active political subjects was needed to establish their potential links to single ethnic communities on the one hand, or cross-ethnic appeal on the other hand.
Prior to their further categorisation according to their ethnic appeal, the political subjects were divided into two broad categories with different coding procedures, depending on the political level where they are organised.
State-level parties
The first, and by far the more frequent category consists of political parties that are organised on a higher political level. Local branches of major national parties organised on the state level generally play the leading role in local politics across the region. 667 of the total 732 political units participating in the local elections were the local candidate lists formed by state-level parties that were running independently or in coalitions in the elections. The classification of political subjects organised on the state level according to their ethnic or non-ethnic appeal is generally easier as these parties usually openly declare their ethnic or civic affiliation. There is no reason to assume that those parties that act as ethno-national on the state level would seek cross-ethnic appeal on the local level where they use their political, personal and institutional backing gained in the high national politics. On the other hand, parties proclaiming their multi- ethnic or civic orientation on the state level would presumably also seek cross-ethnic appeal on the local level.
In all states covered by the research, the main ethno-national parties that dominate in the state- level politics also play an important role on the local scene and overshadow the nominally civic
78 state-level parties. Most of the local subjects that are organised on the state level (604 in total) profile as mono-ethnic in the national politics. These 604 candidate lists consist of 94 unique political subjects that were running independently or in various coalitions across the municipalities.
One part of these ethnic parties can be labelled as openly ethno-nationalist by their political profiling on the national level (Stojarová 2013). Typically, these are the main ethno-national parties (and their minor competitors) in Bosnia representing the ethnic interests of three constituent nations (SDA for Bosniaks, SDS and SNSD for Serbs, HDZ for Croats), the traditional leading ethno-nationalist parties representing Macedonians (VMRO-DPMNE) and Albanians (DUI and DPA) in Macedonia, Croats (HDZ) and Serbs (SDSS) in Croatia or Albanians in Kosovo (PDK). Another type of the ethnic parties are rather moderate parties, whose profile and agenda are not openly nationalist, yet still implicitly appeal to only one ethnic group (Hulsey 2015). Typical instances of such parties are presented by smaller moderate parties representing Serbs (DNS, PDP) or Bosniaks (SBB) in Bosnia, left-wing SDSM representing Macedonians in Macedonia, or moderate Albanian parties in Kosovo (LDK, AKR).
Despite the apparent differences in their rhetoric and level of moderation, all these parties appeal in the elections exclusively to a single ethnic group, and as such are all coded automatically as ethnic in the dataset. Besides the conceptual assumption of a spillover of their mono-ethnic appeal from the national politics to the local level, this ethnic labelling was also supported by the data collected through the fieldwork. In any of the 22 municipalities covered by the fieldwork, national parties did not intend to effectively reach to other ethnic communities than to the particular one that they are affiliated with on the national level. Some of the ethnic parties occasionally include candidates of other ethnicities purposefully to gain reserved minority seats, but without actual intention to reach to voters of other ethnicity (Bieber 2013a).
The following table shows that the number of relevant state-level ethnic parties active in the local politics as well as their electoral gains varies widely across the single states and ethnic groups of the region. While the ethnic political scene of some groups is highly fragmented, other communities are politically organised in only a few political subjects that are active state- wide. Expectedly, the level of political fragmentation of the ethnic representation on the state level mainly correlates with the absolute and relative size of the particular community. Thus, the demographically numerous constituent nations in Bosnia as well as the Croat majority in
79 Croatia and the Albanian majority in Kosovo are represented by more than ten ethnic parties active state-wide. On the contrary, the demographically weak minorities of Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo are rather homogenised into only a few political platforms on the state level. The Macedonian political scene differs structurally from those of Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia, as it is generally much less fragmented on the state level and dominated by only a few leading parties in both ethno-political blocs, which are usually integrating smaller subjects in broader coalitions.
State Group Party % of votes BaH Bosniaks SDA 60% SDP 16% SBB 9% other 8% DF 7% Croats HDZ BiH 80% HDZ 1990 11% other 9% Serbs SNSD 29% SDS 23% DNS 14% other 11% PDP 10% SP 8% NDP 4% CRO Croats HDZ 85% other 15% Serbs SDSS 80% DSS 20% KS Albanians LDK 27% PDK 21% AAK 20% VV 17% AKR 9% other 5% NISMA 2% Serbs SL 89% other 11% MAC Albanians DUI 42% BESA 31% AA 19% DPA 8% Macedonians SDSM 54% VMRO 46% NDM 0% SRB Albanians PDD-DUA 46% PD 38% PDP 15% RS 1% Serbs SNS 81% SPS 15% other 4%
Figure 5: Major parties with mono-ethnic appeal organised on the state level (parties having cross-ethnic appeal in some municipalities are in italics).
80 A considerably more delicate case was the classification of the parties that profile as nominally non-ethnic, multi-ethnic or civic on the state level. While the local branches of these parties formally declare their non-ethnic orientation in the municipal politics too, their non-ethnic profile on the state level does not always effectively transmit to the locally specific political landscapes in single mixed areas. Even those parties that have cross-ethnic profile on the national level might have ethnically exclusive appeal under locally specific circumstances. Therefore, the non-ethnic appeal of these civic parties was carefully scrutinised on the local level prior to their classification. The main indicator was the territorial distribution of their voting support across single electoral units and its comparison to the ethno-demographic structure of the local population. If the party was able to gain significant support from areas of various ethnic majority, it confirmed its cross-ethnic appeal on the local level.
This localised discrepancy between mono-ethnic and cross-ethnic appeal of civic parties can be best illustrated in the case of the SDP party in Bosnia. The Left-wing SDP is, by declaration, a multi-ethnic party with mixed profile of membership and non-ethnic agenda, but it has been proved that its electoral appeal on the national level is, with the exception of larger urban centres, mostly limited to the voters of the Bosniak ethnicity (Mujkić and Hulsey 2010; Touquet 2011). Its mono-ethnic appeal was confirmed in most examined mixed areas on the local level, where the party in fact only competes with other Bosniak ethno-national parties for the Bosniak voters ’ support, despite the fact that it keeps the nominally multi-ethnic profile in its local membership and agenda. In interviews with the author of the present work, local leading representatives of SDP in Žepče and Stolac confirmed that while the local party organisation is actively preserving its multi-ethnic image, it is hardly reaching out to local Croat majorities (Interviews 4, 95, 110), which is a typical trend in the mixed Bosniak-Croat areas. In the mixed Bosniak-Serb areas across the RS entity, SDP has profiled as a mainly mono-ethnic political alternative to the traditionally stronger SDA in representation of Bosniak returnees ’ interest, thus rather openly affiliating with the Bosniak communities, all the more, it frequently does not even intend to keep its multi-ethnic profile internally (Interviews 45, 104). The territorial distribution of SDP’s voting support in most of the municipalities confirmed that their candidates gained most of the votes in the Bosniak-majority areas, and the party was thus labelled as ethnic. However, under locally specific circumstances, local branches of SDP in a few municipalities have been able to attract certain cross-ethnic support. In three mixed Bosniak-Croat municipalities in Hercegovina (Čapljina) and Central Bosnia (Kreševo, Vareš), as well as in one municipality in RS (Kostajnica), SDP was able to
81 effectively attract support not only from local Bosniak minorities, but also from a smaller part of the local Croat/Serb majorities, thus reaching certain cross-ethnic appeal. On a similar basis, a few other nominally civic parties organised on the state level (NSRB, DNZ, DF) were also able to reach cross-ethnic support in single specific municipalities.
In contrast to only nominally multi-ethnic parties in Bosnia, the left-wing SDP party in Croatia has been traditionally receiving significant support from both main ethnic communities, Croat and Serbs, on the national level. The thorough analysis of the territorial distribution of votes combined with information from interviews in municipalities covered by the fieldwork confirmed that its cross-ethnic appeal on the state level effectively transmits into cross-ethnic support on the local level in all examined mixed municipalities. All candidate lists of SDP in Croatia were thus coded as cross-ethnic parties in the dataset.
Local political subjects
Besides the parties established on the national level, municipal politics provides a unique space for local political actors that are independent of the state party structures. However, compared to the parties organised on the central level, such local initiatives play a minor role in local politics. Only 65 candidate lists out of the total 732 political subjects running in the elections were locally established political subjects, running either as single independent candidates or as independent political initiatives.
Ethnic categorisation of these local movements had to be done carefully as there is usually no clear-cut indication of their ethnic or non-ethnic affiliation and therefore case-to-case categorisation of all these political subjects was required. The assessment was based primarily on the territorial distribution of their votes, combined with a review of their political program and information gathered through interviews in areas covered by the fieldwork. Some of these local actors mostly follow the trend of the established national parties in their mono-ethnic orientation. In the Herzegovian municipality of Čapljina, the local nominally independent party Čapljinska neovisna stranka, despite its nonalignment with major national parties and the absence of an open declaration of its ethnic orientation, is seeking support exclusively from the Croat majority by using the same ethno-national language as its main competitor, the traditional Croat nationalist HDZ (Interview 113). Similar to that, the declaratory regional party Posavska stranka, active in the north of Bosnia, is only appealing to voters of the Croat ethnicity (Interview 33). All of the nominally local initiatives running in the elections in Kosovo and Serbia were in fact also appealing exclusively to either the Serb or the Albanian communities
82 (see the Section 4.1.4). On the contrary, some of the local movements successfully seek and gain support across ethnic communities. In the Croatian town of Knin, an independent movement led by a former politician of the Croat ethnic party successfully attracted support of both Croat and Serb communities and became the ruling party thanks to votes taken from traditional ethnic parties. In Bosnian Brčko, a locally established movement (BDP) led by a former member of SDP effectively sought support primarily from the Bosniak voters but partially also from Serbs.
4.1.3 Performance of ethnic, non-ethnic and local parties
In the first step of the analysis, the focus is on the presence and electoral performance of ethnic and non-ethnic political forms of political organisation in the local politics of mixed post- conflict areas of the region. Based on their coded ethnic appeal, all candidate parties running in local elections are examined and linked to the local ethnic groups through coding procedure. The aggregated data about electoral support of parties coded as ethnic and non-ethnic clearly show that the local level politics in mixed areas does not differ from the state politics in regard to the dominance of ethno-political identification and organisation over its civic and non-ethnic forms. In the recent local elections, political parties with mono-ethnic appeal clearly dominated in municipal politics of the heterogeneous areas as they gained 97% of the total 888385 votes cast in the 81 mixed municipalities across the post-conflict areas of the region. In average, candidate parties with ethnically exclusive electoral appeal received 92% of votes on the municipal level.
However, there is some important variation across single states of the region in this regard which reflects the different political settings on the national level. As the following table with counts of votes for ethnic and non-ethnic parties in single states shows, non-ethnic form of political representation is fully absent in mixed municipalities of Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, and only extremely rare in Bosnia. In mixed municipalities of Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, no single party was identified as having cross-ethnic appeal and only ethnic parties were running in the elections. This finding is in line with the general absence of political forces that would cross-cut the ethnic divide in the mixed Slavic-Albanian part of the region (Stojarová and Emerson 2013). In Bosnia, some cross-ethnic parties are present on the local level, yet their results are marginal in light of the dominance of ethnic parties as they only gained 1.5% of total votes. However, municipalities in Croatia are a partial exception to the observed dominance of ethnic parties: while the ethnic options still dominate local politics with
83 an overwhelming majority of votes (68%), parties with cross-ethnic appeal receive significant electoral support counting for almost a third of the votes cast in the elections.
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% ethnic 40% cross-ethnic % of total votes % of total 30% 20% 10% 0% BH CRO KS MAC SRB States
Figure 6: Share of votes received by parties with ethnic and cross-ethnic appeal in single states. The aggregated data also allow to assess the second examined dimension of political organisation through the comparison of state-level parties and local movements. The count of votes received by the two categories show a full dominance of parties organised on the state level in local politics of mixed areas. Local independent candidates only received about 37,000 votes (or 4%) in total and 5% in average, which indicate their marginal role in local politics compared to established state-level parties. However, there are some important differences in the level of the electoral performance of these local political subjects between the states of the region. While local independent candidates or lists received only 1% of total votes cast in Macedonia, under 3% in Bosnia and under 6% in Kosovo, they gained almost 15% of votes in Croatian municipalities and 12% in the two municipalities in Serbia.
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% state 40% local % of total votes % of total 30% 20% 10% 0% BH CRO KS MAC SRB States
Figure 7: Share of votes received by state-level and local parties in single states.
84 To uncover the structural roots of these variations, the party systems of all five states are further discussed in the following sections. In each of the states, the party system on the national level is briefly described prior to a more comprehensive analysis of local party systems on the municipal level in ethnically mixed areas.
4.1.4 Kosovo
In Kosovo, local politics of ethnically mixed municipalities is generally dominated by the state- level parties that define themselves in clearly ethnic terms and do not have any intention to cross-cut the interethnic Serb-Albanian cleavage. Besides the major established parties organised centrally, there are also various independent movements running in the municipal elections, yet all of them have solely mono-ethnic appeal and thus compete within the closed ethno-political segments of local politics. Local politics in ethnically mixed areas fully reflects the political situation on the state level as the dominant forces of the national politics also control the local political processes. Political alternatives that would seek support from across the two main ethnic communities are thus non-existent in mixed areas of Kosovo. The overall structure of local politics in mixed municipalities of Kosovo is visualised in the following figure presenting the distribution of mandates in local parliaments among single state-level parties and local political actors.
85
Figure 8: Kosovo: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments of examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Albanians
Within the Albanian part of the electorate, the six dominant parties that traditionally assume the leading roles on the national political scene dominate the fragmented local politics. These Albanian parties differ slightly in their program orientation on the national level but share with them the mono-ethnic appeal to Albanian voters, a close connection with the political entrepreneur/clientelist networks of their leaders and specific regional strongholds (Wise and Agarin 2017). While the ideological differences between the parties on the traditional left-right spectrum are rather small, they primarily distinguish themselves through their historical legacy (Krasniqi 2016). A large part of the Kosovar political scene (PDK, AAK, NISMA) has developed from the former structures of the insurgent KLA (Vujović 2017). On the contrary, LDK is the traditional moderate nationalist party rooted in the peaceful resistance of 1990, AKR was established as a new moderate force in the post-2000 period and Vetevendosje has grown up into a popular protest movement in response to the post-independence developments (Cocozzelli 2013). The local elections are usually decided by a combination of national-level topics (Wise and Agarin 2017) combined with strong local leaders and their networks (Vela 2017). These factors pay off for established parties on the national level and contribute to their
86 dominance over local politics. The Figure 7 presenting the frequency of candidacy of single parties shows that PDK and VV were running individually in all or almost all mixed municipalities, LDK, AKR, AAK and NISMA had their candidate lists in only some of them, mainly in those where the relative and absolute size of the Albanian electorate is larger (Obilić, Kamenica, Novo Brdo). The Figure 8 then shows the distribution of votes gained by these parties which was relatively equal and shows a high level of fragmentation of the Albanian ethnic politics on the local level.
Figure 9: Kosovo - Albanians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2017 local elections.
Figure 10: Kosovo - Albanians: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Besides the established national parties, a few local initiatives were also running in the election on behalf of the Albanian citizens, yet none of them intended to reach out to the Serb voters, as was openly shown by their emphasis on their ‘Albanian ’ substance, which, in some cases, was included even in their name. Furthermore, some of these nominally local candidate lists were in fact products of coalition agreements between the leading national parties intended to politically integrate the demographically and politically weak Albanian minority in the area
87 and maximise its electoral chances vis-à-vis the local Serb majorities. Those of the ‘civic initiatives ’ that were running in the elections as an ethnic bloc supported by the state-level parties also performed better in the elections than the truly local initiatives, as can be seen in the cases of Klokot, Gračanica and Štrpce where these ethnic initiatives won the elections among the Albanian voters, while authentic local movements only received marginal portion of votes. The contrast between truly local initiative and initiative supported by state-level parties can be best illustrated in the municipality of Klokot where these two nominally local initiatives were competing for votes of the local Albanian minority with the other established state-level parties (PDK and NISMA). The ‘Citizens' Albanian Initiative for Klokot,’ which was in fact a coalition agreed among the local branches of LDK, VV, AKR and AAK (RTV21 2017), received by far most of the Albanian votes (14% of total). In contrast to that, the only truly local movement ‘Citizens’ initiative for Kllokot and Mogilla’ only received less than 4% of votes. The performance of local initiatives unsupported by the established state-level parties in other municipalities was even weaker. Overall, the Albanian segment of the local political scene is characterised by internal fragmentation of the dominant ethnically exclusive state- level parties, while local movements are extremely weak and subjects with cross-ethnic appeal non-existent.
Serbs
The situation on the Serb part of the local political scene is the same in regard to the level of ethnicisation, yet structurally different from the Albanian counterpart in other aspects. While all of the political actors taking part in the elections have mono-ethnic appeal, the party politics is much less fragmented on the one hand, and more localised on the other. The local political scene of Serbs in Kosovo is clearly dominated by Srpska lista (SL), the leading Serb ethnic party on the state level. Thanks to its political, institutional and financial backing from Serbia, Srpska lista has, during the last decade, grown into the dominant political force representing Serbs in Kosovo, while suppressing or soaking in other smaller Serb ethnic parties and reaching almost a monopoly on the ethnic Serb political scene. Scholars as well as international election observers agree that its political behaviour has not been in line with democratic principles of pluralism as it intimidated its political rivals and exploited its privileged position and economic-political linkages (Fazliu 2017; Johnson 2020). On the national level, in the last three parliamentary elections, the support of SL among Serb voters has grown up from 86% in 2017 to 94% in 2019 and 96% in 2021, it has effectively eliminated or integrated other existing political alternatives and has taken all ten mandates reserved for the Serb community in the
88 Kosovo parliament. The SL political dominance over Serb community is clearly reflected in the local politics too, but to a slightly smaller extent. In the 2017 elections, the candidate lists of SL gained 80% of total votes of parties appealing to Serb community and 77% of all mandates in local parliaments gained by Serb parties. Compared to the parliamentary elections held in the same year, SL performed slightly weaker among the Serb voters, yet still maintained its dominance over smaller political alternatives that lack the backing of SL in all municipalities.
Figure 11: Kosovo - Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2017 local elections.
Figure 12: Kosovo - Serbs: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Besides Srpska lista, there were two other smaller ‘traditional ’ ethnic parties organised on the state level that competed for the Serb votes, PDS and SLS, that had their candidates in more municipalities. On the national level, SLS has profiled as a moderate opposition towards the Belgrade-backed Serb politics and advocated more intense cooperation with the Kosovar institutions in the post-independence period (Djokić 2014), but after a long-term political decline it deactivated its structures in 2020 (Cvetković 2021). As the party structures were
89 disintegrating, some of its individual members and likewise whole local branches have integrated into the structures of Srpska lista in recent years (TV Most 2019; Novosti 2019). PDS emerged as a split party from the faction of SLS led by Nenad Rašić in 2013, it later openly cooperated with the SL, but profiled as opposition to SL again in the recent 2021 elections (KoSSev 2019; Info-KS 2015; Cvetković 2021). However, these opposition parties gained only 7 mandates across just three of the seven municipalities, compared to 53 mandates gained by SL, and thus play only a minor role in the local politics, which fully reflects their declining role on the state level.
As in the case of Albanian communities, there were several local initiatives running in the elections but none of them tried to reach out to non-Serb voters. Local movements appealing exclusively to Serb voters were competing with the dominant SL in most of the municipalities where Serbs are a majority, but with only very limited success. In Gračanica and Novo Brdo, they only gained single mandates in local parliaments dominated by SL. Two local initiatives recorded relative success in North Mitrovica and Klokot, gaining 3 mandates in local parliaments each. In North Mitrovica, the citizens' initiative SDP was led by a popular Serb opposition politician Oliver Ivanović who had ambitions to challenge the position of SL beyond local level. However, Ivanović was assassinated in front of the party office in North Mitrovica in January 2018. While the investigation is still ongoing and the murders have not been uncovered yet, suspicion was directed mainly to criminal circles connected to the SL political-economic structures (Ellis 2018). After Ivanović's death, the movement declined and its remainder finally supported the SL in 2019 parliamentary elections (Andrić Rakić 2019). The fate of the local Citizens' Initiative Klokot-Vrbovac in Klokot was very similar, but even faster. Immediately after recording relative success in the elections in gaining 3 mandates in local parliament, its structures joined the dominant SL (Ćup 2017). Similar to smaller state- level Serb ethnic parties, local initiatives that could potentially threaten the dominance of SL are consumed by local structures of Srpska Lista, thus leading to political homogenisation of Serbs in Kosovo.
4.1.5 Serbia
The local political scene in the ethnically mixed Albanian-Serb part of the south Serbia is structurally similar to the local political scene in Kosovo as it is composed of both state-level parties and local political initiatives, all of them having solely mono-ethnic appeal to either Serb or Albanian part of the electorate. However, it is rather distinct in regard to the general picture of local politics in other parts of Serbia, all of which are ethnically homogenous and
90 politically less fragmented. Overall, local politics in Serbia has been increasingly dominated by the state-level ruling SNS party and its coalition partners, thus reflecting the political developments on the national level (Pavlović 2020). The ethnically mixed municipalities of south Serbia are thus specific not only because of the strong position of Albanian minority parties, but also because of relatively strong local movements representing the Serb community.
Figure 13: South Serbia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments of examined municipalities in 2015/16 local elections. Albanians
The Albanian segment of the local politics is clearly dominated by the political parties organised on national levels and active in the state level politics as representatives of the overall Albanian minority. However, due to the territorial concentration of the Albanian minority in the area of Preševo valley, these parties in fact have their centres in the three municipalities and their state-level leaders are active in the local politics here, frequently becoming mayors of municipalities with an Albanian majority (Banchev 2020). Therefore, the distinction between parties organised on the national level and local movements is unclear in the case of Albanian parties due to the specific localised character of the regionally delimited Albanian political scene in Serbia, where the leading actors of local politics are also representing the
91 whole Albanian minority on the national level. Specifically, there were three main ethnic parties of this type running in the 2016/2017 elections in the two municipalities. These three Albanian ethnic parties gained all 34 ‘Albanian ’ mandates out of the total of 75 mandates in the local parliaments of the two municipalities. The two equally strong parties, PD and a coalition consisting of PDD and its former split-off DUA, were running in both municipalities and each gained 15 mandates in total. PDP was only running in Bujanovac and gained 4 mandates. The PDD is the ‘traditional ’ party that has represented the Albanian minority interest in Serbia since 1990, its current leader Shaip Kamberi served as mayor of the Bujanovac municipality and a member of the state level parliament for several terms of office. PD was established in 2011 as a split party of the PDD by its faction led by Nagip Arifi, another former mayor of Bujanovac municipality (Južne vesti 2011). The third party, PDP, was founded in the aftermath of the violent conflict in 2003 by the political leader of the insurgent army, Jonuz Musliu, and, similar to some Albanian parties in Kosovo, it stresses its legacy of armed resistance (Bochsler 2010). Similar to the situation of ‘traditional ’ Albanian parties in Kosovo, there are no significant program differences among the Albanian ethnic parties in south Serbia aside from their distinct history of resistance, while their competition in election is mainly driven by personal relations and sympathies on the local level (Banchev 2020).
Figure 14: Serbia – Albanians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2015/16 local elections.
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Figure 15: Serbia – Albanians: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2015/16 local elections. Serbs
Within the Serbian segment of local politics, the situation is different as leading state-level parties compete with relatively strong local movements. The first category consists primarily of the ruling party on the state level, the SNS, and its minor long-term coalition partners on the state level (SPS, JS, PUPS) that were running either individually or in coalitions and gained the clear majority of 31 out of the total of 41 ‘Serb’ mandates in the local parliaments. Interestingly, the only state-level opposition party that was running in the elections, the DS, did not reach the electoral threshold in either of the two municipalities, thus confirming its generally weak position. However, an unusual success, compared to the local political scene in other parts of Serbia, occurred with the local initiatives appealing to Serb voters. In Bujanovac, the local movement led by Stojanča Arsić finished in second place among the Serb voters with 5 mandates (compared to 7 mandates of the stronger SNS-led coalition) and later became part of the local ruling coalition. In Medvedja, the local initiative that used to be the leading actor in local politics after 2000 gained a lower portion of mandates (5 of 35), yet it still ended as the second strongest Serb actor in the local parliament, after the dominant SNS-led coalition with 22 mandates (Južne vesti 2015). While the local initiatives were a significant factor in local politics of mixed Serb-Albanian municipalities that actively involved in inter-ethnic power-sharing in the post-conflict period, they were still heavily defeated by the ruling SNS in the recent 2019/2020 elections (Stevanović 2020b; Južne vesti 2019)
93
Figure 16: Serbia – Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2015/16 local elections.
Figure 17: Serbia – Serbs: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2015/16 local elections. 4.1.6 Macedonia
The local political scene in Macedonia is similar to that of Kosovo in respect of the type of political parties, as it is, similarly to the preceding cases, dominated by the leading ethnic parties organised on the state level. However, compared to Kosovo, the Macedonian local (ethnic) politics is much less fragmented, which again reflects its relative political homogeneity on the state level where the political scene is organised within two stable ethnic blocs with no overlaps (Stewart 2019). Both the Macedonian and the Albanian bloc are dominated by only a few major parties taking most of the votes, while smaller forces usually join them as minor coalition partners. Local politics directly reflects the political reality on the national level.
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Figure 18: Macedonia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments of examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Macedonians
Within the Macedonian segment of politics, there are two main competing blocs organised around the two leading ethnic Macedonian parties, the left-wing post-communist SDSM and the traditional nationalist conservative VMRO-DPMNE, that have been dominating the politics since the 1990s and have recently switched in the position of the ruling party in coalitions with leading Albanian parties. While the left- wing SDSM profiles as a civic party and has attempted to outreach in its appeal to voters of the Albanian ethnicity and other minorities, its support is largely limited to ethnic Macedonian voters (Piacentini 2019). On the contrary, VMRO- DPMNE has been traditionally appealing solely to ethnic Macedonian voters through its ethno- nationalist agenda (Gjuzelov and Hadjievska 2020). These two opposing blocs also dominate the Macedonian segment of politics on the local level, including the mixed post-conflict municipalities covered by the research. Candidates of both parties were running in all 8 municipalities and always successfully entered the local parliaments. Even in those municipalities where Macedonians are in the position of small demographic minority, the two blocs did not enter into an ethnic coalition to maximise their potential and ran independently in the elections. Furthermore, their election results among Macedonians were almost equal in
95 all municipalities. In total, the SDSM-led bloc gained 45 mandates in total in local parliaments, while VMRO-DPMNE gained the total of 40. The local political scene of Macedonians thus fully reflects the situation on the national level where Macedonians are deeply divided between the two opposing political blocs. The only municipality where a local movement was running on behalf of ethnic Macedonians was the rural area of Čučer Sandevo, where the mayor previously elected as VMRO-DPMNE candidate established his own formally independent candidate list and was running in parallel to his former party.
Figure 19: Macedonia – Macedonians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2017 local elections.
Figure 20: Macedonia – Macedonians: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Albanians
The Albanian segment of politics in Macedonia is more heterogeneous on both national and local level, where the leading ethnic parties organised on the state level are the only relevant actors (Nacevska and Fink-Hafner 2019). In the mixed municipalities covered by the research there were four ethnic parties competing for the Albanian votes, all of them being the leading
96 state-level parties representing Albanians in the national politics. As in the case of Albanian ethnic parties in Kosovo and south Serbia, yet in sharp contrast with the ethnic Macedonian political scene, the ideological differences between the leading Albanian parties are rather small. All of them have the protection of the interest of the Albanian minority as the central point of their agenda, and only slightly differ in the level of moderation and radicalness in their goals regarding the constitutional order (Lavrelashvili 2020). As Nacevska and Fink-Hafner (2019, 21) show in their research,
“the Albanian parties’ reason for existence is to solve ethnic problems and left–right ideological differences have not played any major role in the inter-ethnic cleavages. Nevertheless, the interviews highlighted important differences in the level of radicalisation among Albanian parties when it comes to selecting the means for achieving political reforms to improve the status of Albanians in Macedonia.”
The parties also distinguish themselves from each other through their historical background, strong leaders, and established political networks. The most successful among them was the DUI, running in all the municipalities examined, that gained 35 of 79 Albanian mandates in local parliaments. DUI was established right after the violent conflict by former guerrilla leaders who transformed their military structures into the party, and has been one of the two leading political forces competing for the Albanian votes with DPA. However, in the 2017 local elections, DPA ran in only three municipalities and ended last of the four Albanian parties, gaining only 7 mandates in total despite the fact that it used to be the second strongest party of Albanians in Macedonia in the long term. It was established in 1997 by merging two more radical Albanian ethnic parties that split from the moderate leading Albanian party PDP in the pre-conflict 1990s, and it grew into the dominant Albanian party prior to the conflict (Crowther 2017). In the post-conflict period the DUI and DPA have been the two main competitors on the Albanian political scene, yet their programs do not differ widely in terms of their priorities and both are labelled as Albanian catch-all parties (Šedo 2013a). Since the early 2000s, either DUI or DPA represented the Albanian community in the grand coalitions on the national level, either with SDSM or DUI (McCulloch 2014; Ekinci 2020). In contrast to DUI and DPA as the traditional parties of Albanians in Macedonia, the two other parties existing on the local level, the BESA and the AA, represent the category of ‘new ’ parties established in opposition to the DUI-DPA dualism on the grounds of a more radical ethnic program (Rizankoska and Trajkoska 2017). Both BESA and AA had their candidates for local parliaments in most of the mixed municipalities and gained significant portions of mandates, 23 and 14 for BESA and AA
97 respectively. BESA was established in 2014 as a protest movement opposing the two major Albanian parties and calling for the preservation of the Albanian identity and the improvement of Albanians' status in the country (ibid). AA emerged with a similar program in 2016 from a coalition of several smaller split parties from DUI and DPA (Nacevska and Fink-Hafner 2019).
Overall, in contrast to the right-left ideological polarisation of the ethnic Macedonian political segment, the program differences between the four Albanian parties that are controlling the Albanian part of local politics in the examined mixed municipalities are very small as all of them present themselves as Albanian ethnic parties defending the national interests and only slightly differ in the scope of their demands (Šedo 2013a).
Figure 21: Macedonia – Albanians: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2017 local elections.
Figure 22: Macedonia – Albanians: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. 4.1.7 Bosnia
Similar to the political scene in Kosovo and Macedonia, Bosnian politics has also been fully dominated by ethnic parties since the war. It has been composed of three clearly delimited political spaces where the leading ethnic parties have been competing with their intra-ethnic opposition for the votes of the three clearly separated electorates. However, compared to Kosovo and Macedonia, where openly ethnic parties are the only relevant actors in both local
98 and national politics, the political scene in Bosnia is somewhat more complex. While the openly ethno-nationalist parties representing the three constituent nations have been dominating the Bosnian politics since the early 1990s, nominally multi-ethnic political forces have also been present, and were even promoted by the international community in the post- conflict period (Hulsey 2010; Kasapović 2005). However, the actual multi-ethnic performance of these formally civic and non-ethnic options has been generally low, as their electoral appeal has remained largely reduced to the voters of the Bosniak ethnic background (Touquet 2011; Bieber 2006; Hulsey and Keil 2019). The outreach of the civic parties to the Croat and the Serb voters has been very limited and concentrated to small well-integrated Serb and Croat minorities of urban centres in FBaH (Interview 47).
The situation observed on the local level in 45 mixed Bosnian municipalities covered by the research is largely in line with this general picture of ethnic parties' dominance over politics. Overall, the municipal politics of mixed areas is dominated by the local branches of leading ethnic parties organised on the central level that received almost 97% of votes and 994 of 1038 mandates in the 2016 elections in the examined mixed municipalities. The Figure XX visualises the clear division of the political scene into three ethnic blocs by showing the portion of mandates in local parliaments received by parties with mono-ethnic appeal. Another small portion of mandates (27 in total) was gained by local ethnic actors and only a tiny portion of 17 mandates and 1.5% of votes by parties with cross-ethnic appeal. Nevertheless, beyond the clear-cut ethnic divide, a certain level of party pluralism has developed in the post-conflict period within each of the three ethnic segments of politics. The intra-group heterogeneity is also reflected on the local level where several political options are competing for the votes of the single ethnic communities.
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Figure 23: Bosnia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments of examined municipalities in 2016 local elections. Serbs
This intra-ethnic pluralism is most developed among Serbs who mainly support two traditionally strongest ethno-nationalist state-level parties, the SNSD and the SDS, but also vote for their minor rivals consisting of both moderate (PDP, DNS, SP) and radical ethnic parties (SRS). While SDS was the leading nationalist party politically representing Serbs during the war and in its aftermath, SNSD emerged in the late 1990s and the early 2000s initially as a moderate force supported by the international community (Hulsey 2010b). However, during the last two decades, the party not only grew into a leading political force in the Serb part of Bosnia, but also transformed from a moderate left-wing social democratic party into an ethno-nationalist party under the leadership of Milorad Dodik (Toal 2013; Hasić 2020). On the contrary, SDS has recently taken a more moderate course. The struggle between the two coalition blocs established around SDS and SNSD dominated the Serb politics in Bosnia
100 in recent years and is also reflected on the local level, where the two parties gained more than a half of the 543 mandates in local parliaments won by Serb parties. Besides the dominant SNSD and SDS, there were four other major state-level ethnic parties that were also running in local elections in almost all municipalities where Serbs are present: DNS (14% of Serb mandates), PDP (11%), SP (8%) and NDP (4%). The PDP, founded in 2000 as a moderate alternative to the nationalist mainstream, and the NDP, established in 2013 through the merging of several smaller moderate parties, present as moderate ethnic parties, but supported the traditionally nationalist (though a moderation trend can be observed recently) SDS through a coalition arrangement on various institutional levels in recent years (Bieber 2006; Zuber and Szöcsik 2019). On the contrary, DNS and SP took part in the coalition bloc headed by SNSD in recent years. Both of these parties have their roots in the nationalist Serb politics of the 1990s as they were closely connected to the leading figures of the Serb war-time political projects, DNS to Biljana Plavšić and SP to Slobodan Milošević. Beyond their common mono-ethnic appeal, the dominant Serb ethnic parties on both state and local level distinguish themselves mainly through the moderate-nationalist distinction and historical background rather than through the right-left cleavage. Another 45 mandates were gained by a mixture of other smaller parties or coalitions that are organised on the state level, including various factions of the radical nationalist SRS.
As the local politics of Serbs is fully dominated by ethnic parties organised on the state level, local political alternatives are almost non-existent. Only 10 mandates in total were won by 6 local political movements appealing to the Serb electorate in 5 different municipalities. These local initiatives usually received only single mandates and thus play a marginal role in the local politics dominated by state-level ethnic parties. The only partial exception to this rule is the northern municipality of Gradiška, where two local political movements (Izvor and Djordjić’s list) won 5 mandates in total. However, Izvor was established by former influential members of the SDS party and later merged with another state-level party, Ujedinjena Srpska (Trgić 2020). Similar to that, the nominally local and non-party initiative led by Goran Đorđić was in fact backed by SNS, whose representative in the entity parliament Đorđić was and later even became its president (BN 2017). A similar situation is observed in nominally local movements in Bratunac and Srebrenica that were led by members of state-level parties. These cases clearly show that even nominally local political movements presenting themselves as local alternatives to established parties are instead mostly products of state-level ethnic parties. Probably the only truly local initiatives were those in the municipalities of Milići, where the local independent
101 list was a product of two local entrepreneurs, and in Šamac, where it was led by the director of the local ambulance.
Figure 24: Bosnia – Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2016 local elections.
Figure 25: Bosnia – Serbs: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2016 local elections. Bosniaks
The Bosniak political scene is somewhat different from those of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia. While it is also dominated by the traditional ethno-nationalist party and a few of its minor intra- ethnic rivals, the voters of the Bosniak ethnicity are also the only who significantly support the nominally left-wing or civic parties whose appeal is mainly reduced to the Bosniaks electorate. Therefore, the Bosniak politics is primarily divided into two ideological segments: the conservative ethno-nationalist, dominated by the SDA established in the 1990s as the ethnic representative of the Bosnian Muslims; and the left-wing civic, dominated by the post- communist SDP. The competition between the two blocs has been the driving force of the party politics on the Bosniak political scene since 2000 (Hulsey and Keil 2019). While the two political streams differ in their history, ideology and rhetorics, they mostly agree on the core
102 premises of the desired Bosnian constitutional order, one that should be based on a civic principle of a centralised state (J. Hulsey 2015). Some local non-Bosniak authors therefore speak about two forms of nationalism rooted within the Bosniak part of society that are both incompatible to the ethnic autonomist agendas of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia (see Pehar 2019; Lasić 2014; Strika 2015).
The observed situation on the local level in the examined municipalities clearly reflects the political situation on the national level as the state-level parties and their coalition blocs are dominating the local Bosniak politics. The Bosniak voters are mainly divided between the leading nationalist SDA (running separately or in coalitions with other smaller ethnic parties) and the moderate ethnic SBB on the one side, and, on the other, the nominally left-wing SDP and its minor rival DF, both sharing ethnically exclusive appeal to Bosniaks in most municipalities. SDA and SDP as traditional parties benefit from their developed extensive organisational structure – they were both running in almost all municipalities where Bosniaks are demographically and politically present. SDA had its candidates for the local parliament in all 40 municipalities, while SDP in 35 municipalities. Out of these 35 municipalities, the nominally multi-ethnic SDP effectively reached out to non-Bosniak voters only in 4: this will be further discussed in the subsequent section on cross-ethnic parties, in this present section we will only consider the performance of SDP in areas where it had mono-ethnic appeal. In the 2016 election, SDA was the clear winner of this traditional competition for the Bosniak votes between the two leading parties. While the representatives of SDA were elected into 33 local parliaments and the party gained 170 mandates out of 262 in total, SDP entered 23 parliaments but gained only 38 mandates. Apparently, the ethno-nationalist SDA remains the leading political representative on the local level in ethnically mixed areas and SDP cannot threaten its position. This imbalance is in contrast to a majority Bosniak areas, particularly larger towns, where SDP and SDA are competing with each other in rather equal positions. Apart from the two leading political forces, SBB and DF were the only other relevant state-level parties running in the elections individually in a higher number of municipalities (SBB in 18 and DF in 21, having mono-ethnic appeal in 19 of them). Each of them tried to take some votes from one of the two established options among the Bosniak voters as the ‘new ’ alternatives (Kapidžić 2017). SBB emerged in 2009 as a moderate ethnic Bosniak party challenging the dominance of SDA from populist positions (Murtagh 2016; Hulsey and Keil 2019). On the contrary, DF was established in 2013 as a split party from the SDP, taking over its left-wing agenda and nominally multi-ethnic profile, but also failing to reach out to non-Bosniak voters.
103 However, in the 2016 local elections neither of the two parties succeeded in its attempt to catch up with the two traditional options among Bosniaks in mixed municipalities. SBB only gained 20 mandates across 11 municipalities and DF only 12 in 9 municipalities: both parties thus remained marginal forces in ethnically divided local politics.
Besides the state-level parties that clearly dominate the Bosniak segment of local politics, there were just a few local movements that gained more significant support from the Bosniak electorate. In three municipalities (Stolac, Prozor-Rama and Bugojno), the local lists appealing to Bosniak voters succeeded in entering the local parliaments. In Stolac, the local initiative was by far the most successful as it was the only Bosniak force running in the elections, gaining all 7 ‘Bosniak ’ mandates of the total 17 mandates in the local parliament. However, the Initiative was in fact an informal coalition between the local branches of the leading parties appealing to the Bosniak voters: SDA, SDP and SBB. It was agreed by their local leaders purposefully as a way to maximise their potential in competition with the stronger Croat HDZ (Ernad 2016). The united Bosniak candidate list was established despite the reluctant approach to such a format from the regional and central headquarters of the respective parties (Interviews 109, 110, 111). Similar to that, the nominally local list in Prozor-Rama municipality that ended as the second strongest representative of the Bosniak minority, slightly behind SDA in the electoral race, is in fact a coalition of local branches of SDP, DF and independent candidates. In Bugojno, the local independent list, despite the emphasis put on its local character, was mainly composed by former members of local branches of the leading state-level ethnic parties, SDP and SDA (RTV Bugojno 2016). Similar to the profile of the only successful local initiatives among the Serb voters, the nominally local initiatives appealing to the Bosniak voters are in fact closely connected to the traditional party politics.
Figure 26: Bosnia – Bosniaks: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2016 local elections.
104
Figure 27: Bosnia – Bosniaks: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2016 local elections. Croats
Compared to the Bosniak and Serb politics in Bosnia, the political scene of the Bosnian Croats presents the lowest level of intra-ethnic pluralism as it is dominated by the ethno-nationalist HDZ, a traditional leading party representing the interests of Croats in Bosnia since the war- period in the 1990s (Zdeb 2016). Since the war, HDZ has been cementing its dominant position within the Croat electorate and successfully countering attempts of its various rivals consisting of both nationalist (HDZ 1990) and moderate (NHI, NSRB) ethnic forces (Jukić 2002). The current leadership of the party has been successfully weakening the position of smaller ethnic Croat parties through their integration into the quasi-institutional political platform of the ‘Croat National Assembly' (Hrvatski narodni sabor, HNS), which is fully controlled by the HDZ leadership (Vego 2018).
The situation on the Croat side of the local political scenes corresponds with this general picture. HDZ clearly dominates over the ethnic Croat politics in mixed municipalities and frequently integrates smaller Croat ethnic parties into overarching ethnic Croat coalitions. HDZ was running in all 24 municipalities where Croats are demographically and politically present, in 14 of them individually and in 10 in a broader overarching ethnic Croat coalition together with smaller ethnic parties. Frequently, these coalitions integrated all Croat political forces within the municipality under the label of a national Croat coalition to maximise their electoral potential vis-à-vis the rival Bosniak parties. HDZ and its coalitions successfully entered all except one (Vukosavlje, see more details in Section 5.1.) local parliaments in these municipalities, gaining 168 mandates out of 215 in total and thus confirming its position of the leading political party representing ethnic Croats in local politics. The second strongest ethnic Croat party was HDZ 1990, established by the split faction of former HDZ members in 2006,
105 since then competing with HDZ from slightly more moderate nationalist positions (ref). It is the only ethnic Croat political alternative that was locally present across Bosnia and received a relevant number of votes in the 2016 elections. While it entered coalition with HDZ in several municipalities, it was running individually or leading a broader coalition composed of other smaller alternatives to HDZ in 11 municipalities. It entered the local parliaments in ten municipalities, yet it gained only a small portion of the 30 mandates, compared to HDZ’s 168, thus lagging far behind the leading Croat party. It was not able to equal the result of HDZ in any single municipality, except for Prozor-Rama where the local leaders traditionally have a strong position locally (N1 2020). Importantly, HDZ 1990 was running in the elections independently on HDZ almost solely in municipalities where Croats are the demographic majority. On the other hand, in municipalities where Croats are in a minority position (Bugojno, Fojnica), or where they compete with Bosniak parties for dominance (Jajce, Gornji Vakuf), it frequently became part of the united ethnic Croat coalitions headed by HDZ (see more on the trend of intra-ethnic homogenisation in Section 5.2). Besides HDZ and its main rival HDZ 1990, some other state level parties (HNS, HKDU, HSP and HSS and their various split factions) appealing to Croat voters were running individually in most of the municipalities (19 of 24), but only rarely (in 7 cases) entered local parliaments, gaining solely single mandates and thus assuming marginal roles in local Croat politics.
Figure 28: Bosnia – Croats: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2016 local elections.
106
Figure 29: Bosnia – Croats: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2016 local elections. Similar to the Bosniak and Serb political scene, there were also a few local ethnic Croat initiatives competing with the established state-level parties. In just three municipalities, Čapljina, Livno and Stolac, these local subjects entered the municipal parliaments. In Livno, the local ‘Croat list for Livno ’ was led by a mixture of former members of opposition parties and locally active candidates. In Čapljina, local long-term critics of the ruling HDZ and activists for the rights of the Croat war veterans established a local independent political party that achieved a relative success by gaining two mandates in the local parliament, traditionally dominated by state-level Croat parties (Šagolj 2013, Interview 113). In Stolac, the local nominally independent candidate was in fact running on behalf of the Croat ethnic HDZ to increase its electoral potential (Interview 110). As in the case of Bosniaks and Serbs, the local Croat politics is thus fully dominated by a few strong ethnic parties organised on the central level, while truly local initiatives are, with the two exceptions of Čapljina and Livno, non- existent.
Cross-ethnic politics
Cross-cutting the deeply rooted and institutionalised inter-ethnic divide has been very rare in the post-war Bosnian politics (Hulsey and Keil 2019). While the openly ethno-nationalist parties of the three constituent nations have been dominating the political scene on the national level, the electoral appeal of the nominally multi-ethnic left-wing and civic parties was largely limited to the Bosniak voters, thus further deepening the ethnicisation of politics. The observed situation on the local level fully corresponds with this general picture. Compared to the dominant ethnic parties, political subjects with an actual cross-ethnic appeal are rarely found on the municipal level in ethnically mixed areas and even if they are active, their electoral performance is very weak. Parties with at least some significant cross-ethnic appeal to voters
107 (above 100 votes or 1% of votes received) were running in the elections in only 9 out of 45 Bosnian municipalities covered by the research. In total, parties with support from voters of different ethnicities only received 1.5% of the votes cast. Thus, in 36 of 45 mixed Bosnian municipalities, there was no single party that would effectively cross-cut the ethnic divide in the 2016 municipal elections. Furthermore, in only 8 municipalities these parties overcame the electoral threshold and entered the local parliaments.
The eight municipalities where parties with cross-ethnic appeal received at least a minimal relevant portion of votes are presented in the following table along with the list of parties running in the elections and their results. Their received electoral support clearly shows that their popularity is limited as it only rarely reaches 10% and cross-ethnic parties thus still play only a marginal role in local politics. The parties that reached effective cross-ethnic appeal are mostly those that nominally delf-define as left-wing (SDP, DF) or civic (NS, NSRB) on the state level. However, their success in overcoming the inter-ethnic political divide on the local level is probably determined rather by locally specific causes than the declared non-ethnic orientation of the party centres. It is important to note that these instances of cross-ethnic appeal are outliers when the electoral performance of these parties is examined in general. Most of the parties that reached cross-ethnic support in these rare instances otherwise had mono-ethnic appeal to the Bosniak communities in other mixed municipalities where these were running in the elections, as was discussed above. The cross-ethnic appeal should thus rather be understood as the outcome of locally specific factors, including the individual local party leaders.
This variation can be best explained in the case of the nominally multi-ethnic SDP party, which, despite its mixed membership and non-ethnic agenda, appeals almost exclusively to the voters of the Bosniak ethnicity on both the state level and in most mixed municipalities, as was also admitted by its elected representatives. In only a few cases of mixed municipalities, SDP overcame its largely mono-ethnic appeal and reached significant support from various ethnic communities. One of these rare cases is the Herzegovian town of Čapljina, where a representative of the local SDP explained that it was traditionally able to seek its support not only from the local Bosniak returnee minority, but also from the Croat majority thanks to local candidates and influential supporters of Croat background (Interviews 18, 113). He also claimed that after SDP presented openly as a pro-Bosniak ethnic party in the neighbouring municipality of Stolac where it cooperated with nationalist Bosniak SDA prior to the 2016 elections, they recorded a drop in support from the local Croats compared to the previous elections. However, even with the limited support from the local Croat majority, SDP only
108 received 9% of votes in the 2012 elections, while the result dropped down to 5% in the 2016 elections. With a single representative in the local parliament dominated by an absolute majority of the Croat ethnic HDZ, the SDP remains a marginal actor in local politics, but it is also a unique case of a party with a certain cross-appeal in the mixed areas of Bosnia. In another case of a mixed Bosniak-Croat municipality, Kreševo in Central Bosnia, the local SDP gained support across Bosniak and Croat parts of the municipality mainly thanks to its locally well- known candidate of Croat background who received by far the most preferential votes on its candidate list. Similar situations of left-wing parties crossing the inter-ethnic divide were recorded in Livno with DF receiving its modest portion of votes (5%) from both Croats and Bosniaks, and Kostajnica where the local SDP attracted limited support (5%) from both the Serb majority and the Bosniak returnee minority. Furthermore, NSRB which is a nominally civic party with its stronghold in the Croat-majority areas, was also able to appeal to both Croat and Serb voters in the mixed municipality of Brod.
In only two particular cases, in the municipalities of Bosanski Petrovac and Vareš, the parties with cross-ethnic appeal received electoral support higher than 10%. The locally specific factors contributing to the success of multi-ethnic parties are confirmed in these two cases that do not share many structural similarities, and the unusually high performance is explained differently by local politicians. Bosanski Petrovac (56% of Serbs, 43% of Bosniaks) is a peripheral and traditionally rural and underdeveloped municipality situated on the border between FBiH and RS. Prior to the war, the municipality had a majority Serb population (74%) and a strong Bosniak minority (22%). During the war, it was an area of multiple forced displacements. The Bosniaks first fled in the early stage of the conflict when the Serb forces took control over the area, while Serbs fled in the very end of the war prior to the takeover of the area by the Bosniak-Croat forces. Bosanski Petrovac is one of the rare areas of the FBiH where its pre-war Serb inhabitants returned after the conflict in significant numbers, but still only about a third of the pre-war Serb population now resides in the municipality (Pejanović 2006a). Nowadays, the Serb returnees are a slight majority aside from Bosniaks who returned to the municipality in the early post-war period to almost a full extent. In contrast to Bosanski Petrovac, Vareš, located on the semi-periphery of the Sarajevo region, was historically a well- developed industrial town thanks to its mining capacities. Before the war it was an ethnically highly diverse area with a slight relative majority of Croats (41%), a large minority of Bosniaks (30%) and sizeable groups of Serbs (16%) and other ethnicities (13%). During the war, most Serbs fled, but the local Bosniak and Croat communities coexisted relatively peacefully even
109 in the early period of the Bosniak-Croat war in the adjacent areas of Central Bosnia (Shrader 2003). However, the relations deteriorated with the influx of Croat refugees and resulted in forced expulsion of Croats from the municipality that went hand in hand with atrocities. About a third of the pre-war Croat community returned to the municipality in the post-war years and as a strong minority (32%) became an important factor in local politics that was now dominated by the Bosniak majority.
Despite different structural conditions, Bosanski Petrovac and Vareš are the only mixed municipalities in Bosnia where cross-ethnic politics, at least to some extent, took root in the post-conflict period. In both municipalities several smaller parties with clear cross-ethnic appeal have been performing weaker than the dominant ethnic parties, but still have received enough electoral support to enter the local parliaments and become relevant political forces. Representatives of Naša Stranka, a political body with the only long-term political stronghold outside of large cities in FBiH located in Bosanski Petrovac, explain that they are able to attract support from both Serb and Bosniak communities thanks to the support from the ethnically mixed urban part of the municipality and their personal links to single local rural communities (Interview 107). This is confirmed by election records showing that most votes for Naša stranka came from the urban centre (with a relative Bosniak majority) and two ethnically homogenous Serb villages. Similar to that, in Vareš the distribution of votes received by the four smaller parties with cross-ethnic appeal (SDP, DF, NS, SP/U) shows that they were able to collect votes not only in the mixed urban town but also across different ethnically homogenous Bosniak and Croat villages.
Furthermore, in both Vareš and Bosanski Petrovac, the directly elected mayors won the elections thanks to significant portions of votes coming from both ethnic communities, which is a very uncommon situation in ethnically polarised local politics in the mixed parts of Bosnia. In Bosanski Petrovac, Zlatko Hujić, an independent candidate and local entrepreneur, was elected for the second time in a row after he beat the ‘ethnic ’ candidates running on behalf of the coalitions of the leading Bosniak and Serb parties with significant support from both ethnic communities (Sadiković 2016). In Vareš, Zdravko Marošević, also a local entrepreneur, won the elections over the candidates of the Bosniak SDA and the multi-ethnic DF as a candidate of the ethnic HDZ representing the Croat minority thanks to receiving a significant portion of votes from the Bosniak majority (N1 2018). Officially, both Marošević and Hujić explained to local media their cross-ethnic appeal in very similar terms through their personal closeness to local people and their needs, regardless of their ethnicity (Tolj 2020; BLIN 2016). However,
110 the explanation for this unique phenomena provided by the interlocutors involved in the local politics differ in the two municipalities. In Bosanski Petrovac, leaders of two local parties explained that Hujić won the elections primarily through a hidden agreement with the local leading ethnic parties that were running their candidates only formally and in fact directed the votes of their electorate to Hujić (Interviews 107, 108). In contrast to that, according to local politicians, Marošević in Vareš received the support from the Bosniak electorate spontaneously thanks to his popularity and without any political deal, which was also reflected by the disappointment of the local Bosniak SDA after its candidate unexpectedly lost (Interviews 99, 100).
Besides these rare places where state-level multi-ethnic parties receive at least some substantial support and enter local parliaments, Brčko is the only municipality where a local political movement overcame the electoral threshold with votes coming from different ethnic communities. However, the nominally local Democratic Movement of Brčko (Brčanski demokratski pokret, BDP) was in fact formed prior to the 2016 local elections by former members of the SDP and took over a significant part of its multi-ethnic membership and electorate, while it also included some other locally influential candidates. It achieved a relative success in the elections by gaining 8% of votes in local politics otherwise dominated by the state-level parties with mono-ethnic appeal. The territorial distribution of its electoral support indicates that BDP was able to gain legitimacy in various areas of the district with both the Bosniak and the Serb majority.
Municipality Party name % of votes Mandates Bosanski Petrovac DEMOKRATSKA NARODNA ZAJEDNICA BIH - DNZ 6% 1 NAŠA STRANKA 8% 1 Brčko BRČANSKI DEMOKRATSKI POKRET (BDP) 8% 2 Brod NARODNA STRANKA RADOM ZA BOLJITAK 6% 2 Čapljina SDP-SOCIJALDEMOKRATSKA PARTIJA BIH 5% 1 Kostajnica SDP-SOCIJALDEMOKRATSKA PARTIJA BIH 5% 1 Kreševo SDP-SOCIJALDEMOKRATSKA PARTIJA BIH 8% 1 Livno DEMOKRATSKA FRONTA 5% 2 Vareš DEMOKRATSKA FRONTA 9% 2 NAŠA STRANKA 4% 1 SDP-SOCIJALDEMOKRATSKA PARTIJA BIH 8% 2 STRANKA PENZIONERA / UMIROVLJENIKA BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE 3% 1 Table 6: Parties with cross-ethnic appeal that entered local parliaments in mixed municipalities in Bosnia.
4.1.8 Croatia
In contrast to Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, where local politics is fully ethnicised, as well as to Bosnia, where crossing the inter-ethnic divide is very rare, the local politics in mixed
111 areas of Croatia is structurally different. While the leading ethnic parties still play a major role in the area, seeking and reaching cross-ethnic support is not uncommon. This contrast can be best explained by the structurally different political scene of Croatia, where the left-wing parties have successfully profiled as civic and multi-ethnic in the post-conflict period on both the national and the local level, and as such attracted support not only from the Croat majority but also from various ethnic minorities (Petričušić 2008). The Croat majority is thus, on the state level, politically divided between the more conservative part supporting ethnically exclusive politics, represented traditionally by the HDZ or its minor right-wing rivals, and the more liberal part voting for the left-wing and civic parties represented traditionally by the SDP and smaller alternative options such as HSLS or HNS (Šedo 2010). The ideological struggle between these two blocs has been the defining feature of the Croatian politics in the post- conflict period (Raos 2016). Recently, new political movements such as Most and Živi zid have partly disrupted the bipolarity by collecting votes from the dissatisfied part of the electorate of both dominant parties as well as from non-voters (Henjak 2018), but they only rarely record significant success in the peripheral mixed areas of the country.
Since the early 2000s, the Serb minority has been politically represented primarily by the ethnic moderate left-wing SDSS that consolidated its position of an umbrella political organisation of Serbs in Croatia and successfully countered attempts of smaller rival ethnic parties, frequently established by its former members, to gain broader support. However, among the Serb minority community, the post-communist SDP, the leading party of the left-wing political bloc, has been also traditionally perceived as a legitimate political representative of minority interests through its multi-ethnic agenda, and defined itself as a viable alternative to the leading Serb ethnic SDSS party, thus creating an intra-ethnic political division within the Serb community (Caspersen 2010; Škiljan 2012). On both the national and the regional level, the ethnic Serb SDSS on several occasions entered pre-election coalitions with the SDP-led bloc, but also took part in post-election coalitions with the ethnic Croat HDZ, and thus became an influential actor in the national politics despite the small demographic size of the Serb minority.
The situation in local politics in the mixed areas of the country mainly reflects the general ideological divide on the national level as there is a rift in both majority and minority communities that are internally divided between those supporting the ethnic parties and those leaning to the multi-ethnic option. Furthermore, in contrast to other post-conflict areas of the region, the local political actors enjoy significant support and effectively compete with state- level parties for local power.
112 The following figure shows the distribution of votes between respective ethnic and cross-ethnic political options on the one hand, and between state-level parties and local movements on the other.
Figure 30: Croatia: Overall distribution of mandates in local parliaments of examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Croats
Among the Croat part of the electorate that supports the ethnic political option, HDZ has been traditionally the dominant party on both the national and the local level. HDZ was running individually or in a leading position of broader coalitions in all 19 mixed municipalities and it was the only ethnic Croat option running in the 10 municipalities. In total, the party received 130 of 156 mandates gained by all Croat parties, and of 287 mandates in total, thus being the strongest party on the local level by far. Among the voters supporting the ethnic Croat political option, it won decisively in all municipalities. The only other parties appealing to Croat voters on ethnic basis that were running in more than one municipality were two regional right-wing parties: HDSSB (ran in 4 municipalities and gained 2 mandates) with its stronghold in the eastern part of Croatia, and MODES, formed by former members of the far right HSP AS in the Zadar region (Zadarski list 2016), ran in 2 municipalities and gained zero mandates. All other state-level ethnic Croat parties were only ran in a single municipality and gained none or very few mandates. The only municipalities where the dominant position of HDZ among
113 Croats was challenged by an equally strong party were Petrinja, Benkovac and Plitvička jezera. In Petrinja, the winning HDZ coalition was followed by a rival coalition of smaller Croat parties led by the popular mayor of the town. In both Benkovac and Plitvička jezera, local independent initiatives led by locally established critics of the HDZ politics were able to gain results only slightly weaker than that of HDZ.
While the ethnically identifying part of the Croat electorate is relatively homogenous in its prevailing support for HDZ, the true key rivals of the party are the cross-ethnic civic parties that also seek support among the voters of the Croat background and challenge the dominant position of HDZ. While Croats hold a majority of 64% of the total population in the examined mixed areas, ethnic Croat political options only gained 54% of mandates while parties with cross-ethnic appeal took 25% of votes, thus indicating that they are effectively seeking support from the Croat communities. Their performance will be described more in detail in the following section.
Figure 31: Croatia – Croats: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2017 local elections.
Figure 32: Croatia – Croats: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2017 local elections.
114 Serbs
Since the early 2000s, the Serb community in Croatia has been politically represented in ethnic terms primarily by the SDSS, a moderate ethnic party, on all institutional levels. The dominance of SDSS in ethnic Serb politics is confirmed in the municipalities covered by the research as it is the only ethnic Serb party that is established in all 19 mixed Serb-Croat municipalities. In the 2017 local elections, SDSS was running independently in all of these municipalities, except three. In two larger towns of Daruvar and Petrinja with tiny Serb minorities (11-12%), SDSS ran as part of a broader coalition led by left-wing civic parties. In Gračac, a rural municipality with a numerous Serb minority, SDSS was leading a coalition together with a moderate Croat party and successfully gained support from across the ethnic divide. The dominance of SDSS among the ethnically affiliated Serbs voters was confirmed by election results as it entered, independently, local parliaments in 15 municipalities and gained 49 out of 57 mandates won by the Serb ethnic parties in total. The only other ethnic Serb party that was trying to challenge the dominant position of SDSS among Serb voters was DSS, a new party established in 2016 by former members of SDSS who were dissatisfied with its leadership (TPortal 2016, Interview 79). However, due to its underdeveloped party infrastructure, DSS was running independently only in six municipalities and entered local parliaments in five of them. However, it only gained single mandates (6 in total) and its political power thus remained very limited compared to the dominant position of SDSS. In two municipalities, Plaški and Kistanje, local initiatives appealing to Serb voters led by former members of SDSS and SDP also gained single mandates in local parliaments, yet without threatening the dominance of SDSS among Serbs.
Nevertheless, the main political rival of the Serb ethnic parties on all political levels are the left-wing multi-ethnic parties led by SDP that are successfully reaching support among voters of the Serb ethnic background. Altogether, the Serb political ethnic options only gained 20% of mandates distributed in the 19 municipalities, while its total population share is 28%. Similar to the Croat community, the main alternative of the dominant ethnic SDSS party are the non- ethnic options that are successfully appealing to both Serb and Croat local communities.
115
Figure 33: Croatia – Serbs: Frequency of candidacy of single parties in 2017 local elections.
Figure 34: Croatia – Serbs: Overall distribution of votes in examined municipalities in 2017 local elections. Cross-ethnic politics
The situation on both the Croat and the Serb ethnic local political scenes where the two dominant ethnic parties, HDZ and SDSS, are primarily competing with non-ethnic political alternatives confirms that the internal division of the Croatian society on the macro-level is also reflected on the local micro-level. Besides the inter-ethnic divide between the ethno- politically defined Serb and Croat communities, the rift between the ethnically and non- ethnically oriented part of the electorate is the second important cleavage in the local politics of mixed areas. This is an important structural difference to all other post-conflict areas of the region where the local politics is organised on an ethnically exclusive basis. Furthermore, political subjects in Croatia not only regularly cross the inter-ethnic divide through their cross- ethnic electoral appeal but also organise on both the state and the local level. From the category of the state-level parties, the left-wing SDP is the strongest actor on the municipal level in mixed areas thanks to its developed party infrastructure and high long-term political profile in general. It ran in 15 of the total 19 municipalities: independently in 4 municipalities, in a leading position of a broader coalition in 8 and in a junior position of such a coalition in other 3 cases. As the leading force of civic politics, it entered 15 local parliaments and gained most
116 of the mandates won by non-ethnic parties, 33 of total 74. Various other non-ethnic parties organised on the state level performed relatively weakly in the elections compared to SDP as they only gained single mandates in a few municipalities.
While these smaller parties generally present themselves as non-ethnic on the national level, their truly cross-ethnic appeal is difficult to prove on the local level because of their low overall results. Assumably, most of their support comes from the Croat part of the electorate. There are also significant localised differences in their local position in regard to the inter-ethnic divide in the municipal politics. For instance, while Živi zid was running with an ethnically mixed candidate list in Vukovar with the aim to attract the Serb minority, it only had an ethnically exclusive Croat candidate list in Knin. In contrast to SDP, which in the long-term actively profiles as a party representing the interests of minorities in general and of the Serb community in particular, other major non-ethnic parties do not openly affiliate themselves with the minority communities.
However, local independent initiatives appeared as a significant political force within the non- ethnically defined segment of politics. In total, 18 local platforms with candidates of various ethnic backgrounds that effectively crossed the inter-ethnic divide ran in almost all municipalities (15 of 19): the candidates entered 10 parliaments and gained 23 mandates in total, thus becoming a significant political force on the local level.
In contrast to Bosnia or Kosovo, where nominally local movements were in fact usually linked to the existing structures of the established state-level parties, many of the local initiatives active in municipal politics in mixed areas of Croatia were authentic local movements formed by civic activists and critics of the traditional political structures. Some of these movements were formed by people actively involved in the local NGO sector who were frustrated by the inactivity of the ruling political elites: such was the case with the platforms arising from local activist networks in Obrovac, Gračac and Glina (Interviews 81, 91; Prerad 2018). Others were led by locally established political figures who avoided cooperation with major parties and rather decided to run with local civic platforms, such as those led by the former mayor Špančić in Pakrac, the long-term member of parliament representing the Czech minority Bílek in Daruvar, or former the city councillor of HDZ and rector of local college Jelić in Knin.
While in most municipalities these local initiatives only gained a few single mandates, in larger towns such as Knin, Daruvar, and Glina they became a major political force after finishing in second or third place behind the winning ethnic Croat parties. However, the gain of even a
117 single mandate in the local parliament was considered a success in what the independent candidates see as an ‘unequal struggle ’ with the established political structures (Interviews 81, 91). The leaders of authentic grassroot independent movements in Gračac and Obrovac agree that running independently on the political parties is the only way to attract at least some voters across the inter-ethnic divide, but the deeply rooted position of the ethnic parties makes this attempt uneasy. The leader of the movement in Obrovac, a local environmental activist, explained that he tries to attract different communities regardless of their ethnicity in single villages of the municipality through local topics and locally known candidates (Interview 81). He also emphasised that the whole initiative is strictly apolitical on the local level despite the personal links and sympathies its single candidates might have to established parties on higher levels. These sort of local movements thus provide a real alternative to state-level ethnic parties by cutting off the established political networks and focusing solely on the local dimension of politics. However, they mostly remain the weaker players in the political game ruled by the established political forces, backed from the top-level politics. The only mixed municipality where a local movement came to power is the town of Knin, where the local initiative led by a former member of HDZ overtook a significant portion of votes from ethnic parties of both Croats and Serbs and become the major force in the local parliament that later formed the ruling coalition (see more about this case below).
Since mixed municipalities in Croatia are the only in the region where cross-ethnic politics generally succeeded to some extent on the local level, the performance of these non-ethnic forces, both state-level and local, deserves more attention. The following table reveals the extent of the cleavage between the ethnic and non-ethnic local politics through the data showing the aggregated support of cross-ethnic parties and their Serb and Croat ethnic rivals. The data show that while the cross-ethnic parties were the strongest (above 50%) in two larger urban areas (towns of Daruvar and Knin), they recorded the weakest results in mainly small, rural and peripheral municipalities (Erdut, Udbina, Plitvička jezera). However, there is no systemic correlation between the size of the municipalities and the performance of the cross- ethnic parties. Quite the contrary, in the two largest Croatian towns covered by the research (Vukovar and Petrinja), the electoral support for the cross-ethnic parties was relatively low, while in some very small rural municipalities (Plaški, Gračac, Dvor) it reached about 40%.
118 Cross-ethnic Municipality parties Croat parties Serb parties Daruvar 65% 35% 0% Knin 52% 40% 8% Dvor 43% 16% 41% Plaski 39% 31% 30% Gracac 37% 44% 20% Beli Manastir 34% 57% 10% Glina 34% 55% 12% Pakrac 33% 55% 11% Vojnic 30% 46% 24% Darda 29% 60% 11% Petrinja 29% 71% 0% Obrovac 28% 44% 29% Sunja 26% 68% 6% Vukovar 22% 61% 18% Erdut 20% 27% 53% Udbina 19% 35% 46% Plitvicka jezera 12% 74% 14% Benkovac 7% 81% 12% Kistanje 0% 24% 76%
Table 7: Electoral support of parties with cross-ethnic and ethnic appeal in mixed municipalities of Croatia. The different performance of cross-ethnic politics can be illustrated through the contrast between two Croatian towns of similar size and ethnic structure, Knin and Vukovar, which both have played an important symbolic role in the (post)-war history and politics of Croatia. Vukovar, situated on the border with Serbia, suffered from heavy fighting in the early stage of the war in Croatia and the defeat of its Croat ‘defenders ’ by the Serb forces became a symbol of the suffering of Croats during the war and a symbolic reason for their struggle for independence. In contrast to that, Knin, a strategic town located in the Dalmatian hinterland, was the capital of the proclaimed quasi-state of the Serb insurgents during the war and its ‘liberation ’ by the Croat forces in 1995 has been politically presented as the symbol of victory in the official narrative of independent Croatia. In the post-conflict years and the 2000s, the local politics in both towns was fully dominated by the respective ethnic parties representing the Croat majority and Serb minority.
In Vukovar, the left-wing SDP party led by theologist and former Croat soldier Željko Sabo was the first to disrupt the postwar dominance of ethnic parties after winning 32% of votes and the seat of mayor with even 53% in the second round over the Croat ethnic candidate in 2009, this thanks to taking a significant portion of votes from both Croat and Serb ethnic blocs. However, in 2014, SDP was defeated by the Croat majority party after an escalation of the inter-ethnic tensions over the usage of language, but also as a result of allegations of corruption directed to Sabo himself (Radio Slobodna Evropa 2014). In 2017, ethnic parties re-confirmed
119 their dominance as the cross-ethnic SPD only received 12%, two Serb ethnic parties 18% and two ethnic Croat coalitions 60% in total.
The story of success of cross-ethnic politics in Knin presents some similar features. Since the war, the local politics was dominated by the dominant Croat ethnic HDZ while the Serb ethnic parties grew into the second strongest political factor with the post-war return of the Serb refugees. The local political dynamics was characterised by tensions between the two ethnic blocs and the local politics went through periods of both inter-ethnic tensions as well as coalitions (Simonović 2005, Interview 86). However, a political earthquake occurred in 2017 when a local independent movement, led by the former councillor of HDZ and rector of the local college Marko Jelić easily won the elections for mayor with 59% of votes in the second round. Despite being only the second strongest party in the local parliament, Jelić’s multi- ethnic list was able to form a coalition with other smaller parties, including the Serb ethnic SDSS and the left-wing SDP, and ended the political dominance of the Croat HDZ over the ‘symbolic ’ town for the first time since the war (HRT 2017). Jelić succeeded thanks to seeking support from former voters of both the Croat and Serb ethnic parties as well as from the smaller civic oriented segment of the electorate. In the 2017 elections to the local parliament, the support for Croat ethnic parties dropped from 65% to 48%, and that of Serb ethnic parties fell from 17% to 8% and that of left-wing parties from 17% to 9% compared to 2013 elections. Meanwhile, Jelić’s local movement received 35% of votes and as such in fact defeated all traditional political actors of the local politics. In an interview with the author, conducted a few days prior to the elections, Jelić himself explained that his goal is to take votes mainly from the two ethnic parties whose supporters are frustrated by their socio-economic situation and the general stagnation of the town (Interview 85). This was also confirmed by representatives of other parties who explained that Jelić compiled his candidate list in a smart and pragmatic way by including people of various political and ethnic backgrounds, thus seeking support from different segments of the electorate (Interviews 84, 88). This strategy apparently paid off, probably also thanks to Jelić' personal popularity and self-presentation of a nonpolitical candidate unburdened by a problematic past. Despite the fact that his own political career was closely linked to HDZ, Jelić was popular particularly compared to the 'old' ruling leaders of the traditional parties who suffered from allegations of nepotism and corruption (Interview 84). Interestingly, the former mayor Josipa Rimac, who ruled the town as a mayor and president of the local HDZ since 2005 and lost to Jelić in 2017 elections, was accused of corruption and ended in custody in 2020 (N1 2020a).
120 Similar to the above presented situation in Bosnia, the analysis of contrasting cases of success and failure of cross-ethnic parties in the Croatian towns of Vukovar and Knin shows that the viability and performance of multi-ethnic politics can be best explained through locally specific circumstances rather than by universal structural factors. Both cases of Jelić’s and Sabo’s successes were mainly driven by their personal popularity combined with the unpopularity of the long-term ruling ethnic elites. However, Sabo’s rapid decline after his own corruption affair shows that a success of multi-ethnic forces based on strong personalities in fact lacks deeper grounds that would be rooted in the local political community. The fact that both Sabo as a once successful candidate with a cross-ethnic appeal and Rimac as a long-term ethnic ruler of Knin concluded their political career in prison illustrates the thin line between any good and bad (non)-ethnic politics on the local level in regard to the quality of governance. In both instances, it was the corruption affairs connected to individual politicians that contributed to the changes in distribution of votes between ethnic and cross-ethnic parties.
In contrast to urban regional centres of Knin and Vukovar, Obrovac and Gračac are two peripheral and rather rural municipalities, both of them located in the hinterland of the Dalmatian coast. In both municipalities, the cross-ethnic politics, consisting of state-level parties and local movements, enjoys significant support, but without any effect on the long- term rule of ethnic parties. Both municipalities were heavily hit by the violent conflict in the 1990s that led to significant demographic changes. Prior to the war, both municipalities had a Serb majority (Gračac 80%, Obrovac 66%) and after their territories became part of the self- proclaimed Republic of the Serb Krajina in 1991, most of the Croat minority fled to coastal areas controlled by the Croat forces. However, in 1995 almost all local Serbs fled during the Croat military operation Storm that finally defeated the Serb armed forces and political structures, thus leaving the territories of the former RSK unpopulated and deserted for a moment. The Croat refugees from the early stage of fighting returned quickly after the fighting ended, and the ethnic Croat population was in the first post-war years further expanded by an organised resettlement of the Croat refugees from the areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina lost by Croats to Bosniaks and Serbs in the war. Similar to most of the areas of the former RSK, Gračac and Obrovac thus came under firm Croat demographic as well as political control. Combined with the general political resistance to the return of the Serb community on the state level, the local Croat dominance obstructed the return of the local Serbs who, in the meantime, resettled in Serbia and the Serb parts of Bosnia.
121 Since 2009, Obrovac has been ruled by a stable coalition of two dominant ethnic parties representing the local Croat majority and the Serb minority, HDZ and SDSS (Slobodna Dalmacija 2013, Interview 83). In contrast to that, in Gračac with the almost equal demographic structure, two political blocs have been taking turns in the local government. While the Croat bloc represented by HDZ is organised on ethnic basis and only appeals to the Croat community, the leading Serb ethnic party SDSS has been composing broader pre- election coalitions consisting of smaller civic parties with a certain cross-ethnic appeal. In the 2016 elections, the coalition led by SDSS also included a small local branch of the 'Reform party' that otherwise appealed exclusively to Croat voters when it was running individually in the previous elections (Novosti 2017). This diverse multi-ethnic pre-election coalition consisting of ethnic parties of both communities as well as civic parties with cross-ethnic appeal is a unique case not only within Croatia, but also across the local post-conflict politics of the Balkans. Furthermore, authentic local movements with cross-ethnic ambitions led by local civic activists appeared in the 2017 elections in both Gračac and Obrovac. While each of them only gained single mandates in local parliaments, leaders of both of them considered the results a relative success in light of the deeply rooted long-term dominance of the established, mainly ethnic parties and what they call their clientelist networks (Interviews 81, 91).
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122 5 Ethno-political mobilisation
The previous chapter focused on the first stage of the political process in ethnically mixed areas and discussed how the local (ethnic) communities are politically organised and represented in the local politics by ethnic and non-ethnic parties organised on the state and the local level. This chapter will further develop that discussion by shifting the focus to the second, and the decisive stage of the political process, that is the phase in which the local communities are politically mobilised by parties in the elections. Elections are a determining moment of the political cycle as they directly reveal the legitimacy of various forms of political organisation (as discussed in the previous chapter) and define the amount of the political power at disposal of single actors for the power division (discussed in the following chapter). Therefore, this chapter will systematically map the levels and patterns of ethnic-political mobilisation of 165 ethnic communities covered by the research across the post-conflict areas of the Balkans.
In the first section, the chapter presents an analysis of the extent to which the ethno-political organisations in general are able to mobilise ethnic communities in the elections. The purpose of this analysis is not only to investigate to what extent the ethnic communities are supportive of the ethnic politics on the local level, but also to uncover whether there is any significant variation among communities across different ethnicities, states, regions and demographic settings in their levels of ethno-political mobilisation. The examination of the extent of ethno- political mobilisation serves to test Horowitz's (1985) theoretical assumption that in deeply divided societies politics gets fully ethnicised and elections in fact become an ethnic census. Through an analysis of the relative electoral support of ethnic parties and the comparison thereof with the demographic structure of the population, the section systematically assesses the overall level of the local politics' ethnicisation as well as single groups' ability of ethnic mobilisation.
The second part of the chapter looks into the intra-group dynamics of ethnic mobilisation and investigates specific patterns of ethno-political mobilisation by looking at levels of political fragmentation and unity within single ethnic groups.
123 5.1 Extent of ethno-political mobilisation: Political salience of ethnicity
The political mobilisation of citizens in the elections is generally based on competing programs that reflect politicised cleavages within society (Zuckerman 1975; Rae and Taylor 1970). In modern societies, multiple cleavages have developed that stem from internal economic, territorial, ideological and cultural diversity of nation states (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Kitschelt 1995; Hloušek 2002; Zakošek 1998). In ethnically diverse societies, ethnicity is one of the potentially important cleavages that can become highly politicised and exploited for political mobilisation along ethnic lines (Chandra 2004; Coakley 2008).
However, scholars do not agree on the actual effect of ethnic heterogeneity on the political salience of ethnicity. Advocates of the integrationist approach argue that ethnic heterogeneity has a centripetal effect that decreases the salience of ethnicity and brings forward other cleavages cross-cutting the ethnic divisions. The roots of the integrationist argumentation can be traced back to Horowitz’s (1985) centripetal argument for accommodation within ethnically divided societies or even to the contact theory of conflict resolution developed empirically in psychology by Allport (1954). The proposed causal mechanism is based on the assumption that different forms of inter-ethnic contact, from politics through economy to every-day life, create a cross-ethnic social capital, and that emerging cross-cutting cleavages and common interests effectively prevent political conflict on ethnic basis (Byman 1997; Pickering 2006; Jenne 2010; Rydgren and Sofi 2011). As Horowitz (1985) argued, the more diverse a society is, the more intensive is the rational incentive for all groups to find common interest. The opposite argument claims that ethnic diversity as such has a centrifugal effect as it increases the risk of ethnic conflict (Vanhanen 1999; Blimes 2006). It is based on the assumption that ethnic diversity itself weakens societal cohesion and cleaves common interest of the society as a whole into particular interests of single ethnic groups (Hegre 2001; Schneider and Wiesehomeier 2006). While the centripetal approach expects other cleavages than ethnicity to arise in ethnically diverse settings, the centrifugal approach assumes that politics will be highly ethnicised.
Empirical research has shown that political salience of ethnicity is higher in diverse environments than in homogenous areas (Sikk and Bochsler 2008; Bochsler 2011; Stewart 2019). Furthermore, ethnic cleavage plays an even more prominent role particularly in those diverse communities that went through violent conflict (Gurr 1994; Wimmer 1997; Fearon and Laitin 2003). As Horowitz (1985), otherwise a prominent advocate of the centripetal effect of
124 ethnic diversity, admits, in deeply divided societies politics can be ethnicised to the extent that elections in fact become an ethnic census as ethnicity fully dominates over other political cleavages.
The aim of this section is to depart from these theoretical assumptions and uncover to what extent ethnicity is politically salient on the local level in ethnically diverse post-conflict areas of the region. The previous chapter already clearly revealed that local politics in mixed post- conflict areas of the Balkans is largely organised along ethnic lines. It demonstrated that, with only a few exceptions, the local party systems are almost fully dominated by ethnic political parties whose electoral appeal is limited to single ethnic communities. This section will depart from these findings and investigate the level of ethnicisation of local politics in a systematic way by looking at a variation of levels of the ethno-political mobilisation across single groups, states, and regions. Furthermore, the section discusses the implications of different levels of mobilisation for political representation of local ethnic communities.
5.1.1 Index of ethno-political mobilisation
To reveal the political salience of ethnicity, an index of ethno-political mobilisation is constructed and calculated from census data and coded election results. The index is calculated by taking the share of votes for ethnic parties of a particular group on all votes cast, divided by the population share of the group in the municipality. The index of ethno-political mobilisation thus indicates the share of the members of a particular ethnic group who align their ethnic identities with the ethno-political choice by actively expressing their ethnic identity through voting for ethnic parties. This procedure reveals the extent to which the political mobilisation takes place exclusively along the ethnic lines. In fully ethnicised (local) politics, with the electoral turnout being equal across groups, the index would reach 1 as the share votes received by ethnic parties would correspond with the population share of the particular group. However, values of the index under 1 indicate lower levels of ethno-political mobilisation of that particular group in the elections as its share of votes is lower than its population share. This can have two main causes: first, the members of such less mobilised ethnic groups can have lower electoral turnout than those of other groups for various demographic or political reasons. Second, lower ethno-political mobilisation can be a consequence of political mobilisation along other than ethnic lines that materialises in voting for non-ethnic parties. On the contrary, values of the index above 1 indicate a high level of ethno-political mobilisation when the group exceeds its demographic share in the election outcome. This situation would usually be caused by a relatively higher electoral turnout of the group compared to other ethnic communities in
125 the area. Rarely, this higher index of ethno-political mobilisation can also result from additional support that the ethnic parties receive from other ethnic communities, which increases their electoral result compared to the population share of the primary group they represent.
The index was calculated for all 165 examined local ethnic groups in 81 mixed post-conflict municipalities in the region. The ethnically coded election results from the most recent elections, introduced in the previous chapter, were used as numerator. For the sake of calculation, relative shares of votes received by parties with ethnic appeal to a particular group were counted to reveal the group's share of voting. The census data on local ethnic groups' population share were then applied as a denominator in the calculation. However, the validity of the official ethnic demographic figures in the post-Yugoslav region is limited and thus the census data need to be applied with caution. Since the ethnic demography has been a highly politicised topic across the region, censuses in some countries have been postponed, other boycotted by minorities, and yet other doubted as manipulated (Hoh 2017; Bieber 2013b; Musaj 2015; Žíla and Čermák 2020; Visoka and Gjevori 2013). In cases where reliable official figures for local ethnic structure are missing, relevant alternative estimates are used for the sake of calculation.
5.1.2 Varying levels of ethno-political mobilisation: Majority-minority misbalance
Recorded values of the index reveal significant structural variation in the level of ethno- political mobilisation across single ethnic groups in various states and regions, which mainly reflects the relative demographic size and political position of the ethnic groups. Starting from the state level, the following table shows the aggregated values of the index for all ethnic groups in the five states of the region. The simple comparison of the recorded values across the five states confirms the findings of the previous chapter that already mapped the local political landscapes in mixed areas. It shows that there is a sharp difference between the level of ethnicisation of local politics between Croatia and all other states of the region. In Croatia, where the non-ethnic parties with appeal cross-cutting the inter-ethnic divide enjoy significant electoral support, the overall level of ethno-political mobilisation is significantly lower than in other parts of the region. Its aggregated value of 0.74 is an outcome of the fact that while Croats and Serbs together represent 92% of the population of the examined mixed areas, ethnic parties representing these two groups only received 69% of votes, while most of the other votes went to non-ethnic parties. In Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, where the local politics is almost fully ethnicised, the aggregated values of the index vary between 102% and 111%, thus indicating high levels of ethno-political mobilisation across all groups. In Bosnia and Kosovo
126 the values of 1.02 and 1.03 show that the portion of votes received by ethnic parties (99% and 100%) almost fully corresponds with the ethnic groups ’ share of the population (97% in both cases). The slightly higher values of the index in Serbia and Macedonia (1.09 and 1.11) might look surprising as they indicate more than full ethno-political mobilisation of the two groups. However, it is an indirect effect of the demographic presence of other ethnic groups (mainly Roma in Serbia, and Turks, Serbs and Bosniaks in Macedonia) that are not ethno-politically mobilised and thus conversely increase the value of the index for both major ethnic groups present in the area. In the two municipalities in Serbia, Serbs and Albanians only represent 90% of the population, but their ethnic parties took 97% of the total votes. In Macedonian municipalities, Macedonians and Albanians represent in total 88% of population, but their respective ethnic parties received 98% of votes in total, thus increasing the index of mobilisation.
State/region Albanians Bosniaks Croats Macedonians Serbs Total BaH 0,78 0,80 1,26 1,02 FBaH 1,13 0,92 0,86 1,02 RS 0,55 0,74 1,19 1,02 Croatia 0,83 0,54 0,74 Eastern slavonia 1,01 0,59 0,85 Krajina 0,79 0,54 0,72 West Slavonia 0,65 0,32 0,59 Kosovo 1,14 0,92 1,03 Albanian majority 1,06 0,76 1,03 Serb majority 1,05 1,03 1,03 Macedonia 0,95 1,29 1,11 Skopje 0,97 1,31 1,17 Tetovo 0,94 1,24 1,02 Serbia 1,13 1,03 1,09 Preševo valley 1,13 1,03 1,09 TOTAL 0,93 0,83 0,79 1,20 1,22 1,02
Table 8: Recorded values of ethno-political mobilisation for states, regions and ethnic groups. Furthermore, there is even more pronounced variation in terms of the level of the ethno- political mobilisation of single ethnic groups in each of the states, as demonstrated in the table. However, a deeper analysis is necessary to explain the causes of these differences, one focused on the political and demographic dynamics of these ethnic communities in single states and their politically distinct regions.
Croatia
In Croatia, where the recorded values of mobilisation are generally the lowest, there is still a sharp difference between the level of mobilisation of Croats (0.83 in average) and Serbs (0.54).
127 This difference has two main causes, the first being demographic and the second being political. First, the Serb community in Croatia is in a demographic decline and the figures from the most recent 2011 census taken for the calculation of the index do not probably fully reflect the actual relative size of the Serb community in most of the areas (Interview 73). Therefore, it is difficult for Serbs, who are in fact less numerous than the official data reports, to ethno-politically confirm their demographic share even if they would be fully ethno-politically mobilised. Second, support for non-ethnic parties is relatively more common among Serbs than Croats, which further decreases their recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation. While it is not possible to extract any exact data about the share of Serb voters supporting the non-ethnic option from the election results, local representatives from across various ethnic and non-ethnic parties in the mixed areas all agreed that the Serb community is traditionally much more equally divided between the two options than the Croat community which mainly supports the ethnic option and much less the non-ethnic option (Interviews 56, 64, 91). The difference is visible in the significantly higher levels of ethno-political mobilisation recorded among Croats compared to Serbs. This is an indicator of a higher support for the ethnic political option among Croats, but also a reverse outcome of the demographic decline of Serbs that gives Croats in most mixed areas better relative demographic and political position.
On the regional level, there is a significant difference in recorded values for Croats in the three politically distinct regions. The level of mobilisation is by far the highest in Eastern Slavonia, which is due to its specific post-war legacy of the only region in Croatia where the inter-ethnic political tensions are on the top of the local political agenda. Supposedly, the support for left- wing parties that are opposed to the ethnicisation of politics is lower among Croats who are mobilised by persisting tensions (Interview 72). An additional cause is the support for the Croat ethnic parties by members of other ethnic minorities present in significant numbers in the mixed municipalities of Eastern Slavonia, mainly Hungarians. The Hungarian minority compose a significant portion of the local population in most of the municipalities of the Baranja region (Darda, Beli Manastir, Erdut) and partly vote for the Croat ethnic parties, which manifests in seemingly higher levels of Croats' ethno-political mobilisation. Compared to Eastern Slavonia, the level of mobilisation of Croats is significantly lower in the regions of Krajina and Western Slavonia. In contrast to eastern Croatia, in these areas the Serb community was almost completely expelled during the war and only partially returned after the conflict in a position of a politically and demographically vulnerable minority. Therefore, in these regions
128 controlled by Serbs during the war, Croats are presently in a clear political and demographic majority position, unthreatened by a small Serb minority.
However, this variation is in no way reflected on the Serb part where the levels of mobilisation are the same in Eastern Slavonia and the Krajina region, indicating similar political dynamics of the Serb community across different regions. The only significant drop in levels of mobilisation in both Serb and Croat communities is in the two mixed municipalities of Western Slavonia, where the non-ethnic political option generally enjoys a very high support on the local level, thus decreasing the recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation to 0.65 for Croats and only 0.32 for Serbs.
Bosnia
In Bosnia, there are also significant differences in the recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation between the three ethnic groups on the state level. While the aggregated value of the index reaches 1.26 for Serbs, it is only 0.78 and 0.8 for Bosniaks and Croats respectively. However, in contrast to Croatia, the local politics in mixed areas of Bosnia is almost fully ethnicised and therefore the variation cannot be explained through the support of the less mobilised groups to non-ethnic political options. Furthermore, the reverse high values significantly above 1 recorded for Serbs rather suggest demographic causes of this discrepancy.
To explain this difference, it is necessary to look at the level of the politically distinct sub-state regions where the groups are located. Once the data are disaggregated to the level of entities, we see that both Bosniaks and Croats record high levels of ethno-political mobilisation in mixed areas of FBaH where they are in a position of majority communities on the entity level, 1.13 and 0.92 respectively. The lower value recorded for Croats within FBaH can be explained by their relatively weaker demographic position in regard to Bosniaks. The demographic figures reported in a census by Croats across Bosnia were allegedly exaggerated, which consequently makes it difficult for Croats to reclaim their demographic share in the elections even under full ethno-political mobilisation. Conversely, their weaker demographic potential slightly increases the value of the index for Bosniaks who live aside Croats in most FBaH municipalities. Contrary to that, both Bosniaks and Croats recorded significantly lower levels of ethno-political mobilisation in RS, 0.55 and 0.74. Across the Serb-dominated entity, Bosniaks and Croats currently live aside the local Serb majorities as post-war ‘minority returnees ’ after they were expelled during the war and returned back in a vulnerable position despite political obstacles in the post-conflict period. However, the low value of the index does
129 not in fact reveal a low level of ethno-political mobilisationof those Croats and Bosniaks who truly live in the mixed municipalities of RS. It is rather a consequence of significantly lower numbers of Bosniaks and Croats who effectively returned to these areas and have the possibility to vote there, than it was reported in the recent official 2013 census on which the calculation of their demographic share is based. To increase the demographic and political position of these ‘minority returnee ’ communities, people were allegedly counted in the census who only come to their nominal place of residence occasionally or on a seasonal basis. In the typical case of Prijedor, where the officially largest community of Bosniak returnees in RS lives (almost 30000 or 32% of the local population according to the 2013 census), the four Bosniak ethnic parties running in the elections only received 17% of votes. Local Bosniak political representatives admit that the official census figure is overblown and that the actual number of Bosniaks truly living in the town on an every-day basis might be about two to three times lower than the census figures show (Interviews 101, 104, 106). The election result of Bosniak parties would then show even more than full ethno-political mobilisation of the Bosniak community truly residing in the area. This discrepancy in figures can be explained by a large portion (above 25%) of their votes received by post from voters absent in the municipality. In another case of a highly ethno-politically contested municipality of Srebrenica, the local Bosniak community (54% of population according to the 2013 census) was able to almost reclaim its demographic share in the local elections with 45% of votes for the three Bosniak ethnic parties. However, almost half of these votes were delivered from voters who were not present in the municipality and cast their ballots in absence. In some municipalities of the Posavina region, local demographically weak Croat communities can also at least partly compensate their demographic absence through high levels of ethno-political mobilisation of voters not living in the municipality. In the extreme cases of Derventa and Pelagićevo, local Croats were able to reclaim their reported demographic share through high levels of distant ethno-political mobilisation despite the fact that only a small part of the reported population lives in the municipalities. The ethnic Croat parties running in these municipalities received almost 80% of votes from voters outside of the municipality, that enabled them to politically confirm their official demographic share and provided them with significant political power on the local level.
Also, there is a specific category of minority returnees who in effect live in these areas, yet have formally registered their place of residence in the FBaH for their own practical, economic or safety reasons, which prevents them from voting in the location. In the extreme cases of tiny
130 municipalities of Donji Žabar and Vukosavlje in Posavina, most of the census-reported Croats living in the municipality are in fact registered in the adjacent ‘federal ’ municipalities of Orašje and Odžak where they can also vote in local elections. As a result of that, in Donji Žabar, where over one thousand or 27% of Croats were reported in a census, no Croat ethnic party was running in the elections, and in Vukosavlje with 17% or almost 800 Croats, the single ethnic Croat party only received 3% of votes. Similar situations were observed by the author also in Bosniak and Serb communities in several other municipalities located on the inter-entity borderline (Interviews 93, 108), where a significant part of the minority community living in the areas is administratively registered in the adjacent municipality where their ethnic group is a local majority.
Despite their relatively successful attempts for supplementary distant ethno-political mobilisation of voters not living in these municipalities, the Bosniak and Croat minority returnee communities in RS are unable to confirm the demographic share through ethno- political mobilisation, which leads to extremely low values of the recorded ethno-political mobilisation. As will be shown in the Chapter 5.1, the discrepancy between their officially claimed demographic share and the actual voting potential has important negative consequences for their political representation and further participation in decision making.
Conversely, the relatively high recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation for Serb communities are an indirect reverse outcome of low values for Bosniak and Croat minorities in RS, where Serbs live aside as ethno-politically strongly mobilised majority. This reversely provides local Serb majorities a significantly advantaged starting position for their participation in the local political process, which will be further discussed in Chapter 6.2. In parallel to Bosniaks and Croats in RS, Serbs living as ‘minority returnees ’ in two municipalities of FBaH also record significantly lower levels of ethno-political mobilisation, mainly because of their demographic decline on the one hand and formal residence in RS on the other (Interviews 12, 39, 108).
Kosovo
Similar to Bosnia, the local political landscape in the mixed parts of Kosovo is fully ethnicised, which is also indicated by the high aggregated value of the index (1.03). However, as in the case of Bosnia, there is a significant difference between the overall level of mobilisation of the two groups. Serbs (0.92), the minority group on the state level, only manifest a high but not full ehno-political mobilisation compared to Albanians (1.14) whose index significantly
131 exceeds the value 1, indicating full mobilisation. More specifically, ethnic parties representing Albanians who comprise 49% of the population of 7 examined mixed municipalities gained 56% of the total votes, while the ratio is reversed for Serbs (48% of population and 44% of votes). As in Bosnia, and in contrast to Croatia, there are no relevant non-ethnic political options in the Kosovar local politics whose support would explain the lower level of mobilisation among Serbs. A reverse effect of the values only suggests that there is a relative difference between Albanians and Serbs in the level of mobilisation. Furthermore, the disaggregation of the values into the two geo-politically distinct regions reveals further significant variation among Serbs. In the five municipalities where Serbs are in a majority position, their level of mobilisation exceeds 1. On the contrary, in two Albanian-dominated municipalities where Serbs live as a tiny minority, their recorded level of mobilisation is extremely low with values of 0.6 (Kamenica) and 0.78 (Obilić). In Kamenica, where the Serb minority is estimated to comprise up to 10% of the local population, the single Serb party running in the elections only received 6% of total votes. Supposedly, this low result was caused either by a lower actual demographic presence of Serbs, or their low interest in the elections, and most probably as a combination of both. In contrast to Serbs, Albanians generally record high values of mobilisation in all municipalities regardless of their local minority-majority status. In the four municipalities demographically and politically controlled by Serbs, the recorded levels are slightly lower (0.90-0.97) than in two Albanian-majority municipalities (1.05 and 1.10). The only exception is the municipality of Gračanica (0.49) where the small Albanian minority comprising 12% of the local population only cast 6% of votes for the two ethnic Albanian parties in the local elections. As in the municipalities situated on the inter- entity borderline in Bosnia, this discrepancy can be explained by the unsettled status of many of Albanians who live on the periphery of the Gračanica municipality, administratively in between the jurisdiction of Gračanica and the adjacent Fushe Kosove/Kosovo Polje municipality (Zeri 2018; KIM radio 2018).
Serbia
In the two mixed Serb-Albanian municipalities of south Serbia, the local politics is fully ethnicised, which is also reflected in the high aggregate level of ethno-political mobilisation, precisely 1.09. As explained above, the value exceeding 1 is a consequence of a demographic presence of other ethnic communities that are not mobilised on ethnic basis, in this case mainly the Roma community in Bujanovac. While the Roma community in Bujanovac counts for more than 4000 people and up to 12% of the local population, they are weakly politically mobilised
132 (Stevanović 2020a). Its single ethnic party running in the elections only took 3% of votes, thus reversely increasing the recorded mobilisation among Albanians and Serbs. Otherwise, the recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation of both Serbs (1.03) and Albanians (1.13) indicate full levels of overall ethno-political mobilisation. The only local community where the recorded mobilisation is significantly under 1 is the Albanian minority in Medvedja (0.88). Similar to other minority communities described above in Bosnia and Kosovo, the Albanian minority living on the Serbia-Kosovo border has been experiencing a demographic decline which, combined with its cross-border manner of residence, significantly decreases its political mobilisation. Allegedly, the Albanian community physically residing in Medvedja is much smaller than reported by the latest relevant census data from 2002, and Albanians were only able to preserve their political status in the municipality thanks to a distant ethno-political mobilisation of their voters coming from Kosovo on the election day (Insajderi 2018; Titulli 2019).
Macedonia
As in the previous cases of states where local politics is fully ethnicised, the aggregated value of the index in Macedonia (1.11) clearly confirms the overall high levels of ethno-political mobilisation in mixed areas. Similar to the previously discussed case of Serbia, the value of the index significantly above 1 is a result of a demographic presence of other smaller ethnic groups that are not ethno-politically mobilised on their own and thus relatively increase the recorded levels of mobilisation for Albanians and Macedonians. In the 8 examined mixed municipalities in Macedonia, the other non-dominant minorities comprise in total 12% of the population, consisting mainly of Serbs (4%), Roma (3%) and Turks (2%). While all of these three groups are politically organised on the state level in Macedonia, they frequently align with the two dominant ethnic Macedonian parties within their broader coalitions. Interestingly, various small ethnic parties representing Serbs, Turks and Roma were part of the coalitions agreed on the central level by both VMRO and SDSM in the 2017 local elections. Regardless of which of the two main parties they support, the minority voters increase the relative level of mobilisation of Macedonians.
On the group level, there is a significant difference in recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation of Albanians 0.95) and Macedonians (1.29). While the value recorded for Albanians reveals their almost full mobilisation (48% of population and 46% of votes), the value for Macedonians by far exceeds the natural maximum level of mobilisation. Ethnic Macedonian parties gained 52% of votes, while ethnic Macedonians comprise only 40% of
133 population in the examined mixed areas. Presumably, the increase in the support of ethnic Macedonian parties compared to the demographic share can be explained by a combination of additional support received from other ethnic communities and a slightly lower relative mobilisation among Albanians.
On the sub-state regional level, the recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation can be compared between the two politically distinct geographic areas. The broader Tetovo region, where four mixed municipalities are located, is the political centre of Albanians in Macedonia who demographically and politically dominate the area, while Macedonians are in a minority position. On the contrary, the situation is reversed in the broader area of the state capital Skopje (4 mixed municipalities) where Macedonians are in a majority position. As in the previous cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, drops in the levels of ethno-political mobilisation were recorded with groups that are in the minority position on the regional level. However, compared to the previous cases, the decrease is not so significant and these groups are still highly mobilised. Macedonians recorded the value 1.24 in the Tetovo area compared to 1.31 in Skopje, while for Albanians the recorded aggregated values are almost equal in both regions.
Among Albanians, the different levels of ethno-political mobilisation between the majority and the minority position are more profound on the local level of single municipalities. While Albanians are highly mobilised in municipalities where they comprise the dominant majority group (Tetovo, Tearce, Čair), they record alarmingly low levels of mobilisation in municipalities where they are in minority position (Kumanovo, Jegunovce, Butel), which indicates their lower interest in political participation in these municipalities dominated by the Macedonian majority. On the other hand, Macedonians are highly mobilised across all municipalities regardless of the region and their relative demographic position towards Albanians. Even in Tearce, where Macedonians comprise only 12% of population, the two ethnic Macedonian parties were able to gain over 16% of votes, thus exceeding its demographic electoral potential.
5.1.3 Explaining the variation
Overall, the recorded levels of ethno-political mobilisation show that most of the ethnic groups present in mixed areas of the region are, on the local level, politically mobilised exclusively along the ethnic lines. The only exception to this rule is Croatia, where support for non-ethnic parties significantly decreases the performance and legitimacy of ethnic parties, particularly among the Serb community that is divided almost equally between the ethnic and non-ethnic
134 segment. These findings thus show the high political salience of ethnicity. Across the ethnically heterogeneous areas of the region, ethnicity is the most pronounced political cleavage that determines political mobilisation on the local level. All other potential political cleavages then only manifest within the ethnically defined segments of polities on an intra-group basis. The observed patterns of political mobilisation are thus in line with the assumptions of the advocates of consociational approaches who argue that ethnic forms of political mobilisation contribute to legitimate representation of ethnic groups and accommodation of their interests on the elite level.
However, even with such high levels of political mobilisation on the ethnic grounds, the situation in mixed areas does not correspond with Horowitz's assumption of 'elections as a census.' Quite the contrary, even under fully ethnicised politics, the ethnic outcome of the elections usually significantly differs from the ethnic demographic structure of the local population. These discrepancies have a structural basis and point to strikingly divergent levels of ethno-political mobilisation between groups according to their demographic-political position. Across all states, regions and groups, a significant variation was observed with regard to levels of mobilisation related to the minority and majority position of ethnic communities. Ethnic groups in positions of ethnic minorities record significantly lower levels of ethno- political mobilisation compared to the respective majorities. This discrepancy is visible on various political-geographic levels. In Macedonia and Croatia, it is significant already on the state level, where the Albanian and Serbian minorities are generally less mobilised than the state-level majorities of ethnic Macedonians and Croats. In Bosnia and Kosovo, the relative difference in mobilisation of minorities and majorities becomes clear on the sub-state level, where the groups in demographically weaker positions in particular politically distinct regions record significantly lower levels of ethno-political mobilisation compared to the dominant groups, regardless of their position on the state level. Across the whole region, this imbalance is reflected in the local politics on the level of municipalities, where most of the local minorities are relatively less ethno-politically mobilised compared to local majorities
The following figure clearly shows the difference in mobilisation between local minorities and majorities by presenting the average observed levels of mobilisation for groups of various demographic shares. The average value of mobilisation is below 0.7 for small minorities (10- 25% of population) and below 0.8 for strong minorities, while it exceeds 1 for local majorities (see to following figure).
135
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0,8 political mobilisation political - 0,6
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0,2 Average level of ethno level Average 0 10-25% 25-40% 40-60% 60-75% 75-90% Size of group (category)
Figure 35: Average levels of ethno-political mobilisation for categories of groups of different relative size. However, the unequal mobilisation of minorities cannot be simply explained by their lower interest in local politics or weaker political organisation on ethnic basis. Quite the contrary, as proven in the previous chapter, all of the minorities are politically organised on ethnic basis and most of them mobilise exclusively along the ethnic lines. The relatively lower levels of observed ethno-political mobilisation among minority communities have more complex underlying causes that consequently weaken their political position.
The main cause of the relatively lower levels of mobilisation among minorities lays in their disadvantaged demographic position. In general, most of the ethnic communities that are currently in the position of political minorities in the mixed areas, underwent damaging demographic changes during the conflicts. Serbs in Croatia, Bosniaks and Croats in Serb part of Bosnia, Serbs in the Bosniak-Croat part of Bosnia as well as Serbs in south Kosovo were all en masse forcefully expelled from their pre-war homes. Despite pressure from the international community on the 'minority return' in the post-war years, local ruling majorities were obstructing their return and only smaller parts of the pre-war populations formally returned (Jenne 2010; Koska 2008; Ivanisevic 2004). Furthermore, of those who formally went through
136 the return process, only a part truly stayed in their place of residence for permanent living, while many others only come back seasonally and live permanently in areas politically controlled by their group (Žíla 2019; Black, Eastmond, and Gent 2016). This incomplete return of minorities has important consequences for their local political position. While these groups are able to sufficiently mobilise their members demographically in censuses where they claim a significant share of the local population, they are unable to reclaim these shares through ethno-political mobilisation in the elections. While those members of minorities who truly live in the areas are usually fully mobilised on ethnic basis, those who only partially reside in the area are mostly not interested or allowed to take part in the elections. Local minorities are thus losing a significant part of their potential electorate that would otherwise allow them to reclaim their demographic shares in the local ethnicised politics.
The under-mobilisation of minority groups is widespread particularly among groups in demographic decline. As claimed by the representative of the ethnic Albanian party in the Serbian municipality of Medvedja, the number of Albanian voters significantly dropped recently as a result of emigration and passivation of local Albanian community that is increasingly bound to the Kosovo state structures (Titulli 2019). Similar to that, a leading political representative of the Serb minority in Bosanski Petrovac explained that due to the fact that about a third of the local Serb voters are administratively registered in the adjacent Petrovac municipality in RS, the electoral potential of Serbs in the federal municipality is reduced and Serbs end up underrepresented in local politics (Interview 108).
Local minority leaders are fully aware of this problem and seek ways to increase the electoral potential of minorities by mobilising its members living outside of the area. They frequently organise a distant ethno-political mobilisation in various forms depending on what the electoral rules allow. In Bosnia, where the post-war election system is designed in a way to take explicitly into account the complex demography of residence, some ethnic minorities massively resort to the institute of absentee voting to increase their share in the elections. The cases of Croats in Posavina voting predominantly via post, or Bosniaks in Srebrenica casting their ballots mainly in municipalities within FBaH, well illustrate this phenomenon of absentee voting which is widespread in some areas. Croat returnees in the Posavina region are the only minority group that effectively achieved full ethno-political mobilisation through distant voting. In the four municipalities of the Posavina region where the local Croat minorities got significantly mobilised in the elections (Derventa, Brod, Šamac, Pelagićevo), they achieved a
137 relatively high or even full levels of mobilisation (74-116%). In the unique case of Derventa, the two ethnic Croat parties representing the tiny (10%) Croat minority received 10% of votes and gained 3 out of the 29 seats in the local parliament, thus reclaiming the demographic share of Croats in local politics. However, in all these four cases, the unusually high level of mobilisation was only facilitated by the massive distant mobilisation of Croat voters in the elections, when between 70-90% of votes were delivered by post from voters outside of the country. In the extreme case of Brod, the three ethnic Croat parties only received 100 votes cast in person, while another 1345 were delivered by post from voters who are presumably members of the distantly mobilised diasporas (Žíla and Čermák 2020).
Electoral systems in other states do not allow this sort of systematic distant mobilisation, but local minorities in some areas still strive to improve their weak demographic position by physically bringing their co-patriots for the elections. Buses bringing Serb 'returnees' from Serbia to some municipalities in Croatia to cast their ballots, or traffic jams on the border crossing with Kosovo in Medvedja municipality on the election day when Albanians come to vote are both illustrative examples of this sort of distant ethnic mobilisation.
However, even distant mobilisation of minority members not living in the area is by far not sufficient for most of the minorities to reclaim their demographic shares in the elections. The observed under-mobilisation of minorities has further political consequences for their already weakened position in the ethnically divided local politics. While their lower mobilisation decreases their representation in local parliaments, it further strengthens the relative position of majorities.
5.1.4 Consequences for political representation
The observed misbalance in the levels of mobilisation between minorities and majorities has important political implications for the outcome of the electoral process and the subsequent distribution of political power. As a direct consequence of the lower minority mobilisation compared to majorities, ethnic parties representing minorities received relatively lower shares of votes, consequently translated into smaller amounts of seats allocated to them in the local parliaments. To assess the impact of lower mobilisation on political representation, an index of ethno-political representation is calculated for all groups using the same method as with the previous mobilisation index. Instead of using the aggregated share of votes received by parties representing the particular ethnic group, the relative share of mandates allocated to these parties in the local legislature is used and divided by the demographic share of the groups in the local
138 population. In parallel to the mobilisation index, the calculated value of the representation index reveals to what extent the group’s representation in local parliament corresponds to its demographic share of local population. While the value 1 shows proportional representation of the group, lower values indicate its under-representation in the legislature.
The recorded values confirm that as a result of their relatively lower political mobilisation, minority groups are disproportionally represented in local parliaments across the region while local majorities are overrepresented. Expectedly, the lowest levels of proportional ethnic representation are recorded in Croatia, primarily among Serbs, where their ethnic representation is decreased by the widespread support for non-ethnic parties. However, the levels of proportional representation of minorities are also alarmingly low in the ethnicised local parliaments in the Serb part of Bosnia and to a lesser extent in Kosovo and Macedonia. In the extreme case of the Osmaci municipality in RS entity of Bosnia, the local Bosniak returnee community (48% of population) demographically almost equals the Serb majority (52%). However, due to the relatively low mobilisation of the Bosniak voters the single Bosniak party running in the elections only gained 2 of the 15 seats in the local parliament, thus achieving only a marginal position in the local political dynamics. Similar high levels of underrepresentation were observed with almost all of the Bosniak returnee minorities in RS, and also with Serbs in Croatia, and to a lesser extent with most other minority groups.
However, the local relative demographic position of the group is not the only factor determining the level of representation, as the comparison of the data on the level of politically distinct sub-state units show. Overall, the observed values of relative ethnic representation show that underrepresentation is most pronounced among those local communities that are in the position of a demographic minority on the local level, and are at the same time political minority on the state or sub-state level. Serbs in Croatia, FBiH and Albanian parts of Kosovo, Bosniaks and Croats in RS, Albanians in Macedonia and the Serb parts of Kosovo, they all are significantly underrepresented in local politics in areas where they are minorities on the local level. On the contrary, most of the cases of local minorities that were proportionally represented or even over-represented are the groups that are in the position of a political majority in the wider area: Bosniaks and Croats in FBaH, Serbs in RS, Macedonians in Macedonia. The following figure visualises this observation by showing the relation between a relative demographic share of single communities in the local population (X axis) and their recorded levels of ethnic representation in local parliaments. Furthermore, the two colours of the single datapoint mark the political position of the group on the (sub)state level. The distribution of
139 values shows that the local demographic minorities (left quadrants of the plot) are generally less represented than the local demographic majorities (right quadrants of the plot). Furthermore, the distinction between the state-level political minorities and majorities shows that those local minorities that are proportionally represented or even over-represented (upper left quadrant), are almost exclusively those local minorities that are in the position of the state- level majority in the particular area. On the contrary, underrepresented minorities (lower left quadrant) are mainly those that are in a minority positions on the state level too. While most of the groups that are in the position of a political majority on the state level are proportionally represented or over-represented, regardless of their local demographic position (blue points two upper quadrants), the state-level minorities only achieve proportional representation in areas where they are local majorities (orange point in the upper right quadrant)
political majority political minority
2
1,8
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1 political representation political -
0,8
0,6 Index of ethno Index
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0 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Relative demographic size
Figure 36: Relation between relative demographic size, level of ethno-political representation, and status of political minority/majority.
140 While the observed levels of (under)representation generally correspond with the previously presented levels of (under)mobilisation, in some regions a significant discrepancy is found between the two indexes for minority groups. Specifically, the level of political representation of Albanians in the Skopje region in Macedonia, Bosniaks in RS entity of Bosnia and Serbs in the West Slavonia region of Croatia are significantly lower than their recorded level of mobilisation in the elections. This discrepancy is a result of their intra-group political fragmentation that further decreases their achieved representation in local legislatures because of vote-pooling. The negative effect of political fragmentation on representation of minorities will be further discussed in the following section focused on patterns of ethno-political mobilisation. 5.2 Patterns of ethnopolitical mobilisation: Intra-ethnic fragmentation vs. homogeneity
The previous section focused on the level of ethnopolitical mobilisation on the group level through the aggregation of the support for all ethnic parties representing a particular group, without looking into the intra-ethnic dynamics. However, even in fully ethnicised politics, ethnic groups are rarely politically homogeneous subjects and political competition takes place within the ethnic segments of politics. In the theory of ethnic politics, the dynamics of intra- ethnic competition has been developed primarily through the concept of ethnic outbidding that suggests an explanation for political conflict between moderate and radical ethnic parties that compete for a group’s support within the limited voting pool of the ethnic group (G. Moore et al. 2014; Zuber 2013; Coakley 2008). In this intra-ethnic competition, ethnic parties tend to radicalise their rhetoric as the easiest way to attract the voters’ support. However, empirical tests of the outbidding theory on the local level provided partially contradictory evidence suggesting that not all ethnic groups develop ethnopolitical pluralism and intra-ethnic competition (Stroschein 2011; Stewart 2019; Bochsler 2011). While some ethnic communities are internally split into two or more ethno-political forces, other remain politically homogeneous in their mass support for a single ethnic party. Stroschein (2011) in her work based on the evidence from mixed Romanian-Hungarian areas of Romania explains these different trajectories through the demographic structure of the particular political units that determines the dynamics of both inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic competition. Departing from the theory of outbidding, Stroschein shows that ethno-political pluralism only develops in a demographic setting where the particular ethnic group is in a clear majority position and thus
141 it does not risk losing power to the other ethnic group as a result of vote pooling among several parties. However, groups of similar demographic share as well as minorities rather remain politically homogeneous in order to maximise their share of votes and positions vis-à-vis the other group (Bochsler 2011).
“A group with just one ethnic party embodies a concentration of ethnic power in the unity of the party. An ethnic group that is fragmented into an array of different parties is likely to obtain fewer offices or seats in elections due to a dispersal of its ethnic support base” (Stroschein 2011, 191).
Departing from Stroschein's argument, in the next step of analysis, the structure of the local party systems is examined and focus of the analysis is put on the level of concentration/fragmentation in the political representation of ethnic groups and its possible correlation with demographic size. Two measures of the party fragmentation-concentration are applied, looking at the number of political parties and the actual distribution of support among them. Fragmentation is measured simply: through a number of existing ethnic parties representing the single group in two stages of the electoral process: the pre-election stage (candidate parties) and the post-election stage (elected parties) (Mozaffar and Scarritt 2005). However, this simple measure based on the number of the active ethnic parties does not reflect the possibly unequal distribution of their support among the group members. Typically, Croats in Bosnia are politically represented by several ethnic parties, but a vast majority (up to 80%) of them votes for the traditional nationalist HDZ, so the group remains relatively politically homogeneous. Therefore, to fully reveal the level of fragmentation, a more sophisticated indicator based on the measure of fractionalisation is applied. The calculation of fractionalisation reveals the probability that voters of the groups would vote for the same single party.
The following two charts visualise the levels of political fragmentation in relation to the groups’ relative demographic share. The first of them uses the measure by number of candidate parties, the second then applies the fractionalisation measure. Expectedly, the number of candidate ethnic parties is higher for demographically larger groups whose political representation is more fragmented. The following chart clearly visualises the rising number of candidate ethnic parties (Y axis) with the increase of a group’s demographic share in the local population. This correlation proves that while smaller minorities generally tend to be (ethno)-politically more homogenised with fewer ethnic parties, local majorities usually have much more fragmented party systems.
142
Figure 37: Relation between groups' relative demographic size and number of candidate ethnic parties.
143
Figure 38: Relation between groups' relative demographic size and ethnic party fractionalisation. On the other hand, a similar test or relation between the absolute population size of the group and its fractionalisation does not reveal any significant correlation, implying that the size of the ethno-political groups does not determine its internal political fragmentation. Quite the contrary, there are frequent cases of small ethnic communities that are extremely politically divided as well as large groups that remain unified. In the illustrative case of Vukosavlje, the tiny Serb community counting for only 1516 people is organised into 5 different (ethno-)political options running in the elections. On the other hand, groups with larger populations are usually organised in numerous ethno-political options. As can be seen in the following chart, the population size can be considered a sufficient but not a necessary condition for political heterogeneity.
144
Figure 39: Relation between groups' absolute population and number of candidate ethnic parties.
145
Figure 40: Relation between groups' absolute population and ethnic party fractionalisation. A closer look into the data also reveals a significant variation on the level of single states and particular ethnic groups. The following table shows average values of both indicators for all ethnic groups across single states. In the inter-group comparison, there is a significant variation between single ethnic groups in their levels of political fragmentation, which reflects the differences between their political landscapes discussed in Chapter 4.1. Overall, while we observe generally high levels of ethno-political fragmentation for some groups (Serbs in Bosnia, Albanians in Kosovo), other show moderate pluralism (Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia, Serbs in Kosovo and South Serbia, Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia), and some groups are fairly ethno-politically homogeneous and organised mainly within a single party (both Croats and Serbs in Croatia).
The table also shows average values for each of the groups disaggregated on the level of distinct political regions, which indicate further significant intra-group variation in observed levels of
146 fragmentation. Across all states and groups, those communities that are in minority political positions in the particular region are significantly less fragmented than those that are in the majority position.
Average number of Average State/group/region candidate parties fractionalisation BaH 5,0 0,50 Bosniaks 3,4 0,42 Central Bosnia 5,1 0,58 Herzegovina 2,3 0,23 Podrinje 2,1 0,24 RS north 2,9 0,47 Croats 2,8 0,28 Central Bosnia 2,5 0,19 Herzegovina 5,3 0,48 Posavina 1,9 0,35 Serbs 9,0 0,77 FBaH 3,5 0,54 RS 9,4 0,79 CRO 1,5 0,17 Croats 1,6 0,16 Eastern slavonia 2,5 0,22 Krajina 1,4 0,17 West Slavonia 1,5 0,03 Serbs 1,3 0,18 Eastern slavonia 1,3 0,12 Krajina 1,4 0,18 West Slavonia 1,0 0,44 KS 3,9 0,47 Albanians 5,1 0,63 Albanian majority 8,0 0,79 Serb majority 4,0 0,57 Serbs 2,7 0,31 Albanian majority 1,5 0,23 Serb majority 3,2 0,34 MAC 2,6 0,54 Albanians 3,0 0,57 Skopje 2,8 0,60 Tetovo 3,3 0,54 Macedonians 2,1 0,50 Skopje 2,0 0,49 Tetovo 2,3 0,51 SRB 3,5 0,52 Albanians 3,5 0,55 Preševo valley 3,5 0,55 Serbs 3,5 0,49 Preševo valley 3,5 0,49
Table 9: Average number of candidate ethnic parties and levels of ethnic party fractionalisation for single states, groups, and regions. The clear difference in the observed levels of intra-group political homogeneity based on the minority and majority position is mainly in line with Stroschein’s assumption about the minorities ’ homogeneity and the majorities ’ fragmentation. However, a more comprehensive analysis is needed to uncover the possible link between the demographic structure to the intra-
147 group political dynamics. For this purpose, all examined groups are classified according to their relative demographic share into five politically distinct categories: small minorities (10- 20%), strong minorities (20-40%), close-to-equal groups (40-60%), strong majorities (60-80%) and dominant majorities (80-90%). The thresholds set to delineate the categories are based on conceptual assumptions reflecting the specific relative political positions of groups of various relative sizes. The vulnerable political position of small minorities is determined by their demographically limited voting pool that prevents them from gaining major roles in the political process on their own and rather incentivises them to seek coalitions with the moderate representatives of the majority (Stewart 2019; Juon 2020). In contrast to that, the political potential of strong minorities is large enough for them to play a major role in local politics or even challenging the dominant political status of the majority, particularly if the majority is internally split (Esteban and Ray 1999). The potential for challenging each other’s dominant position is typical for groups of similar size that provides them roughly equal chances to politically prevail on its own (G. Montalvo, José, and Reynal-Querol 2002). In parallel to strong minorities, strong majorities can securely hold dominant positions on their own unless they become too fragmented and endangered by a homogenous strong minority. In contrast to that, the leading position of dominant majorities is secure and cannot be effectively challenged by other ethnic groups (Esteban and Ray 1999).
The following table shows the average values of fragmentation recorded for these five categories of groups, confirming the linear increase in fragmentation with the rising relative size of the group. Since the observed patterns of ethno-political fragmentation of groups of different relative size have further theoretical relevance, empirical evidence for each of the categories will be discussed in detail in the following sections.
Group size category 10-25% 25-40% 40-60% 60-75% 75-90% Number of cases 38 33 40 34 20 Average candidate parties 2,2 2,5 3,3 5,4 7,6 Average fractionalisation 0,35 0,33 0,37 0,53 0,67 Average elected parties 1,3 2,0 2,7 4,0 5,2 Table 10: Average values of intra-group political fragmentation for groups of various relative size. 5.2.1 Small minorities
The existing theory suggests that tiny minorities would avoid internal division and stay ethno- politically united to prevent dispersion of their votes and the risk of not overcoming the electoral threshold (Stroschein 2011; Juon 2020). However, the data collected on the local level in the examined mixed municipalities rather contradict this assumption of homogeneity. While
148 small minorities show highest levels of political homogeneity compared to larger groups, they are, for the most part, still internally fragmented. Even small minorities (10-25%) only rarely run in the elections as politically integrated under single political platforms; it is much more common for them to be internally divided into more political forces. On average, there are more than 2 candidate parties running in the elections on behalf of the small minorities, but only 1 party on average enters the parliament. The political fragmentation of small minorities thus leads to a dispersion of votes and results in a loss of a significant portion of the political power that could have been achieved with a united political appearance.
Out of the 38 small minorities, only seven groups ran in the elections with a single ethnic platform. Three of them are tiny minorities (10-17%) that were united in their support for the single ethnic party. All these three are minority communities in a demographic decline, which further limits their political potential. While Bosniaks in Višegrad and Serbs in Kamenica overcame the 3% electoral threshold thanks to their homogeneity, Croats in Vukosavlje did not enter the parliament despite running within a single party.
Another four larger minorities counting for 22-24% of the local population were in fact split in their support between the single ethnic party and a civic party with a cross-ethnic appeal. This split on the ethnic vs. civic basis is typically present in smaller Serb minorities across Croatia that are concentrated around the dominant ethnic SDSS party, yet the Serb community is politically divided on the civic-ethnic cleavage and the civic parties generally serve as a political alternative for Serb minority communities.
Much more commonly, two or even more minority political options run in the elections, competing on the intra-group basis for the limited amount of votes of these small communities. Most commonly (in 19 cases), there were two ethnic parties running on behalf of the community. Typically, tiny Bosniak returnee communities in RS are internally politically divided among the stronger national SDA party and its weaker and formally moderate alternative of SDP. However, actual differences in the local political programs on the local level between these two parties are rather unclear as they both build their agenda on the representation of the returnees’ interests (Interview 45). Similar to that, tiny Serb communities in Croatian municipalities of Pakrac and Benkovac were split between the leading SDSS and the newly established DSS that emerged from a faction within SDSS. The same situation is observed among Macedonian minorities in Tetovo, Čair and Tearce who take the deep intra- ethnic division between VMRO-DPMN and SDSM to the local level instead of uniting in a single platform to maximise their potential. These fragmented minority party systems thus
149 certainly reflect the political divisions on the national level, where exactly the same parties are competing for much larger amounts of power and their competition is then translated to the local politics, leading to further fragmentation of the already weak minorities.
In ten cases, there were even more than two parties running on behalf of the minorities. These were always larger minorities counting for more than 15% of the population that provided them with a somewhat larger voting pool than in the cases of smaller minorities. In the extreme case of the small Albanian minority (17%) in North Mitrovica in Kosovo, dominated by Serbs, there were 6 Albanian parties running in the 2017 municipal elections, five of them being the major Albanian parties competing on the state level and unable to reach agreement within a united platform on the local level. The political fragmentation on the state level is thus frequently transferred to the local level, where it prevents political unification of minorities and can have negative consequences for their representation and an allocated share of political power.
Due to their limited electoral pool, to run divided in local elections can be politically harmful for the ethnic representation of smaller minorities whose dispersed votes prevent the numerous parties running on their behalf to reach the 3% electoral threshold. Political representatives of these communities are generally aware of this risk, but only rarely succeed to overcome the political divisions (or divisions of their headquarters) and agree on a pre-election coalition that would prevent such a scenario. One of such rare cases is the Albanian minority (12%) in the Serb-dominated municipality of Gračanica, where local representatives of four major Albanian parties united under a single local Albanian platform prior to 2017 elections despite their tense relations on the state level (Gazeta Metro 2017). However, similar attempts of local leaders of the Albanian minority in the nearby municipality of Klokot failed after their pre-election negotiations were blocked by disputes between the parties (Bota Sot 2017).
The inability of small minorities that are politically more fragmented to unite internally and thus prevent dispersion of votes frequently costs them a significant portion of political representation that they would otherwise gain. In four cases, the intra-ethnic political division into several minority parties running independently cost the minority a possibility to participate in local politics as all the candidate parties ended under the electoral threshold due to the dispersion of votes. All the four cases (K. Dubica, Rogatica, Modrića, Gradiška) have several features in common. These are minority Bosniak returnee communities counting just between 10-15% of the local population according to the official census data, and probably even less in reality because of the demographic decline. In all the cases, there were two or even three Bosniak parties competing for the very limited number of votes. Furthermore, the electorate
150 was usually relatively equally split in their support for single parties. The combination of these factors resulted in the inability of any of the parties to reach the 3% threshold. While the local party leaders agreed that it was a political fiasco for the small Bosniak minorities who lost any political representation in the municipal parliaments for the first time after the war, they did not agree on who holds responsibility for such failure, blaming each other retrospectively for their inability to find a pre-electoral compromise and run together in the elections (Blic 2016, Interview 45).
Even if the stronger of the minority parties reaches the electoral threshold, the minority might be losing a substantial share of the votes due to the dispersion among parties that did not reach the threshold. The share of votes below the threshold naturally rises with the level of the group's internal political fragmentation. In some cases, there is a sharp disproportion between the support of the leading party that clearly wins within the group, and minor parties that end below the threshold. In Doboj, the two main Bosniak candidate lists, the SDA-led coalition and SDP, received 3571 and 1802 votes respectively and both safely entered the local parliament. The third party appealing to Bosniaks, DF, only gained 230 votes and ended far below the 3% threshold (ca 1200 votes) without effectively taking any significant portion of the Bosniak minority votes. In an opposite case of North Mitrovica, the above discussed extreme level of intra-group fragmentation of the Albanian minority cost it 50% of votes that were received by parties unable to reach the threshold. While only a single ethnic Albanian party (PDK) entered the local parliament with 598 votes and gained two mandates, other five Albanian ethnic parties that received 606 votes in total did not get over the 3% threshold. As a result of such fragmentation, Albanians were only represented with two representatives in the local parliament instead of four, a number they could have potentially reached had they run united in the elections.
5.2.2 Strong minorities
Similar to the category of small minorities, the theory suggests that larger minorities would tend to politically unite in ethnically divided politics, but with partly different motivations. While small minorities are expected to unite to achieve at least some minimal representation in politics, the representation of strong minorities is more secure thanks to their higher demographic share and they are rather expected to unite politically for the purpose of maximising their political potential vis-à-vis the majority group. Theorists of ethnic conflict have argued that in heterogeneous societies where ethnic majority is facing a large minority, the political relations between ethnic groups become more polarised (Esteban and Ray 1999).
151 Based on their assumptions, less political fragmentation would be expected in large ethnic minorities or weak relative majorities who should be inclined to internal homogenisation because of polarised relations with the other group (Stewart 2019). However, as in the previous category, the empirical evidence collected in the examined mixed municipalities does not largely support this assumption since most of the strong minorities are politically divided on an intra-group basis.
While the average number of ethnic parties running on behalf of more numerous minorities (25-40% of population) is slightly higher than in the category of small minorities, the difference is insignificant. On average, there were between two and three ethnic parties running in the election on behalf of these strong minorities, compared to two parties for small minorities. However, due to the larger electorate pool, these more numerous minorities have much higher chances to successfully elect their representatives even if they run internally divided in the elections. This difference in probability of successfully electing their representatives is clearly visible from the significantly higher average number of elected parties (1,93 vs. 1,04) and a much smaller discrepancy between the number of candidate and elected parties (0,52 vs. 1,04) compared to small minorities. All 32 larger minorities whose ethnic parties ran in the elections successfully elected at least one party into the local parliament. However, only 12 of them ran in the elections united under a single political platform, thus confirming the theoretical assumption of minority homogenisation. Some of these cases certainly fit into the theoretical argument as they show how the local ethno-political elites overcame their intra-ethnic divisions in the interest of maximising their political potential through a joint political position towards the local majority. In Stolac, where the local relations between the Croat majority (59%) and the Bosniak strong minority (38%) have been tense in the long-term, all parties appealing to Bosniaks united in a single ethnic platform despite the resistance from their party centrals to maximise their electoral potential vis-à-vis the dominant Croat ethno-political block. Representatives of both leading parties of the bloc, SDA and SDP, explained that they were willing to overcome locally their traditional ideological conflict, which is more pronounced on higher institutional levels, in the interest of challenging the absolute rule of the Croat HDZ. The local level coalition between these two major parties appealing to the Bosniak voters was unique in Bosnia, where they traditionally run independently in most municipalities regardless of the relative size of the Bosniak electorate. Similar patterns were observed in the Croatian municipalities of Kistanje and Erdut where the strong Croat minorities (37% and 38% respectively) became politically largely homogenised around their leading ethnic party and
152 competed with the politically homogeneous Serb majority party. In Erdut, the two main Croat ethnic parties (HDZ and regional HDSSB) that used to run individually in the elections because of the tense relations between the parties on the regional level, finally agreed on a united Croat list after years of negotiations (Interview 68). In Travnik, five ethnic Croat parties active on the local level joined the united Croat list which was the only single party appealing to Croats in the elections.
Nevertheless, running in the elections united was by far not common for strong minorities, a majority of which (20) were represented by more than one party on the candidate list, and except of three that only elected one party into the representative body, all of them successfully elected at least two ethnic parties, thus taking their intra-ethnic divide into the local legislature. As in the category of small minorities, the intra-ethnic fragmentation generally followed the party divisions established on the national level. The Bosniak minorities across Bosnia were divided in their support mainly between the nationalist SDA and the nominally civic SDP. Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia and south Serbia were also represented by various parties that are primarily competing on the national level. Interestingly, in several municipalities with strong Albanian minorities, some of the Albanian parties were able to agree on joint candidate lists, yet another insisted on running individually in the elections and did not join the united platform. In Klokot, all six Albanian parties active on the local level were engaged in the negotiations on a joint ethnic list that would maximise their electoral potential, but only four of them joined it in the end, while two others composed a separate coalition (Bota Sot 2017).
The correlation between a relative size of a group and its political fragmentation is also apparent within this category, as the larger of these minorities counting for more than 30% of population commonly have 3 and more minority parties both on the candidate lists and subsequently elected in the parliament. The level of intra-ethnic pluralism is the highest in the two Serb minority communities in Bosnia, where 4-5 major parties with significant support were competing for votes and entered the parliaments independently. As in the previous cases, these were exclusively the leading ethnic parties organised on the state level.
Apparently, the intra-ethnic political fragmentation on the national level is mirrored on the local level where it outweighs the tendency for homogenisation suggested by the theory. However, as in the category of small minorities, this fragmentation limits the political potential of minorities both in the election phase through the loss of votes and in the post-election stage through divided positions in the process of government formation. The loss of votes caused by fragmentation was less expressed with strong minorities compared to small minorities as the
153 relatively larger electorate makes it feasible to overcome the threshold even for more parties running in parallel. However, several groups also suffered a significant loss of votes as a result of internal fragmentation. In the extreme case of Glina, Serbs were almost equally split in their support for two ethnic parties, DSS and SDSS, but only the former crossed the threshold. The Serb community thus lost 46% of votes and an additional mandate in the local parliament because of the split on the party level, this just a few months prior to the elections when the local branch of DSS was established. The loss of votes was smaller yet still significant (10- 20%) in the other five cases. In Obrovac, the dominant Serb SDSS party agreed with its former adversary DPS on a united list, but a new local ethnic Serb initiative, critical of the dominance of SDSS, emerged prior to the elections. In an interview with the author just prior to the elections, a leading representative of the local SDSS expressed his frustration over the internal division of Serbs (Interview 83). He estimated that the competing local list will receive some 150 votes that will not be sufficient for entering the local parliament, but these votes would bring Serbs an additional mandate if received by SDSS. The election results confirmed his prediction: the local list received 121 votes in the Serb villages and, despite reaching the percentage threshold, ended without a single seat in the parliament because of the method of mandate distribution.
Besides the direct negative effect of losing votes of parties below the threshold, the intra-ethnic fragmentation can weaken the position of the minority in the post-election negotiations about the government formation. As will be further discussed in Chapter 6.2, party division within a group also translates into divided positions in cooperation with parties representing the majority. This split can have negative consequences with regard to inclusion of minorities into the local government as it provides the majority a much broader manoeuvring space for separate negotiations and deals with the divided minority parties.
5.2.3 Close to equal groups
According to the theoretical assumption, ethnic groups in polarised demographic settings are expected to be ethno-politically homogenised as they compete for dominance over local politics. Both relative minorities and majorities with a population share close to 50% have a real chance to become the leading political force and are thus incentivised to maximise their potential by intra-group homogeneity (Bochsler 2011). However, the collected evidence from 39 ethnic groups counting for between 40% and 60% of the local population mainly contradicts this expectation.
154 The data on political fragmentation of ethnic groups collected in the examined municipalities show that political fragmentation is increasing linearly with the rising demographic share and there is no significant structural drop in this correlation in cases that would fit this assumption. In fact, there is an increased average number of candidate parties visible in the demographically polarised municipalities compared to smaller groups in minority positions. Groups of this size are in average represented by more than three ethnic parties running in the elections individually, most of which get successfully elected thanks to the relatively large electorate.
Only single empirical cases fitting into the polarisation theory were observed across the investigated municipalities. The ethno-political homogeneity of larger groups was most frequently observed in mixed municipalities of Croatia where the level of intra-group ethno- political fragmentation is generally low due to the dominance of two leading ethnic parties, HDZ and SDSS. However, in most bi-ethnic municipalities of Croatia, the ethno-political homogeneity of the local ethnic communities is disrupted by the presence of the cross-ethnic political option appealing successfully to both groups. In Gračac, both Serbs and Croats were running under a single ethnic platform in the elections, but there were two other candidate lists with cross-ethnic appeal that received 37% of votes in total. While the cross-ethnic options were considered to be more affiliated with the Serb community, a significant portion of Croats voted for them as well, despite a risk of being labelled as ‘traitors ’ by nationalist Croats (Interview 91). In Udbina, another Croatian municipality with almost an equal demographic share of Croats and Serbs, a single local initiative with a cross-ethnic appeal also disrupted the dominance of the two ethnic parties by gaining 18% of votes.
In other cases, the assumed ethno-political unity is, to a various extent, disrupted by the presence of more ethnic parties appealing to the particular groups. However, the level of intra- group heterogeneity varies across these municipalities. In some of the municipalities with polarised demographic configuration with two groups of a close-to-equal size, tendencies to ethno-political homogenisation were also observed despite the presence of more than one ethnic party appealing to each of the communities.
Such partial tendency towards homogenisation was observed in several mixed Bosniak-Croat municipalities in Central Bosnia where the demographic pattern of almost equal ethnic structure is common. As the local politics in this area has been deeply ethnicised, the electoral race between the two ethno-political blocs usually has uncertain outcomes and depends on the level of mobilisation of the groups and their internal unity. Under these circumstances, both Bosniak and Croat voters massively support their leading ethnic parties that dominate the
155 elections with between 30-40% electoral support each. However, and contrary to the assumptions of the polarisation theory, in all these cases, both groups were still intra-ethnically politically fragmented. Besides the leading ethnic party, there was always a minor ethnic party running in the elections as an alternative that successfully entered the local parliament with a result between 3-10% of votes. The presence and performance of these minor parties prevented even the leading ethnic party from reaching an absolute majority in the local parliaments and set the ground for a complex post-election government formation (that stage will be further discussed in Chapter 6). This situation of incomplete political homogenisation thus partially contradicts the causal assumptions of the polarisation theory which presumes that in the tense ethno-demographic configurations, the groups will maximise their chances by intra-group unification. In all these observed cases, the stronger of the group would have reached the absolute majority in the local parliament if it had run politically united.
156 Busovača Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje Croats HDZ 1990 Croats other
Bosniaks SDA Croats HDZ Bosniaks SDA BiH Croats HDZ BiH
Bosniaks DF Bosniaks DF Bosniaks SDP
Bosniaks SBB Bosniaks SDP Bosniaks SBB
Jajce Vitez
Croats other Serbs DNS Croats other
Croats HDZ 1990
Bosniaks SDA Bosniaks SDA
Croats HDZ BiH
Croats HDZ BiH
Bosniaks Bosniaks SBB SBB
Bosniaks DF Bosniaks SDP Bosniaks SDP Bosniaks other Bosniaks DF
Figure 41: Structure of ethnic voting in Bosniak-Croat mixed municipalities in Central Bosnia. Furthermore, cases were observed of municipalities with an almost equal demographic structure where the local party systems of the two equally strong groups are highly fragmented and as such directly contradict the theoretical assumptions. The majority of the groups with the demographic share close to 50% were represented in the election by three or more ethnic parties with significant levels of intra-group fragmentation. In several municipalities that might be expected to be typical cases for the polarisation theory, surprisingly high levels of political heterogeneity were observed within the groups.
Extreme levels of intra-groups fragmentation were recorded in the tiny municipality of Bosanski Petrovac with almost an equal demographic share of Serbs and Bosniaks. While the
157 politics is largely ethnicised, with cross-ethnic parties gaining only about 15% of votes in total, both Bosniaks and Serbs are politically highly fragmented. The 2016 elections saw four ethnic Serb parties and six parties appealing to Bosniaks run, all of them successfully entering the parliament beside two parties with cross-ethnic appeal (Al Jazeera Balkans 2016). A leading member of a local cross-ethnic party explained the extremely fragmented political system as a result of previous conflicts between individual politicians within the two ethnic blocs who established new parties with their factions (Interview 107). A similar situation was recorded in the Srebrenica municipality, a traditional local political hotspot where Serbs and Bosniaks are competing for the dominant role in the local politics. In spite of high ethno-political tensions that have been present in the municipality since the early post-conflict period and the return of Bosniak refugees, neither of the two groups is currently politically united. In the 2016 elections to the local parliament, 8 parties ran on behalf of Serbs and 3 parties on behalf of Bosniaks. In contrast to Bosanski Petrovac, where the intra-group fragmentation was a result of local interpersonal disagreements, the divisions in Srebrenica rather reflect the tense relations between the major parties on the national level. The centres of these parties have been, in the long term, deeply interfering into local politics in Srebrenica due to its symbolic status.
The intra-ethnic political heterogeneity of the demographically polarised groups results in complex political structures in the legislature that create various possible combinations for forming an executive coalition, thus opening space for the political exclusion of smaller groups, as will be shown in the Chapter 6.
5.2.4 Strong majorities
According to the theoretical assumptions, intra-ethnic pluralism is expected to develop in communities in a demographic majority position that guarantees them a dominant role in local politics even under internal fragmentation. Local groups in positions of strong majorities (60- 75%) can in fact afford a certain level of intra-ethnic fragmentation without losing the stronger position to the particular minority group. However, if the fragmentation of the majority is too high, a highly mobilised strong minority homogenised in a single ethnic party can in fact threaten the position of the majority and become the strongest player in the local political arena at the cost of the majority. The level of intra-group fragmentation and homogeneity of the majority thus have important consequences for its relative political position towards the strong minority.
158 The observed levels of political fragmentation are largely in line with this assumption as the intra-group political heterogeneity rises with the increasing demographic share of the group. On average, there were more than five ethnic parties running in the elections on behalf of these local majorities, and four in average successfully entered the local parliament. Due to the relatively large electorate, the loss of votes received by parties not crossing the threshold was negligible (3% in average). However, there is some significant variation between the single groups in the level of fragmentation that reflects the different political dynamics on the national level. Specifically, the local Serb majorities in Bosnia are by far the most internally fragmented as they are divided in average into about ten political options running individually in the elections. In the extreme case of Bratunac, there were fourteen ethnic Serb parties competing in the local elections for the votes of the local Serb majority, and ten of them entered the local parliament. As a consequence, the stronger of the two parties representing the local Bosniak minority won the elections, even if slightly.
These extraordinary high levels of political pluralism among Serbs in Bosnia can be explained by the generally high level of political fragmentation in the Serb segment of politics in Bosnia on the national level, discussed in Chapter 4.1. Typically, there are two strongest parties representing the government and the opposition on the national level that gain most votes within the Serb electorate, while their junior coalition partners from the state level receive a rather minor portion of votes. However, even this high level of fragmentation usually does not effectively endanger the dominant position of the Serb ethnic parties in the local politics thanks to the low level of mobilisation and internal fragmentation of the respective Bosniak and Croat minorities in most of these areas. As was discussed in Chapter 5.1, these returnee minorities are in a demographic decline and rarely reclaim their population share in the elections. Their political position is also further weakened by their own intra-group divisions, discussed in the previous section.
The following charts illustrate the typical structure of votes in two municipalities with a strong Serb majority and an under-mobilised and internally fragmented Bosniak (Bratunac) or Croat minority (Pelagićevo).
159 Bratunac Pelagićevo Serbs Local initiative Serbs NDP Serbs SP
Serbs NDP Serbs SDS Serbs Bosniaks SDA SNSD Croats HDZ Bosniaks Serbs PDP 1990 SDP Serbs PDP
Serbs other
Serbs SDS Croats HDZ Serbs DNS BiH
Serbs other
Serbs DNS Serbs SNSD Serbs SP
Figure 42: Structure of ethnic voting in municipalities with returnee minorities of Bosniaks (Bratunac) and Croats (Pelagićevo). The strongest Serb parties thus usually remain the dominant actors in the local politics despite high levels of fragmentation within the Serb electorate. In only a single case of Pelagićevo, the stronger of the two parties representing the Croat minority won the elections to the local parliament as a result of the fragmentation of the Serb majority into seven parties running individually, and Croats thus became the central force in the post-election government formation. While this was an isolated occasion, in many other cases, the party fragmentation of the majority led to a single party losing the absolute majority that could have otherwise been achieved in the local parliament by the leading party of the majority. Furthermore, the fragmentation of a majority contributes to the complex post-election settings in the local legislature that frequently lead to complicated and prolonged negotiations on government formation resulting in unstable coalitions, thus turning the minority parties into desired coalition partners. Other strong majorities are by far less internally divided than Serbs in Bosnia, but are still usually fragmented into 2-5 political options with three of them on average entering the local parliament. However, the level of fragmentation is not high enough to allow the local minority to take over the leading role in politics, particularly due to their own intra-group divisions.
Particularly when the inter-party relations within the fragmented majority are tense, minority parties can become more welcome as coalition partners in government than other majority parties. This pattern of cross-ethnic coalition forming is frequent in groups with a polarised intra-ethnic political competition consisting of two competing blocs. Typically, these are Serb
160 majorities in Bosnia or Macedonian majorities in Macedonia, which are both internally divided into two equally strong blocs that reflect the opposition-government division on the national level. In Kumanovo or Butel, the two leading parties appealing to Macedonians gained similar a share of votes and mandates in the local parliament, but due to their tense relations on the national level, they rather sought coalition partners for government formation among Albanian parties instead of forming a mono-ethnic coalition. A similar situation was observed in several municipalities with the Serb majority across Bosnia where the divided blocs representing Serbs preferred Bosniak parties as junior coalition partners. These pathways of government formation will be further discussed in the following section, but it is clear that the fragmentation of a majority can conversely increase the relative position of minority parties.
Kumanovo Butel
Albanians Albanians DUI Albanians DUI BESA Albanians Albanians AA BESA Albanians Macedonians AA VMRO Macedonians SDSM
Macedonians VMRO Macedonians SDSM
Figure 43: Ethnic structure of voting in two Macedonian municipalities with Albanian minority. The level of fragmentation is significantly lower only within the strong majorities across Croatia, where there is frequently only a single ethnic party running in the elections on behalf of the majority. However, in most of these cases the majority is in fact internally split in its voting support between the single ethnic party and the cross-ethnic alternatives. The only outlier case of a strong majority fully united in a single ethnic political platform is that of Serbs in Štrpce in Kosovo who were represented in the elections by a single ethnic party SL with no intra-group division. Interestingly, it was a unique situation even for the local politics in Štrpce as it was the first time in the post-independence period that there was no intra-group competition within the Serb majority (Alija 2013).
161 Overall, demographically strong majorities tend to be highly fragmented, but not to the extent that would allow the minority to take over the leading role in local politics, mainly due to their own intra-group disunity. However, political divisions of majorities create highly fragmented legislatures where complex post-election negotiations between several parties are required to form the government. Minority parties thus benefit from the majority fragmentation as it makes them desired coalition partners for the divided majority parties.
5.2.5 Dominant majorities
In contrast to strong majorities that can be potentially threatened by strong minorities if they are also divided internally, the dominant political position of the dominant majorities (75-90%) is secure as it cannot be effectively endangered by any homogeneous minority even if the majority is highly fragmented. Therefore, the theory expects the highest level of intra-group political pluralism to develop within the majority group in unequal demographic settings. In line with this theoretical expectation, the level of intra-group fragmentation significantly increases for the observed cases of dominant majorities compared to the previous categories. On average, there are more than 7 parties running in the elections on behalf of the majority, and 5 in average enter the local parliament. Similar to the previous category, there are some significant differences between the groups with regard to the level of their political heterogeneity. Again, the Serb majorities in Bosnia are by far the most fragmented, with 8 to 15 parties running in the elections, and 5 to 8 successfully entering the parliament. A similar situation is observed within Albanian majorities in Kosovo where 8 Albanian parties were running in elections in both Obilić and Kamenica, or in the Bosniak majority in Bugojno, represented by 9 parties. In both categories, with Serbs in Bosnia and with Albanians in Kosovo, the high level of fragmentation reflects the heterogenous party structure on the national level. The secure position of the dominant majority prevents the risk of losing a relative share of power to a small local minority and thus allows the fragmentation from the national level to manifest fully in the local politics. While both Albanians in Kosovo and Bosniaks in Bosnia have a tendency to at least partially unite in ethnic coalitions in municipalities where they are in a minority or an equal position, all their parties run individually in municipalities where they are a clear majority. Also, the large pool of votes provides even marginal parties, non-active in other places,with a feasible opportunity to get over the electoral threshold. In Bugojno, three marginal and rather regional parties (A-SDA, BOSS, BOS) that only rarely run individually in local elections outside of their strongholds tried unsuccessfully to enter the local parliament, aside from five established major parties representing Bosniaks state-wide.
162 In other majority groups, the level of fragmentation is somewhat lower, which is mainly a result of their generally less pronounced party pluralism on the national level. This is typically a case of Croat majorities in Bosnia that are homogenised around their leading national party, HDZ, regardless of their demographic share. Even in three municipalities where Croats are in the position of a dominant majority, Čapljina, Livno and Kreševo, the level of their intra-group fragmentation is relatively low, and the leading HDZ received between 55-80% of total Croat votes, thus securing the absolute majority in the local legislature. The stable dominance of HDZ among Croat voters across areas with varying demographic structure is reflecting not only its unchallenged traditional position on the national level, but also its massive party infrastructure that prevents smaller parties to grow into a position that could potentially threaten HDZ’s dominance. In Čapljina, seven Croat ethnic parties ran individually in the elections, but only three of them entered the local parliament and HDZ received 70% of the total Croat votes and gained an absolute majority in the legislature. A similar situation is observed with Serb majorities in Kosovo where, despite their secure demographic position, the leading party on the national level Srpska lista effectively prevents any intra-ethnic opposition from emerging. In Gračanica, among four ethnic Serb parties running in the elections, the Srpska lista received 69% of votes and secured an absolute majority in the local legislature.
Čapljina Gračanica
cross other Serbs Local initiative Albanian coal. Croats other Albanians VV cross SDP Bosniaks SDA Serbs PDS
Croats Local initiative
Serbs SLS Croats HDZ 1990
Croats HDZ BiH Serbs SL
Figure 44: Ethnic structure of voting in two municipalities in with strong majority (Čapljina in BaH and Gračanica in Kosovo). Compared to the previous category, even high levels of fragmentation of the majority do not significantly improve the political position of minority parties. If they overcome the threshold,
163 they are usually too weak to hold the desired potential for coalition forming. In municipalities with relatively lower levels of majority fragmentation, such as Serbs in Kosovo and Croats in Bosnia, the dominant majority party usually achieved an absolute majority in the local parliament and did not need any coalition partners to form the government. In more fragmented majorities, such as Albanians in Kosovo or Serbs in Bosnia, the negotiations on government formation were led among all parties and the minority parties did not have any advantaged position in them compared to other smaller parties representing the majority. However, the next chapter will show that even from this rather marginal position they were frequently able to become part of the executive, while other majority parties remained in opposition.
164 6 Ethnic power distribution
The previous two chapters dealt with the internal dynamics of political behaviour of single ethnic groups in the mixed areas, focusing on their ethno-political organisation and mobilisation. These two dimensions of the intra-group political processes are crucial as they determine the groups' relative political potential in regard to other ethnic groups present in the mixed areas. However, the real political position of an ethnic community is only decided within the inter-group dimension of the political process when the respective communities negotiate over their share of executive political power. All the previously discussed stages of the political process, from the identification and organisation into parties to the mobilisation of voters in elections, are subordinated to only one aim: to maximise the amount of power held by a particular group.
This chapter discusses in detail this final stage of the political process which determines the relative power positions of the local ethnic groups, and also reveals whether conflict or cooperation prevails in the inter-ethnic relations. In order to analyse the possible outcomes of the inter-group political dynamics, it systematically maps the level of ethno-political inclusion and exclusion of the local politics on the executive level. Departing from the discussion in the previous chapters, which dealt with political organisation and mobilisation of local ethnic communities, it examines the communities' actual access to local decision-making.
Existing research on ethnic conflict has argued that while exclusion of parts of society on ethnic grounds increases the risk of inter-ethnic violence, inter-ethnic accommodation reduces this risk and contributes to stability (Gleditsch and Polo 2016; Gurr 2000). Empirical studies have proven that exclusion of certain ethnic groups from politics, either in the hard form of direct discrimination or in the soft form of exclusion from power, increases the risk of ethnic conflict (Wimmer 1997; Cederman, Gleditsch, and Wucherpfennig 2014; Cederman, Min, and Wimmer 2010; Beiser-McGrath and Metternich 2021). While the exclusion can take various forms, including the social, the economic or the cultural dimension, the exclusion of ethnic groups from political processes has been considered the central dimension where other forms of exclusion usually also manifest, and which determines the overall position of the group in a local polity (Gurr 1994). Within this political dimension, the groups ’ access to decision-making is the critical factor that defines the relative power position of the groups in political systems (Cederman, Gleditsch, and Buhaug 2013). As McCulloch (2013: 94) paraphrases Horowitz's argument, “in ethnically divided places, exclusion from government tends to be associated with
165 exclusion in the wider polity.” Arguably, local politics, through its representative principle, aggregates interests of local communities and as such indicates the overall state of local inter- ethnic affairs. Hence, the local politics can be understood as a superior concept that largely speaks of overall inter-ethnic relations in the area.
Departing from these theoretical assumptions, this chapter will investigate the inclusion and exclusion of ethnic groups in mixed areas into or from the local executives with the aim to reveal the ability of individual groups to reach a power-sharing deal on the local level in post- conflict settings. In its very substance, post-conflict power-sharing is defined in terms of political inclusiveness. Thus, the principal indicator of effective power-sharing is the level of inclusion of different ethnic groups into local decision-making. It is apparent from both theory and practice of power-sharing that such an inclusion can take various forms. The first section of the chapter therefore presents theoretical insight not only into different forms of power- sharing as designations of ethnic inclusion but also the opposite patterns of ethnic exclusion from politics. It describes ideal types of ethnic inclusion and exclusion based on the leading theories and applies them to the local level, where these are confronted with the empirical observations from the post-conflict mixed areas of the Balkans. The second part of the chapter then systematically analyses the empirical evidence on local power-sharing in 81 mixed post- conflict municipalities and categorizes all 165 ethnic communities present in these areas according to the level of their inclusion in or exclusion from the local decision-making. The research uses empirical evidence to investigate to what extent the previously hostile ethnic groups are able to agree on the division of power in the local politics.
166 6.1 Power-sharing debate applied to the local level
Sharing political power among different groups is considered a key mechanism for providing long-term political stability in heterogenous polities as it prevents exclusion of minority groups from decision-making. While the definitions of power-sharing vary widely across the existing literature (Strøm et al. 2017; Mukherjee 2006; Roeder and Rothchild 2005; Hartzell and Hoddie 2007), most authors agree that the defining principle of power-sharing is the inclusion of all relevant politically mobilised groups in the political process (Sisk 1996). Through the modern history, various power-sharing mechanisms have been developed to include different political groups equally into decision making. Origins of these power-sharing arrangements can be traced back to ’traditional ’ west European democracies that dealt with their internal societal diversity in the process of political modernisation through the 19th and the early 20th century. In his pioneer work Arend Lijphart (Lijphart 1975; 1977) grounded his original concept of power-sharing arrangement on the empirical case of the modern Netherlands, internally divided between four religious-political pillars of society: Catholics, Protestants, liberals and socialists, whose representatives developed stable cooperation on the elite level. The early power-sharing systems were also formulated on the basis of the experience of the ethnically heterogenous politics of Belgium and Switzerland, and the deep political division of modern Austria (Lijphart 2007). Subsequently, power-sharing models were applied to different political settings of divided societies beyond the traditional European space, such as those in Cyprus and Lebanon that emerged in the process of decolonisation (McCulloch and McGarry 2017).
Most recently, with the rising attention to civil wars in the international politics, power-sharing has become an important element in the emerging debate on long-term conflict resolution and peace building (Noel 2005). With the turn that the international community has taken from the narrow definition of negative peace towards the much broader concept of positive peace, democratisation and division of political power has come into focus of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners of peace building. Power-sharing mechanisms that were originally developed in the relatively stable political environment of west European democracies have been transferred by the international community to completely different and politically fragile settings of post-conflict societies deeply divided by ethno-national wars (Strøm et al. 2017). With the rapid increase in incidence of ethnic conflicts during and particularly after the Cold War, attempts to externally impose the traditional power-sharing tools on previously warring parties in post-conflict arrangements have been recorded from the European periphery, through the Middle East to Africa. The main argument for power-sharing in post-conflict settings that
167 goes beyond its principles in stable democracies was its effect on limiting the security dilemma that persists after the actual cessation of hostilities.
As Hartzell and Hoddie (2015, 40) explain,
“Consistent with Lijphart’s original argument, (…) providing competing collectivities with a guaranteed share of government power as part of a civil war settlement creates the sense of security required for each group to support a peaceful and permanent resolution to the conflict. Through mechanisms that distribute state power among former armed adversaries in a manner that prevents any one group from becoming dominant, power-sharing institutions reassure rivals that no single entity will use the power of the state in a way that promotes its interests while threatening the security of others. By addressing security concerns, these measures thus increase the likelihood that adversaries will remain committed to the peace.”
The post-Yugoslav space has played a special role in this respect. The bloody ethnic conflicts fought in the close vicinity of the Euro-Atlantic security space in the 1990s resulted in unprecedented international efforts for conflict resolution in the Balkans. Military peacekeeping interventions of the international community were followed by the quest for finding sustainable political arrangements that would allow peaceful coexistence of hostile groups after the fragile ceasefires were negotiated without further territorial and ethnic separation. The region consisting of 7 newly formed states, most of them ethnically heterogenous and in a post-conflict situation, thus became a sort of laboratory for testing various approaches to power-sharing in societies divided by previous conflict. As the conflict outcomes and level of international engagement varied across the region, so did the provisions adopted for the political inclusion of politically and demographically weaker ethnic groups.
Some of the post-Yugoslav states have minority protection mechanisms embedded in their constitutional systems that prevent the exclusion of the weaker minority groups from the decision making on the state and sub-state level. In heterogenous states (re)-established by internationally negotiated peace deals, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, extensive power- sharing provisions were imposed to grant all groups access to political power. While Bosnia and Kosovo apply corporate consociationalism based on legally granted positions and inclusive mechanisms for clearly defined ethnic groups, the Macedonian system is considered as a liberal form of consociational system since it is mainly based on general mechanisms of
168 double majorities and informal power-sharing on the executive level (McCulloch 2014; Ekinci 2020; Kasapović 2005b; Orlović 2015; Stroschein 2014).
In contrast to the cases of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia, where the ethnic conflicts were ended through active involvement of the international community that prescribed an inclusive political arrangement, the conflict and post-conflict dynamics in Serbia and Croatia was different. Because of the Croat and Serb ethnic approach to post-conflict state-building and due to the absence of international engagement, their political systems have included only very weak or almost no power-sharing regulation. In both countries, the minority protection regulation is limited to the eased representation of minorities in the national legislature, which is provided through reserved seats in Croatia and a lower electoral threshold in Serbia (Zuber 2013; Petričušić 2008; Bursać and Kiculović 2015).
Furthermore, the scope of the power-sharing regulation varied not only across single states within the region but also across different institutional levels within these states. While in some countries comprehensive power-sharing arrangements have been adopted on the national or sub-state level, the local politics has remained largely unregulated. In Bosnia, extensive power- sharing mechanisms are embedded in the institutional structure on the state, entity and cantonal level, but municipal politics is largely unregulated. In contrast to that, some states have granted minorities relatively more power on the utmost local level than on he level of high politics. While national minorities in Croatia are only allocated symbolical representation in state-level legislature through reserved seats in the parliament, they are granted proportional representation and elected positions of deputy mayors in mixed areas on both the local and the regional level. As a result of these multiple and contrasting approaches to minority protection and inclusion, the region today presents a unique variation regarding the scope of power- sharing provisions across states and their institutional layers.
6.1.1 Lack of local level power-sharing mechanisms
In contrast to the national politics where power-sharing mechanisms are frequently implemented institutionally, local political arenas are only rarely organised in accordance with the prescriptions of the power-sharing models. This is exactly the case of local municipal politics in the post-Yugoslav space which generally does not provide many specific institutional power-sharing provisions and remains largely unregulated in regard to the mechanisms for political inclusion. While the post-conflict power-sharing in the region has been widely regulated on the state level, local level politics has been, for the most part, left
169 aside from regulation with only weak power-sharing arrangements. As explained in Section 3.3, the municipal politics across post-Yugoslav states resembles the traditional political system on the national level characterised by a division of power between the legislature and the executive branch. While the institutional arrangement of both branches usually contains mechanisms of ethnic inclusion on the state level, it is largely unregulated on the municipal level and thus provides much more space for majority rule and ethnic exclusion. Both local executive and legislature bodies mainly function along majority principles across the region: mayors of municipalities are elected directly through majority or plurality electoral systems or indirectly by a majority of representatives in the local legislature. The local legislature is elected under proportional party-list systems, however, once elected, it decides through simple majority procedures with no special rules applied to provide minority with inclusion.
Institutional arrangements in most of the states only include provisions for symbolical inclusion of minority representatives into local decision making. In Croatia, ethnic communities that count for more than 5% of the local population are granted representation in the local legislature. Communities consisting of more than 15% of population are provided proportional representation in the local legislature and a position of a directly elected deputy mayor. However, the political practice shows that none of these two provisions grants effective inclusion of minorities into decision-making. Minority representatives in legislature can be easily outvoted and the position of deputy mayor is largely considered rather symbolical than of a factual influence (Jakešević, Tatalović, and Lacović 2015). In Kosovo, similar institutions of a deputy mayor and a deputy president of the municipal parliament for communities are obligatorily introduced in municipalities with more than 10% of a minority population (and can be voluntarily established in more homogenous municipalities), but their political role is limited to a consultative status on minority issues (Beha 2014; OSCE 2020; Lantschner 2008). In Bosnia, the provisions of minority inclusion on the local level vary across entities and cantons, but minority communities in mixed municipalities are generally granted a position of the president of the local parliament or a deputy mayor, which in itself does not prevent outvoting (Dobrić Jambrović and Vranješ 2020). Municipal politics in Macedonia and Serbia does not include any specific institutional mechanisms for the political inclusion of minorities.
Most importantly, the negotiation over the ruling majority in the municipal parliament and the formation of the municipal government, which are the central political processes determining the executive power on the municipal level, are not regulated institutionally at all in regard to power-sharing between different groups. The local government only needs to reach the support
170 of a simple majority within the local parliament, regardless of the ethnic structure of the support, and inclusion of a minority is not required. Furthermore, no institutional mechanisms for minority vetoes are developed in the systems of local governance, thus paving the road to a possible outvoting of a minority by the local dominant group. This open-ended power-sharing structure is further complicated by the direct election of mayors as top-level representatives of the local executive. Since mayors are elected under the simple majoritarian system in a single electoral unit (either in a single-round or a two-round system), they can be easily elected by a sufficiently politically homogenous local majority running its own candidate but this election system can also provide an incentive to seek the widest possible support across all ethnic groups for moderate candidates with cross-ethnic appeal (Bochsler 2020; Stewart 2019).
Overall, these local political systems manifest deficits of institutional power-sharing regulation and the existing rules are not in line with the theoretical concepts of consociational and centripetal institutional models. The distribution of power is thus almost unregulated by legal provisions on the local level and the inclusion of ethnic groups in and their exclusion from decision-making depends solely on the ability of the local groups to find a compromise. This opens space for various power-sharing settings to develop in heterogenous areas ranging from majoritarian exclusion, through consociational power-sharing between different groups, up to non-ethnic politics fitting to principles of centripetalism.
In ethnicised politics, the dynamics of political competition between ethnic groups for the distribution of power takes place within the conceptual continuum between political exclusion and inclusion. The variety of possible outcomes of this competition is delimited by the extreme poles of absolute political exclusion and equal power-sharing. The following sections discusses in further detail ideal types of these possible outcomes of the inter-group struggle over the distribution of political power through a combination of a deductive and an inductive approach. Major theoretical assumptions on possible models of power-sharing serve as guidelines in a deductive way. Simultaneously, empirical evidence collected in different areas of the post- Yugoslav space is used inductively to precisely define the possible outcomes in accordance with the locally specific context. Hence, the ideal types are designed in communication with both the general theory and the locally specific empirical context to be applicable to the subsequent comparative empirical analysis.
Departing from the central theoretical debate on power-sharing, the chapter discusses three main models of ethnic power relations. The first of them is the negative outcome of ethnic exclusion which describes situations when power is not shared between the groups but only
171 held by one of them. The other two ideal types of outcomes both describe a model of effective power-sharing between ethnic groups, but through different mechanisms. While the consociational model presumes the division of power between ethnic parties representing the competing groups, the centripetal integrative model envisions power-sharing based on the depoliticisation of ethnicity and a political mobilisation on a non-ethnic basis. Each of these three possible outcomes is described more in detail in the following sections and applied to the local level in the context of the post-Yugoslav space.
6.1.2 Political exclusion
Exclusion of parts of society from politics on the ethnic principle has been considered not only illegitimate under the liberal principles of international community, but also harmful for the long-term political stability of ethnically diverse areas. It has been argued theoretically and proved empirically that, especially if the ruling group behaves repressively, groups isolated in the opposition and limited in their political capability tend to challenge the order and incline towards rebellion (Goodwin 2001; Porta 2013; Wimmer 1997). This causal link was largely confirmed in the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s in the Balkans where the groups that felt excluded from the political processes seceded from the central political structures dominated by the ruling majorities (Dertwinkel 2009). Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians in this way rejected the perceived dominance of Serbs in Yugoslavia and turned to political independence within their nation states where they became ethnic majorities. Conversely, Serbs who became minorities in the newly established states politically dominated by these groups rebelled against what they perceived as political exclusion and established their own political structures, thus further escalating the spiral of the conflicts.
However, despite the apparent risks stemming from political exclusion of ethnic minorities, the phenomenon has been widespread around the world, particularly in polities divided by previous ethnic conflict. As Horowitz (2014, 5) notes “Some version of this problem informs the politics of a great many severely divided societies. In severely divided societies with ethnically based parties, ordinary majority rule usually results in ethnic domination.” Vogt et al. (2015) in their dataset consisting of politically relevant ethnic groups around the world classified 407 out of 808 groups as discriminated or powerless in 2017, while only 248 were effectively included in power-sharing.
The absence of power-sharing can be defined as full political exclusion of an ethnic group from political decision-making, which is dominated by the ruling ethnic group, and can take various
172 forms and intensities. In its extreme version, the excluded group is politically isolated and fully prevented from access to decision-making, in itself is monopolised by the majority group. This form of exclusion can develop regardless of the size of the excluded group and the level of its political organisation, mobilisation, and representation. Even demographically strong ethnic groups that are politically well-organised and fully mobilised can be prevented from taking part in decision-making by a demographically stronger and ethno-politically mobilised majority group. Furthermore, in unregulated majority political systems with absenting mechanisms for minority protection, even if the group is represented in politics, it can be denied the access to the executive As Horowitz (2014, 5) points, “an ethnic party with a majority of votes and seats can dominate minority groups, seemingly in perpetuity.”
If the compromise between the representatives of ethnic groups over distribution of power is not reached, large playing field opens for the exclusion of the weaker group, particularly in areas where the stronger of the groups has an absolute majority. In several locations investigated within the fieldwork, such situations of clear ethnic majoritarianism based on the ‘winner takes all ’ principle were recorded and can serve inductively for defining the ideal type of ethnic exclusion on the local level. Extreme examples of ethnic exclusion of demographically large minorities from local power were identified in rural municipality of Kistanje in the Croatian Dalmatian inland or the Herzegovian town of Stolac. These places have in common a deeply ethnicised politics with only two major ethno-political parties, where the slight ethnic majority fully dominates the local politics over the demographically strong ethnic minority which is fully excluded from power. In both locations, the local politics is very tense in the long term and characterised by strong ethno-nationalist rhetoric and even occasional violent incidents and provocations.
In Kistanje, where Croats are in a minority position with 3?% of population, the leader of the local branch of the Croat ethnic HDZ party holds the official position of a directly elected deputy mayor prescribed by law, but claims that he in fact has no competences as the locally ruling Serb party with the absolute majority in the local legislature is obstructing his work and excludes Croats from decision-making (Interview 89). The mayor, who represents the ruling Serb party, refuses these allegations, but the political reality shows that his party has a comfortable absolute majority of 9 of 13 seats in the local parliament and thus can easily rule the municipality on its own (Vuković 2016). In Stolac, the distribution of seats in the local legislature is more balanced, with a single coalition of all Bosniak parties holding 7 seats, the leading Croat ethnic party HDZ having in total 9 seats together with the nominally independent
173 councillor who is in fact a party member, and a small Croat alternative coalition holding only one seat in a parliament of 17 seats. With its tight absolute majority in the local legislature and through the position of mayor, HDZ firmly rules the municipality to a full exclusion of the numerous Bosniak minority that counts for 38% of population. Since the elected mayor is an ethnic Croat, Bosniaks have a granted position of president of the local parliament by law. However, the president was not elected during the whole 4-year mandate of the parliament because of a disagreement between the Bosniak and the Croat deputies about the professionalisation of the position of the president (Oslobođenje 2017, Interviews 109-111). Bosniaks have thus ended excluded from the decision-making process both in the executive and within the legislature. Obstructions and disputes over the election of the president of the municipal parliament, which is otherwise the only position institutionally allocated to ethnic minorities in mixed municipalities of Bosnia, are common in situations of ethnic exclusion.
Instances of minority exclusion were also recorded in municipalities where the politics is not fully ethnically divided, but the majority ethnic party still holds an absolute majority in the parliament. In the Croatian town of Vukovar or the rural municipality of Erdut, the local power is held exclusively by the dominant ethno-national party representing the majority. However, the local politics is not fully ethnicised, as some parties with a cross-ethnic appeal exist and operate together with the minority parties from the opposition. In Vukovar, the coalition of the ethnic Croat nationalist parties firmly controls the local executive, while in Erdut the situation is reversed as the dominant Serb ethnic party SDSS controls the local decision-making with an absolute majority in parliament. Leading representatives of the demographically strong minorities, Croats in Erdut (38%) and Serbs in Vukovar (35%), described in the interviews their perceived exclusion from local politics by the ruling majority in very similar terms. While both of them hold the formal function of the elected deputy mayor, they both said that their competences are only symbolical, and the ruling majority does not provide them access to actual decision-making as it has full control over the local legislature and executive. Expectedly, the local representatives of the ethnic majority holding local power refused these claims and emphasised that local minorities are represented in accordance with the law.
In general, relatively smaller ethnic minorities are frequently excluded from local decision- making due to the proportional system of representation in the legislature with no requirements to include these minorities into the local executive that is formed on the majority principle. In areas of tense inter-ethnic relations where political agreement between the groups ’ representatives is unachievable, the lack of any executive power-sharing mechanism can
174 therefore lead to a situation when the elected representatives of a minority are simply not needed to form the local government and the minority is consequently excluded from local decision-making. In such circumstances, Horowitz’s assumption on perpetual majority rule can materialise in a long-term ethnic exclusion.
The structure of local politics characterised by full ethnic exclusion is visualised in the following Figure. To visualise different patterns and levels of inclusion and exclusion, a two- dimensional model is used to present the access of single ethnic groups to political power and their exclusion from power respectively. The horizontal division represent the ruling and opposition segments of the local political arena, thus delineating those who hold power from those who are excluded from it in opposition. The vertical division represents the ethnic cleavage that defines the ethno-national segments of politics and society. The single circles visualise political subjects, with their size symbolising their relative strength and the proportion of electorate they represent. The position of a subject on the vertical axis thus illustrates its political position by showing its access to the actual political power. The position of a subject on the horizontal axis then represents the level of its ethnic affiliation: while multi-ethnic parties would crosscut the vertical ethnic cleavage, radical ethno-nationalist parties of respective ethnic groups are situated on the very left-right margins. This first Figure visualises the structure of the deeply ethnically divided and polarised local politics in the Herzegovian municipality of Stolac, where the single coalition of ethnic Bosniak parties is excluded from power and isolated in opposition. Meanwhile, the Croat dominant party controls the decision- making with direct support of one nominally independent councillor and an occasional support from a smaller Croat, nominally opposition, party.
175 STOLAC (BaH)
GROUP 1 – Croats (59%) GROUP 2 – Bosniaks (38%)
HDZ
POWER
OPPOSITION HSP
IzS
ETHNO-NATIONAL MULTIETHNIC ETHNO-NATIONAL PARTIES G1 PARTIES PARTIES G2
Figure 45: Political exclusion of local minority from executive (illustrative case of Bosniaks in Stolac, BaH). The second Figure then visualises a analogous situation in the Croatian municipality of Kistanje, where in similarly ethnicised and polarised local politics the local executive is fully controlled by the Serb ethnic party SDSS that has an absolute majority in the legislature, while the single Croat ethnic party HDZ is excluded in opposition.
176 KISTANJE (CRO)
GROUP 1 – Serbs (62%) GROUP 2 – Croats (37%)
SDSS
POWER
OPPOSITION
HDZ
ETHNO-NATIONAL MULTIETHNIC ETHNO-NATIONAL PARTIES G1 PARTIES PARTIES G2
Figure 46: Political exclusion of local minority from executive (illustrative case of Croats in Kistanje, Croatia).
‘Self-exclusion’ – omitted category
While the above presented characteristic cases of ethnic exclusion consider politically mobilised ethnic minorities actively striving for access to power but excluded by majority rule, some ethnic groups withdraw from politics by themselves as a result of their low ethno-political mobilisation. Under specific political or demographic circumstances, an ethnic group can be fully excluded from the local politics either because of the non-existence of its political representation or due to its inability to reach the threshold for entering the local political institutions. In these scenarios, an ethnic group is not represented in the local politics at all, despite its demographic presence in the area. Such a situation can easily happen to very tiny groups or micro-minorities that find it hard, quite reasonably, to enter local politics if they act through their own ethno-political subject (McCulloch 2017). But such an exclusion can also occur as a result of extreme internal fragmentation of an otherwise strong enough ethnic group into several ethno-political subjects that can result in its political impotence, manifesting in its inability to enter the local parliament. This kind of a typical situation of self-exclusion due to political fragmentation was observed in the Bosnian municipalities of Gradiška and Rogatica. In both cases, tiny Bosniak minorities, despite counting for 10-15% of the local population, failed to reach the 3% electoral threshold and elect its representatives to the local parliament
177 due to their low mobilisation and dispersion of votes among several parties. The following Figure visualises the typical instance of self-exclusion in the Bosnian municipality of Gradiška where the three Bosniak ethnic parties ended below the electoral threshold and the local politics has thus become fully controlled by Serb parties.
Gradiška (BaH)
GROUP 1 – Serbs (81%) GROUP 2 – Bosniaks (15%)
POWER
OPPOSITION
ELECTORAL THRESHOLD SDA SBiH SDP
ETHNO-NATIONAL MULTIETHNIC ETHNO-NATIONAL PARTIES G1 PARTIES PARTIES G2
Figure 47: Full political exclusion of an ethnic group as a result of its internal political fragmentation (illustrative case of Bosniaks in Gradiška, BaH). Another reason for full exclusion could also stem from the low ethnic salience of the minority group and its lower political activity (Tezcur and Gurses 2017). This form of self-exclusion was observed in the Croatian towns of Daruvar and Petrinja, where the only ethnic Serb party representing the Serb minorities did not run in the elections on its own and instead supported a broader civic coalition as it was aware of low ethno-political mobilisation of Serbs who prefer to support civic parties. In the Bosnian municipality of Vukosavlje, representatives of the local Croat minority counting for 17% of population did not overcome the 3% electoral threshold despite running united in the elections because of the administrative inability of a large part of Croat voters to vote in the municipality and their lack of interest in local political affairs (see Section 5.1 for more details on this specifics phenomena of ethnic under-mobilisation).
178 Situations of self-enforced exclusion from local politics certainly have negative consequences for the access of these self-excluded groups to local decision-making. While the majority does not actively exclude these groups form politics, they end up without any influence over local affairs despite their demographic presence in the area. Causes of self-exclusion are generally not part of the inter-group political dynamics of exclusion as they are endogenous to the particular group and determined by its internal dynamics. Nevertheless, some contradictory evidence to this endogenous explanation was also collected in areas where the local dominant group allegedly stimulated political fragmentation of a local minority to prevent its entry into the local parliament. In the small Croatian coastal town Skradin, the dominant Croat ruling party HDZ allegedly supported the local independent initiatives appealing to the Serb minority to disperse its votes among several smaller parties and decrease their chances to elect more representatives in the local legislature (Interview 77, 79).
6.1.3 Ideal types of power-sharing: consociationalism or centripetalism?
As discussed in Chapter 2, inter-ethnic political accommodation can take various forms that are also reflected in the assumptions of major theories of ethnic conflict management. This section will address two different ideal types of power-sharing that are grounded in the grand theoretical debate between Lijphart’s (1968) consociationalism and Horowitz’s (1985) integrative model. While de-ethnicisation of politics through multi-ethnic parties and cross- ethnic mobilisation is the central feature of the integrative centripetal accommodation, cemented inter-ethnic cooperation between ethnic groups on the elite level is the main principle of consociational power-sharing. As Horowitz (2014, 5) admits, the two approaches are in fact grounded in a very similar assumption on the political importance of ethnicity in divided communities, but they differ in their prescribed models of accommodation.
“Both consociationalists and centripetalists presuppose that ethnic groups in severely divided societies will be represented by ethnically based parties. The goal of both is interethnic power sharing. Their differences lie in contrasting conceptions of the best governing arrangements for such societies. Consociationalists aim at mandatory postelectoral governing coalitions of all ethnic antagonists who find their way into parliament through a proportional electoral system; centripetalists, by contrast, aim at voluntary preelectoral interethnic coalitions of moderates.”
The two conceptually different forms of accommodation thus materialise in different power- sharing arrangements. Importantly for the empirical research, the two forms of accommodation
179 also have diverse observable indicators. The fully integrative form of accommodation materialises in the form of overall deethnicisation of politics where the political cleavage crosscuts the ethnic cleavage and ethnicity is no longer politically salient beyond the party level, as it is accommodated within the multi-ethnic parties. On the contrary, the consociational form of accommodation takes place within a fully ethnicised political space where the ethnic and political cleavage reinforce each other, yet the representatives of ethnic groups are engaged in stable cooperation on the executive level. Under consociational settings, parties elected on ethnically exclusive basis dominate politics and engage in power-sharing through grand coalitions where all ethnic groups are proportionally represented and have mutual veto power over decision-making. The two models of power-sharing are not mutually fully exclusive and in the political reality, elements of both can be present (Kettley 2001).
While these models sharply differ in their theoretical assumptions and intended practical policies, in their very substance they share the same purpose: to prevent ethnic exclusion and over-bridge the ethnic divide by granting access to political power to different groups. Because of these conceptual and empirical differences between the two possible forms of power-sharing, two ideal types of inter-ethnic accommodation can be developed on their basis. As a result of diverse assumed mechanisms, the two specific forms of accommodation are observed in different stages of the political process. The integrative model of inter-ethnic accommodation materialises in the early stage when political interests are accommodated on the party level and articulated through multi-ethnic parties. Contrary to that, the consociational model emerges only in the late stage of the political process when ethno-political interests of single groups are accommodated on the inter-party level within executive coalitions. The core elements of both models are discussed in more detail in the following sections and applied to the local level where they are confronted with the collected empirical evidence.
6.1.4 Consociational accommodation: ethnic parties and grand coalitions
Advocates of the consociational model argue that even in deeply ethnically divided societies where politics is organised solely along ethnic lines, the ethnic division can be over-bridged by cooperation of elected ethnic elites. As Reilly (2006, 815) explains, consociationalism in principle “emphasizes the need for divided societies to develop mechanisms for elite power- sharing if democracy is to survive the travails of ethnic or other conflicts.” Consociational power-sharing thus prescribes inter-ethnic accommodation in the very late stage of the political process when governments are formed, and decisions are negotiated on the executive level. Within an ideal type of consociational settings, the politics as well as the whole society remain
180 segmented along ethnic lines. The political cleavage goes clearly along the ethnic divide in regard to political organisation and voting patterns as political representatives are elected on ethnically exclusive basis. However, potentially conflicting ethnic interests are accommodated through inter-ethnic coalitions in the executive that provide all groups with access to local power. Grand coalitions of the main ethnic parties are thus a defining feature of consociational model of power-sharing (Lijphart 1968). To work as an effective tool for accommodation, such a coalition needs to be based on proportional representation and equal principle of mutual veto power over decision-making in ethnically sensitive issues. All groups are thus prescribed to have an effective proportional access to executive power with a possibility to block decisions that they consider harmful to their interests.
The founder of the concept, Arend Lijphart (1977) formulated four pillars of a consociatonal political system:
• Proportional representation of ethnic groups in legislature • Grand coalition of leading ethnic parties in local executive • Veto power by minority groups • Segmental autonomy via federalism
Except for the last pillar, all these features of consociational power-sharing can be translated to the politics on the local level, particularly in the highly ethnicised context of the post- Yugoslav space. Local parliaments are elected under proportional systems that facilitate proportional representation of ethnically mobilised groups. Since the government formation is not regulated, it provides ethnic parties a large space for concluding grand coalitions, especially in areas with high levels of ethno-political mobilisation and intra-ethnic homogenisation. In contrast to some institutional arrangements on the state level across the region, the local politics does not provide mechanisms that would formally grant the veto power to ethnic groups, but this principle can be adopted as an informal element within the functioning of the grand coalition.
In regard to the electoral arrangements, Reilly (2006, 815) explains that “consociationalists argue for proportional voting systems that enable ethnic groups to be represented in parliament in proportion to their numbers in the general community, allowing ethnically-based parties to form the basis of government.” Overall, consociationalism thus assumes that politics in diverse societies should remain highly ethnicised, organised through ethnically exclusive
181 political parties and processed through voting along the ethnic cleavage to enable a stable inter- ethnic governance.
Despite the lack of institutional regulation, models of power-sharing very close to consociational have developed in several mixed Bosniak-Croat municipalities across central Bosnia with a close-to-equal demographic structure. As discussed in detail in Section 4.1, in these local political arenas, the politics is deeply ethnicised with dominant mono-ethnic nationalist parties and ethnically segmented voting. However, the main ethnic political parties are commonly able to reach agreement over the distribution of power within the inter-ethnic coalition government. A typical case of this consociational-like power-sharing is the mixed Bosniak-Croat municipality of Žepče. Two main ethno-political parties, HDZ and SDA, representing two local ethnic groups, the Croat majority and the strong Bosniak minority, have been sharing power within a stable grand coalition for several electoral cycles. Even though HDZ holds an absolute majority in the local parliament and safely wins the mayoral elections, the power is distributed proportionally between representatives of the Croat majority and the Bosniak minority who hold not only the legally granted position of the president of the local parliament, but also several executive position in the municipal administration (Interviews 95- 98). Importantly, the roots of this stable grand coalition can be found in the early post-war period when the municipality of Žepče was territorially divided into two parallel municipal systems functioning along ethnic lines. The reintegration of municipality was mediated by representatives of international community between the two major ethno-national parties who finally agreed on the division of the local power within a unified municipality (ONASA 1999; NINA 2005; OHR 2004). The stable informal power-sharing model was initially facilitated by external mediators, but has taken deep roots since and currently functions as a self-contained mechanism. The following Figure visualises the current political structure in Žepče where two dominant ethnic parties share the power, while only small political forces representing both groups are in opposition.
182 Žepče (BaH)
GROUP 1 – Croats (59%) GROUP 2 – Bosniaks (39%)
HDZ SDA
POWER SBB
OPPOSITION
HDZ1990 SDP A-SDA
ETHNO-NATIONAL MULTIETHNIC ETHNO-NATIONAL PARTIES G1 PARTIES PARTIES G2
Figure 48: Consociational model of inter-ethnic cooperation (illustrative case of Bosniak-Croat coalition in Žepče, BaH). In contrast to Žepče, where the informal consociational element was initially partly imposed externally on the local political structure, in the nearby town of Doboj, similar political pattern developed endogenously between the leading party representing the Serb majority (74%) and the Bosniak minority (21%). For several electoral cycles, the town was ruled by the ethnic Serb nationalist SDS party headed by the popular local politician Obren Petrović, who won three mayoral elections in a row with about 60% of votes over other ethnic Serb candidates. Despite its nationalist profile on the state level, the SDS-led government under Petrović kept a moderate profile on the local level and invited Bosniak parties to government coalitions as junior partners, allocating them with a proportional share of the executive power. Petrović himself was supported by Bosniak voters in mayoral elections where leading Bosniak parties did not run their own candidates (Interviews 92-93). In contrast to the case of Žepče, where the local power-sharing arrangement was negotiated as a way-out from the post-war stalemate, in Doboj this principle emerged as a long-term political strategy of the dominant Serb party who preferred Bosniak voters and parties as its partner over other ethnic Serb political competitors.
The semi-consociational model of power-sharing can also emerge endogenously in areas where politics is only partly ethnicised, that is where ethnic parties compete with multi-ethnic forces
183 for local power and where entering grand coalitions is a tactical choice. A typical instance of such a grand coalition was observed in the Croatian municipality of Obrovac (66% Croats, 31% Serbs) and Darda where the dominant Croat and Serb ethnic parties in the long term fully dominate over local politics and both sides express satisfaction with the division of power between the two parties (Slobodna Dalmacija 2013, Interviews 66, 67, 83). Nevertheless, other smaller ethnic and multi-ethnic parties in local legislatures are harshly criticise the local model based on a grand inter-ethnic coalition. These opposition forces are mainly defined in non- ethnic terms and as such can be understood as centripetal elements in the local politics, otherwise ruled under consociational principles. However, despite their significant electoral support, these multi-ethnic parties are isolated in opposition as the grand coalition of ethnic parties holds an absolute majority in local parliaments as well as among voters. In both Obrovac and Darda, the Serb ethnic SDSS party which is the minor partner in the coalition does not have its own candidate for mayor and its voters massively support the ethnic candidate of the Croat HDZ, thus facilitating their victory over candidates of other multi-ethnic or ethnic Croat parties. The political structure of Obrovac where the ethnic parties rule in grand coalition and exclude multi-ethnic parties from decision-making is visualised in the following Figure.
Obrovac (CRO)
GROUP 1 – Croats (66%) GROUP 2 – Serbs (31%)
HDZ SDSS
POWER
OPPOSITION
HSLS-SDP Ind.
ETHNO-NATIONAL MULTIETHNIC ETHNO-NATIONAL PARTIES G1 PARTIES PARTIES G2
Figure 49: Consociational model of inter-ethnic cooperation (illustrative case of Croat-Serb coalition in Obrovac, Croatia).
184 6.1.5 Centripetal accommodation: multi-ethnic parties and governance
Contrary to the ethnically exclusive principles of consociationalism, centripetalism calls for deethnicisation of politics and its moderation through parties cross-cutting the ethnic cleavage in order to prevent political exclusion on ethnic grounds. Instead of institutionalisation of ethnicity, the integrative form of inter-ethnic accommodation is based on the principle of avoiding ethnicity in politics from the very early stage of the political process when citizens articulate their interests, organise in political parties and mobilise in elections based on cleavages and interests that crosscut the ethnic divide. As (McCulloch 2013, 111) explains: “centripetalism suggests that the best way to achieve political stability in deeply divided societies is to enhance the political rewards of moderation by adopting electoral rules that require winning politicians to seek cross-community support.” Based on the work of Reilly (2006), the three defining features of centripetal systems can be outlined as follows:
• Existence of multiethnic-parties with cross-ethnic appeal • Cross-ethnic campaigning and voting • Non-ethnic governance
Overall, a centripetal politics, in contrast to the ethnically defined consociationalism, consists of cross-ethnic actors and principles through the political process: from the existence of multi- ethnic political parties, through cross-ethnic voting up to non-ethnic governance. The central feature of integrative accommodation thus rests in the de-ethnicisation of party politics through moderate parties with cross-ethnic appeal (Horowitz 1993; Reilly 2006a). The whole centripetal model of inter-ethnic accommodation assumes that such non-ethnic or multi-ethnic political subjects provide space for articulation of interests defined in other than ethnic terms that over-bridge ethnic divisions.
Therefore, the existence of multi-ethnic parties and their electoral performance in local politics is the principal observable feature of integrative politics. Within an ideal type of fully integrated politics, ethnically exclusive parties are non-existent, and the whole political process is de-ethnicised from its very onset as the political identification and organisation crosscuts the ethnic lines. Political competition takes place between various non-ethnic political subjects that differ from each other in other than ethnic dimension. Applied to the local level politics, the centripetal model of power-sharing would presume that multi-ethnic parties play the leading role in the local politics and enter executive coalitions, while ethnic political forces are either non-existent or only isolated on the margins of the political scene.
185 While the typical consociational model can be identified in various municipalities across the region, a fully integrative model was not observed, mainly because of the persisting ethnicisation of party politics. As Chapter 4.1 proved, the local politics across the mixed areas of the region is still clearly dominated by the ethnic political actors and cross-ethnic political mobilisation is rare. While some multi-ethnic parties generally exist even in an otherwise highly ethnicised political space of the post-conflict parts of the Balkans, they usually do not play a central role in the local politics.
Nevertheless, local politics in a few of the municipalities examined has at least partially and temporarily developed towards the centripetal model of cross-ethnic politics. The Croatian town of Knin is a rare case where a non-ethnic party overweighed the otherwise dominant ethno-national parties and at least partially de-ethnicised the structure and the content of local politics. Section 4.1.8 discussed in detail the recent political dynamics of Knin, where the locally organised non-ethnic political options won over the previously dominant ethno-national parties and formed a moderate coalition government with other smaller mainly multi-ethnic parties. The current form of multi-ethnic governance in Knin thus largely corresponds with the centripetal model of power-sharing. However, the new non-ethnic government has still been hardly attacked by the very strong and loud ethno-nationalist opposition representing the large part of the Croat majority. Hence, this semi-centripetal system is far from being stable in the long-term. The following Figure visualises the current political structure of Knin, where the strong local non-ethnic movement with cross-ethnic support leads the government coalition with three smaller subjects: the multi-ethnic SDP, the moderate ethnic Croat MOST, and the ethnic Serb SDSS. However, the single strongest party, the Croat ethno-national HDZ, is isolated in opposition.
186 Knin (CRO)
GROUP 1 – Croats (75%) GROUP 2 – Serbs (23%)
Ind.
SDSS POWER MOST SDP
OPPOSITION
HDZ
ETHNO-NATIONAL MULTIETHNIC ETHNO-NATIONAL PARTIES G1 PARTIES PARTIES G2
Figure 50: Semi-centripetal model of cross-ethnic cooperation (illustrative case of ruling cross-ethnic coalition in Knin, Croatia). Besides Knin, periods of similar semi-centripetal models of power-sharing based on the dominance of multi-ethnic parties were also observed in three other Croatian municipalities covered by the fieldwork: Vojnić (2009-2013), Gračac (2013-2017), and Vukovar (2009-2013). All of them were in the past also temporarily ruled by moderate coalitions led by non-ethnic left-wing parties with cross-ethnic support, yet their governments were attacked by dominant ethno-national parties. In all cases this model persisted only for a limited period of time as the ruling multi-ethnic coalitions were finally defeated by the traditional ethnic parties that took the power back from the moderates. Currently, the local power is held by ethnic Croat parties in all municipalities, resulting in a partial exclusion of Serbs from the executive.
In the other examined municipalities, only weak signs of non-ethnic politics were observed. While multi-ethnic parties are active and viable on the local level in several ethnically diverse places in Bosnia, they mainly lack any actual influence over the local, deeply ethnicised, political affairs. In an illustrative case of the Herzegovian municipality of Čapljina (79% Croats, 17% Bosniaks), the local SDP and the recently established local branch of the civic Naša stranka do fulfil all conditions of non-ethic agenda, membership and electoral appeal going across the Croat-Bosniak divide, but still remain on the margins of local politics. Naša stranka narrowly missed the electoral threshold in 2016 local elections and stayed out of the local
187 parliament, while SDP only gained one seat in the local legislature fully controlled by the ethnic Croat HDZ, bringing about the exclusion of the Bosniak minority (Interview 113, 114).
It is clear from this brief illustrative evidence that the empirical record of centripetal power- sharing is rather rare and fragile across the region due to the weak performance of multi-ethnic political forces and the persisting dominance of ethnic parties. Instead of accommodation based on shared voters ’ interests that would establish structural grounds for moderation, the form and level of power-sharing thus mostly depend on the ability of the ethnic political forces to reach an agreement on the distribution of political power on the elite level in the post-election negotiations over the distribution of power. Such consociational-like form of power-sharing can lead to effective inclusion of different ethnic groups within executive politics through proportional or equal distribution of power. However, within the unregulated institutional framework of municipal politics ruled by simple majorities, it only depends on the outcome of continual negotiations between ethnic leaders. While the demographically stronger group is in an advantaged position from which it chooses whether and whom it would take as partner, the minority groups are in a vulnerable position, under constant threat of political exclusion. The following chapter will systematically map the outcomes of this political imbalance across the mixed places to reveal whether, where and how the ethnic groups are able to find a compromise and agree on sharing power despite the recent legacy of mutual conflict.
188 6.2 Mixed areas in the Balkans: between exclusion and power- sharing
Further developing the previous theoretically grounded discussion of the possible forms of local ethno-political exclusion and power-sharing, the focus of this final section is mainly empirical. It describes, categories, and compares the observed forms of distribution of political power between ethnic groups on the local level across the post-conflict ethnically diverse areas of the Balkans, building on extensive evidence collected through the field and desk research in 81 ethnically mixed municipalities located in the former zones of ethnic conflict.
6.2.1 Between exclusion and accommodation: a continuum
Social theories, including those reflected in this thesis, tend to be grounded in ideal types of social phenomena characterised by limit values of defining variables. In line with this approach, the previous section analysed ideal types of political exclusion and accommodation from the perspective of existing theories of power-sharing. Nevertheless, social phenomena rarely materialise in their extreme forms, instead, they tend to be observed along a continuum between the theoretically defined ideal types. This assumption is valid for the continuum between political exclusion and power-sharing too as the ethnic distribution of power can equally take much more borderline forms that are situated between the two ideal poles.
Most of the ethnic groups in diverse municipalities covered by the research are not fully excluded from power, nor is it frequent to come across a situation of full power-sharing that would equally include all segments of society into power. Much more commonly, the situations are identified between these two poles when ethnic groups are partly excluded from or included into the local decision-making. To describe the various manifestations of inclusion a and exclusion situated along the continuum between full and no power-sharing, the research applies a slightly adapted categorisation of access to political power developed by Vogt et al. (2015) within the Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) research project. The EPR project has systematically mapped the relative political position defined by access to executive power of 639 politically relevant groups across the world in the period from 1946 to 2019. The collected data were coded and compiled by the authors into a comprehensive large-N dataset suitable for further comparative and statistical analysis (Cederman, Wimmer, and Min 2010; Wimmer, Cederman, and Min 2009b).
189 To classify the relative power positions of political groups on the state level and their access to executive power, the authors defined three main categories describing the power position of the single groups: one-group rule, power-sharing, and exclusion. The three main categories are further developed into seven sub-categories that refine the actual access to power and identify its underlying mechanism. The original version of the EPR categorisation together with definitions of single categories is presented in the following table.
Category Sub-category Definition Group controls Monopoly Elite members hold monopoly power in the executive to the power alone exclusion of members of all other ethnic groups.
Dominance Elite members of the group hold dominant power in the executive but there is some limited inclusion of “token” members of other groups who however do not have real influence on decision making. Group shares Senior Partner Representatives of the group participate as senior partners in a power with other formal or informal power-sharing arrangement. By power sharing, ethnic groups we mean any arrangement that divides executive power among leaders who claim to represent particular ethnic groups and who have real influence on political decision making. Junior Partner Representatives participate as junior partners in government. Group is excluded Powerless Elite representatives hold no political power (or do not have from executive influence on decision making) at the national level of executive state power. power - although without being explicitly discriminated against.
Discrimination Group members are subjected to active, intentional, and targeted discrimination by the state, with the intent of excluding them from political power. Such active discrimination can be either formal or informal, but always refers to the domain of public politics (excluding discrimination in the socio-economic sphere). Self-exclusion The special category of self-exclusion applies to groups that have excluded themselves from central state power, in the sense that they control a particular territory of the state which they have declared independent from the central government. Table 11: Definitions of concepts applied in the Ethnic Power Relations dataset (Vogt et al. 2015). Thanks to its comprehensiveness and general applicability, the research framework developed by Vogt et al. provides a valuable matrix for the assessment of a relative political position of ethnic groups not only in different geographic settings, but also on various institutional levels. The categorisation can thus be applied to the local level politics in the post-Yugoslav space with the purpose of comparative assessment of the local groups ’ relative and absolute political position.
The application of the EPR framework to the local level politics is based on the above developed argument of distinct local political systems that have their own dynamics on the municipal level in the post-Yugoslav space. Similar to the state level of analysis, where the
190 EPR framework was originally developed and applied, local ethnic groups in the municipal politics also vary in their access to executive political power. Importantly, the 41 local ethnic groups in the 19 ethnically diverse municipalities covered by the author’s fieldwork all fitted well into the EPR categories in regard to their access to power. Therefore, the framework is applied on the whole dataset consisting of 165 groups in 81 mixed municipalities across the region with the aim to systematically categorise and compare political inclusion and exclusion of single ethnic communities on the local level.
The only minor modification done on the original EPR categorisation is the amendment of one additional sub-category on the conceptual borderline between the broader categories of power- sharing and exclusion. The sub-category labelled symbolic partner is primarily derived from the concept of power-sharing as it describes a group that is formally part of the coalition government and declares its support to the local executive. However, in contrast to senior and junior partners who effectively divide and hold power, a symbolic partner is not compensated for the support to the government by a proportional influence over decision-making. The concept of symbolic partner is thus considered as a sub-category of ethnic exclusion since the group is not effectively included into the decision-making process. Even though such a group does not oppose the government and is nominally aligned with it, it does not share the executive power and thus cannot be considered within the power-sharing category.
The political position of all the 165 demographically and politically relevant local ethnic groups in the 81 examined diverse post-conflict municipalities was examined through the lense of the adapted EPR categorisation. Based on its observed access to the local executive power, each of the groups was classified within one of the three conceptual categories, and subsequently to a sub-category based on the recorded mechanism of its inclusion or exclusion. The observations for single ethnic groups were limited to the most recent completed (or almost completed) electoral cycle. The political position of each of the groups was assessed qualitatively based on the extensive collected empirical evidence, which is described in more detail in Chapter 3. In the 21 municipalities covered by the field research, the assessment was easier as it was primarily based on the large amount of data collected through interviews with local political actors, supplemented with information from secondary sources. In the remaining 60 municipalities, the empirical basis for the classification of the power position of the 120 local ethnic groups was limited to publicly available sources collected through desk research. With all cases, the ruling principle of the data analysis was the triangulation of the largest available portfolio of relevant sources of various provenience. Technically, all relevant
191 secondary sources were indexed with the Zotero software and the relevant information from them were compiled into a qualitative dataset organised through a OneNote application. The qualitatively coded values were subsequently recorded in a standard dataset consisting of relevant quantitative and qualitative figures describing the levels and patterns of ethno-political organisation, mobilisation, and power position of each group.
The observed forms of political exclusion and power-sharing are discussed in the following sections based on the conceptual categories and sub-categories developed above from the EPR categorisation. The following table presents the overall distribution of observed political position across the 165 examined groups.
Number EPR category of cases exclusion 35 discriminated 7 powerless 6 self-exclusion 6 symbolical partner 16 power-sharing 97 junior partner 40 senior partner 57 one-group rule 33 dominance 22 monopoly 11 Total 165
Table 12: Distribution of observed coded EPR categories. Already on this aggregated level, the collected empirical data on the access of groups to political power reveal the wide variation of post-conflict inter-ethnic relations on the local level. The recorded ethno-political power settings range from full political exclusion of discriminated minority groups and majority rule to stable inter-ethnic power-sharing arrangements. In total 96 groups in 48 municipalities share local political power in the position of senior or junior partners. On the contrary, 69 groups in 35 municipalities coexist in a political setting characterised by various degrees of ethnic exclusion and one-group rule. On the level of local political systems, interethnic inclusive power-sharing takes place in more than half of the examined ethnically diverse municipalities.
Furthermore, the observed instances of both power-sharing and exclusion are distributed across all five states of the region, as the following Table shows. Except of Croatia, where the
192 ethnically exclusive governance is more frequent, power-sharing arrangements prevail over one-group rule and exclusion in all states.
EPR categories BaH CRO KS MAC SRB Total exclusion/one-group rule 34 24 4 5 2 69 power-sharing 59 14 10 11 2 96
Table 13: Distribution of observed power categories across states. In general, the observance of frequent power-sharing mechanisms across the whole region in different geographical and socio-political contexts is a clear evidence that local political accommodation between previously conflicting ethnic groups is viable in the post-conflict settings of the region that is generally characterised by persisting ethnic divisions on the national level. Nevertheless, 69 local ethnic groups in 35 mixed municipalities across the region were identified to be, to a various degree, politically excluded from local decision- making controlled by a single group. In almost half of the cases, politically weaker ethnic groups are excluded from political power through different mechanisms. Apparently, ethnic domination and exclusion described by Horowitz (2014) as ‘the majority rule ’ is thus still relatively frequent in ethnically diverse communities, more than two decades after the termination of open wars. This is a clear evidence that roots of ethnic conflicts are deep and do not disappear once the ethnic fighting is over. Quite the contrary, disputes over the distribution of power that usually stood behind the escalation of ethnic conflicts in the 1990s have in many mixed places across the region persisted in the local socio-political space for a long time after open violence was halted. The relatively widespread incidence of ethnic exclusion should be studied cautiously, bearing in mind the recent tragic experience of ethnic violence in the 1990s and the early 2000s in the region. The minority groups’ feelings of political exclusion on ethnic grounds, regardless of their actual legitimacy, inflamed the Yugoslav wars in 1990s. Serbs, Croats, Bosniak and Albanians all at some point and in a some of the territory found themselves in a position in which they believed that they lack influence over political affairs. Their feelings of exclusion were strong enough to mobilise their societies for a violent fight for change of the territorial and political order. Apparently, the present day local ethno-political exclusion is not a territorially isolated phenomenon since its instances were recorded across different states, regions and ethnic dyads.
6.2.2 Relation between demographic and political power
Prior to a more detailed description and discussion of the observed types of accommodation and exclusion, it is important to examine the possible link between the demographic position
193 of single local groups and their access to local power. Since the EPR categorisation is originally constructed as an ordinary scale, it allows for quantitative coding of single categories of access to power by values between 0, representing full exclusion through discrimination, to 1 for monopoly over governance. The complete coding scale is presented in the following table.
EPR category EPR coded value self-exclusion -0,1 discriminated 0 powerless 0,2 symbolical partner 0,3 junior partner 0,4 senior partner 0,6 dominance 0,8 monopoly 1
Table 14: Coded values for EPR categories. By testing the relation between the groups ’ relative demographic share and their access to local power, the author examines to what extent the demographic position determines their political opportunities. Observances of ethnic exclusion and accommodation across various ethno- demographic settings are highly relevant for the competing theoretical arguments regarding the effect of ethnic demography on inter-ethnic relations presented in Section 2.4. The result of the test is presented in the following Figure with the X axis showing the demographic share of the groups and the Y axis representing their quantitatively calibrated access to power.
194
Figure 51: Relation between group's relative demographic size and its access to power. Presumably, the test reveals a strong correlation between the demographic and political position of a group. Demographic minorities are commonly in the role of junior partners in power-sharing arrangements or are to various degrees excluded from the political power (lower left quadrant). On the contrary, demographic majorities are mostly in the position of senior partners or rule the municipality alone (upper right quadrant). However, there are also important trends in the relation going beyond this expected structural correlation relevant to various theoretical arguments on the role of demography in inter-ethnic relations. Firstly, even numerous groups in the position of demographic minority are able to achieve an extensive access to local decision-making from the position of senior partners within power-sharing arrangements (upper left quadrant). Demographic minorities thus do not necessarily have to end in a politically disadvantaged position and can be included into local power on equal principles. The fact that most of the minority groups in position of senior partners are
195 demographically strong minorities with over 30% of the local population partly contradicts the theoretical assumption on the destabilising effects of a demographic structure with intermediate levels of polarisation characterised by the presence of a strong minority (Esteban and Ray 1999). Furthermore, relatively frequent power-sharing on equal basis between groups that are demographically close-to-equal (40-60%) also largely contradicts the theoretical assumption that high levels of demographic polarisation lead to political polarisation and exclusion (G. Montalvo, José, and Reynal-Querol 2002). On the contrary, the test also reveals that there are some demographically strong minorities with the population share above 30% and close-to- equal groups that are fully or largely excluded from local politics or even discriminated. These cases would support the assumptions of the above-mentioned theories.
The correlation between the demographic and the political position can be further disaggregated according to the state-level political status of the groups as it was defined in Section 5.1. The results presented in the following Figure clearly show that political majorities on a wider political level (blue data points) more frequently achieve access to local power even if they are in a demographic minority position. On the contrary, the political minority status of demographic minorities (orange data points) on the state level is usually further reinforced by their limited access to power on the local level. Local demographic majorities always achieve broad access to local power either through power-sharing or their own rule, regardless of their state-level political status. Interestingly, some of the political minorities that are in a majority position on the local level also rule the municipality through monopoly or from a dominant position at the cost of local minorities who are otherwise in an advantaged political majority position on the state level. These observations confirm that local level politics, to a certain extent, but not necessarily, reflects the power relations on the higher political levels as both state level majorities and minorities can be excluded on the local level.
196
Figure 52: Relation between group's relative demographic size and its access to power, political majorities vs. minorities. The observed trends are discussed in more detail in the following sections that are organised along the single categories of power relations recorded across municipalities. Since the observed levels of exclusion and inclusion of single ethnic groups are mutually dependent in bi-national settings, they are discussed in their logical combinations. In situations where the groups effectively share political power, both of them are in the position of the senior or the junior partner. On the contrary, if one of the two groups is excluded from power, the other rules alone and as such it is classified within the dominance or monopoly categories. The comparative analysis of different models will thus further elaborate on these combinations within the two main conceptual categories of ethnic exclusion and ethnic accommodation.
6.2.3 Ethnic exclusion
All recorded situations of ethnic exclusion observed in 35 municipalities have in common the prevailing political exclusion of an ethnic group from the local governance. However, the scope and mechanisms of such ethnic exclusion vary widely among cases categorised as ethnically exclusive. The observed cases of exclusion can thus be further categorised into four different
197 sub-categories of the EPR framework based on their common features. The four types of exclusion are discussed in detail in the following sections, starting with full exclusion, towards more inclusive arrangements.
Self-exclusion – dominance/monopoly
The first sub-category of ethnic exclusion from local politics, labelled as self-exclusion, describes cases where minority ethnic groups did not enter the local representative bodies because of their low political mobilisation or intra-group fragmentation. As the ethnic parties representing these groups did not reach the electoral threshold, the groups are fully excluded from local political affairs from the very onset of the political process of government formation. As can be seen in their demographic profile, all of these cases concern rather small Bosniak and Croat communities in the Serb-dominated parts of Bosnia, that usually count for between 10-20% of the local population. All of them, except of one (Croats in Donji Žabar4), were represented by ethnic parties in the last elections but these ended below the threshold either due to the low total number of votes (Rogatica, Vukosavlje) or as a consequence of the dispersion of votes among more political subjects (Gradiška, Kozarska Dubica). In Rogatica, until the last elections, the local Bosniak returnee minority used to be represented in the local legislature by its main ethnic party (SDA) that also had solid access to executive power thanks to its stable cooperation with the locally dominant Serb ruling party SDS (Interview 45). However, in the last elections, SDA narrowly failed to enter the local parliament which, combined with the local switch of power between the major Serb parties, caused a full exclusion of the small Bosniak minority from the local politics. In Gradiška, two local Bosniak parties running independently split the limited number of the Bosniak votes to the extent that both of them ended just below the 3% threshold that would grant them a place in the local legislature and possible access to political power. In an interview for the local media, the president of the local branch of one of the parties explained that both parties were aware of the risk, but their negotiations about a joint candidacy failed due to a dispute over the leading position within their prospective coalition (Blic 2016).
4 The case of Croat community in the municipality of Donji Žabar is specific because local Croats, who are mainly settled in one village (Oštra Luka), live physically on the territory of Donji Žabar municipality (RS), but are administratively registered in the adjacent municipality of Orašje (FBiH) where they also vote in elections (Borovac 2016). 198 Population Population Municipality State Self-excluded share Monopoly share2 Kozarska Dubica BaH Bosniaks 10% Serbs 87% Rogatica BaH Bosniaks 10% Serbs 89% Modrica BaH Bosniaks 12% Serbs 79% Gradiska BaH Bosniaks 15% Serbs 81% Vukosavlje BaH Croats 17% Serbs 32% Donji Zabar BaH Croats 27% Serbs 72%
Table 15: Observed cases of political self-exclusion. All the self-excluded minorities are communities of minority returnees who were completely displaced from the areas during the war and came back years later in a vulnerable minority position. All these communities used to be represented in the local politics in the early years after the return, firstly thanks to a higher number of their members living (and voting) in the area, secondly because of a high number of votes coming from the politically mobilised diaspora living abroad or in other parts of the country. Nevertheless, almost two decades after the peak of the minority return, the number of returnees dropped down with mainly the elderly population staying in the areas as permanent residents. Also, the distant political mobilisation of diaspora communities with regard to active participation in local affairs in the place of their pre-war residence has vanished (Interview 45, 103, 106). The long-term process of the demographic decline has thus resulted in a gradual political passivation and has ended in a full self-exclusion of minority communities from the local politics.
Despite counting for slightly more than 10% of the local populations, these minorities are now unrepresented in the local politics. It might seem surprising that these minorities are not able to convert their population share directly into the electoral share. However, as discussed in Section 5.1, this inconsistency between demographic figures and electoral performance can be explained by the fact that large portions of officially reported returnee populations are not physically present in the area or they are formally registered in other parts of the country for electoral purposes (Žíla and Čermák 2020). As a result of these factors, the local politics in these areas is fully dominated by local ethnic majorities.
Discrimination – monopoly: Direct exclusion
While the causes of self-exclusion of minorities discussed in the previous section can be traced in the specific intra-group political dynamics of the minority and its low political mobilisation and fragmentation, the category of discriminated groups represents a full form of political exclusion stemming from the local inter-group dynamics. In accordance with the original EPR dataset definition of discrimination, only those groups that are subject to active discrimination
199 from the part of a local majority with political exclusion as a specific aim were classified as discriminated. The respective local majorities in these municipalities are categorised as having monopoly over the local decision-making as they fully control the local executive.
This hard form of ethnic exclusion was observed relatively rarely across the 81 examined municipalities. A certain form of political discrimination was identified only in seven municipalities in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Importantly, the incidence of this form of power distribution is not limited to areas with demographically weak minorities that are structurally disadvantaged because of their smaller size. Quite the contrary, besides three smaller local minorities counting for 12-17% of population, other four discriminated groups are strong minorities counting for as much as 33-38% of population.
Population Population Municipality State Discriminated share Monopoly share2 Gracanica KOS Albanians 12% Serbs 82% Benkovac CRO Serbs 14% Croats 85% Capljina BaH Bosniaks 17% Croats 79% Vlasenica BaH Bosniaks 33% Serbs 66% Vukovar CRO Serbs 35% Croats 57% Kistanje CRO Croats 37% Serbs 62% Stolac BaH Bosniaks 38% Croats 59%
Table 16: Observed cases of exclusion – discrimination All the observed cases of majority discrimination against a local minority have in common a legacy of intense inter-communal conflict accompanied by high intensity violence and forced displacement, and have been characterised by tense inter-ethnic relations in the long term. Vukovar, Stolac and Gračanica have been some of the main political hotspots in inter-ethnic relations and their symbolical importance fairly exceeded the local dimension as they were heavily politicised on the national level. While the particular forms of discrimination differ across single municipalities, all instances are characterised by an active refusal of the local majority to provide the minority with specific rights it deserves by law. The active form of exclusion thus goes beyond the purely passive form of non-inclusion of a minority group into the local executive since it violates established principles of elementary minority representation.
In Bosnia, the discrimination mainly takes the form of obstructing the minority right for its minimal representation in the municipal legislative and executive structures. In both Stolac and Čapljina, the Croat majority according to local Bosniak representatives actively boycotts the inclusion of Bosniaks into the local administration and also indirectly obstructs the election of the president of the local parliament who is required to come from the minority group by law
200 (Bljesak.info 2017; HMS 2017, Interviews 109-113). In Vlasenica, the only Bosniak party initially took part in the ruling coalition but its only representative in the local executive was later dismissed by the Serb mayor in an alleged act of discrimination, while the municipal structures remained closed to Bosniaks (Karabegović 2018). As explained in Section 6.1, in Kosovo and Croatia local ethnic minorities are granted reserved positions in the local executive by law in the form of deputy mayors for minorities that are supposed to ensure at least a symbolical inclusion of the local minority in decision-making. However, this mechanism does not effectively prevent political exclusion as the cases of actively excluded minorities in the four Croatian and Kosovar municipalities show.
In the Serb-dominated municipality of Gračanica in Kosovo, the local ruling Serb party did not establish the position of deputy mayor despite its legal obligation to do so as the minority consists of more than 10% of population, and the Albanian representatives blame the local institutions for administrative discrimination (Periskopi 2019). In Croatian municipalities the deputy mayor is elected directly in local elections if the minority reaches a 15% threshold, therefore the larger discriminated Croat and Serb minorities in Kistanje and Vukovar formally have their representative in local executive. Nevertheless, deputy mayors in both municipalities argue that they do not hold any actual power because they fully depend on the political will and budget of the ruling majority (Interviews 71, 89). In Vukovar, the Serb minority was denied its legal right for bilingualism in official language use (Borković 2020), while in Benkovac the small Serb minority allegedly faces administrative and financial obstructions from the local government led by Croat ethnic HDZ (Kosanović 2019).
These are significant signs that even under legally imposed mechanisms of a weak minority inclusion, the political will of the ruling local majority is still necessary for the minority to get access to power. The above described instances of majority refusal can thus be understood as the most alarming forms of ethnic exclusion where the local ruling ethnic groups intentionally exclude the weaker group from power to reach their own ethnic monopoly over decision- making.
Powerless – dominance: Non-inclusion
The exclusion of discriminated groups discussed within the previous category is a result of active repressive politics from the local majority. In contrast to that, a group can be politically excluded from decision-making passively through non-inclusion without being actively discriminated by the majority. This category of passively excluded groups is categorised as
201 powerless within the EPR categorisation, while the respective local majorities are in a dominant position. Similar to the active exclusion, this power structure was observed relatively rarely and was identified in only 6 municipalities situated mainly in Croatia. As in the previous category, its observance is not limited to a specific demographic pattern and is found in municipalities with small as well as strong minorities.
Population Population Municipality State Powerless share Dominant share2 Petrinja CRO Serbs 11% Croats 85% Daruvar CRO Serbs 12% Croats 61% Mitrovica_NorthKOS Albanians 17% Serbs 76% Cucer Sandevo MAC Albanians 23% Macedonians 47% Beli Manastir CRO Serbs 26% Croats 57% Erdut CRO Croats 38% Serbs 55% Novi Travnik BaH Croats 46% Bosniaks 51%
Table 17: Observed cases of exclusion – powerless. Regardless of the various size of the powerless group, the mechanism of passive exclusion (or non-inclusion) is very similar in all the six cases. While the groups are at least minimally represented in the local legislature, the local executive branch is only formed by political parties representing the local majority and the representatives of the minority are not invited to take part in the process of government formation. In the three municipalities in Croatia where the smaller Serb minorities were identified as powerless, their political position is also significantly weakened by a low ethno-political mobilisation of the Serb voters who are politically divided between their ethnic and non-ethnic civic parties in their support. In Beli Manastir, the single ethnic party representing the Serb minority (26% of population) only gained under 10% of votes in the elections and ended as the weakest party in the local parliament controlled by an absolute majority of the ethnic Croat HDZ. The demographic structure is inverted in the nearby municipality of Erdut where Croats, as the political majority on the state level, are in the position of a local minority. Despite their high share in the local population (38%) and a substantial level of ethno-political mobilisation (their ethnic party gained 27% of votes), their representatives are not included into the local executive. Thanks to the high level of mobilisation and intra-group homogeneity of the local Serb majority, the single leading Serb ethnic party fully controls the local legislature and executive through its absolute majority (Interview 68). A similar situation is found in North Mitrovica, a municipality in Kosovo, where the dominant Serb party, Srpska lista, has an absolute majority in the local parliament and is not interested in cooperation with the few Albanian representatives, nor with other small Serb parties (Zeri 2018). Furthermore, the political position of the local Albanian minority is
202 significantly weakened by its internal political fragmentation into several political subjects that compete for a very limited pool of votes. As was discussed in detail in Section 5.2, the Albanian minority in North Mitrovica lost half of its votes because of the dispersion of electoral support to six different political parties, of which only a single one entered the local parliament. Apparently, the powerless position of local minorities is commonly a result of a combination of internal fragmentation and low mobilisation of a minority, in contrast to a homogenous and mobilised local majority which dominates the local politics.
Symbolic partner – dominance: Power-sharing without power
The last category of ethnic exclusion, defined within a category of symbolical partner, describes the most borderline situations, representing the softest version of exclusion that can be situated very close to inclusive power-sharing. Under this soft form of exclusion, the excluded group is formally included in the executive, but their access to decision making is certainly limited. Therefore, the formally inclusive arrangement does not fit the criteria for effective power-sharing. As explained above, the category of symbolic partner is the only category added to the original EPR framework by the author. The purpose of this addition was to distinguish among groups supporting the local government those that are effectively provided access to the executive and those that are only formally aligned with the government but are not rewarded with an appropriate share on local power. While the former category corresponds to the definition of junior partner and is treated in the next section as an asymmetric form of accommodation, the latter is labelled as symbolic partner and is considered as a sub-category of ethnic exclusion. Compared to the previously discussed patterns of exclusion of the discriminated or powerless groups, groups with the status of symbolic partners are in a different position towards the local government. They are not actively excluded from the executive, nor do they stay passively out of it, and the ruling group invites them into the government. However, they hold no or only a disproportionally small amount of power in the executive arrangement. Therefore, this category is treated as excluded from the decision- making process despite their formal support of the local government. On the contrary, their local ruling counter-part groups are categorised as dominant since they do not actively prevent other groups from taking part in the executive, but do not effectively share the actual power with them and instead control the decision-making on their own. Such power distribution was observed in 15 municipalities that are dispersed across all states except of Kosovo. As in the previous categories of ethnic exclusion, this form of power distribution is also present across
203 various demographic settings and affects small minorities, strong minorities and even close-to- equal groups, as presented in the following table.
Symbolical Population Population Municipality State partner share Dominant share2 Derventa BaH Croats 9% Serbs 82% Tearce MAC Macedonians 12% Albanians 84% Kresevo BaH Bosniaks 19% Croats 79% Sunja CRO Serbs 22% Croats 74% Darda CRO Serbs 23% Croats 56% Kostajnica CRO Bosniaks 24% Serbs 72% Butel MAC Albanians 25% Macedonians 62% Medvedja SRB Albanians 26% Serbs 67% Glina CRO Serbs 27% Croats 70% Prijedor BaH Bosniaks 32% Serbs 63% Pelagicevo BaH Croats 35% Serbs 64% Kiseljak BaH Bosniaks 38% Croats 57% Gracac CRO Serbs 45% Croats 54% Vojnic CRO Serbs 45% Croats 37% Vukosavlje BaH Bosniaks 47% Serbs 32%
Table 18: Observed cases of exclusion – symbolic partner. The empirically observed forms of symbolic support for local government were generally characterised by two different mechanisms which both led to disproportional power allocated to the weaker group. Within the first scenario, the leading political representatives of the minority group nominally support the government but are not represented in the executive at all. Especially in constituencies with imbalanced ethnic structure, a very small minority can support the ruling coalition only symbolically without having any influence over decision making. Typically, in Bosnian municipalities of Milići and Kreševo, the SDA party representing local Bosniak returnees openly supports local executive dominated by leading Serb (Milići) and Croat (Kreševo) ethnic parties, but Bosniak representatives do not take part in the local administration. Such an arrangement of power distribution apparently cannot be considered as an instance of inter-ethnic accommodation despite the existence of a formal coalition between the minority and majority parties.
Another form of an incomplete inter-ethnic coalition develops in situations when the minority group is internally politically divided into a leading and a minor political party representing the group's interests. The ruling majority then has a possibility to invite the marginal party representing the minority into the formation of the government, but the principal party representing the minority with more electoral legitimacy is isolated in opposition. As a consequence, only a minor segment of the weaker community is politically included in the
204 decision-making process, while its majority ends up excluded from the executive. The reasons behind such strategy on the part of the ruling group can be diverse – from a pragmatic need to find more hands in the legislature to form a local government, through attempts to gain at least some multi-ethnic legitimacy, up to an intentional effort to eliminate a larger part of the minority from power. A necessary condition for this situation to emerge is a political heterogeneity of the minority group. Regardless of the specific reasoning behind this type of situation, the inclusion of only a smaller part of the weaker group undoubtedly contradicts the principles of power-sharing based on inclusion of the group as a whole, and it is therefore considered as exclusive.
This form of limited inclusion is present mainly in municipalities with demographically strong minorities with a population share over 30% that also reflects in a significant representation in the local legislature. In Vojnić and Vukosavlje, the excluded groups even count for local demographic pluralities slightly outnumbering the ruling group in census. Nevertheless, all of these groups are politically divided on an intra-ethnic basis into more political subjects representing them in the local legislature. This division goes along the established left-right cleavage in Bosniak communities where the conservative national party (SDA) competes with the liberal left-leaning parties (SDP, DF) within the ethnic bloc. The internal political split among Serb minorities in Croatia is, besides ideological differences, fuelled by break-away parties that have split from the dominant ethno-national SDSS. Most recently, it is especially the case with DSS, a party established by disappointed members of SDSS as a response to allegedly too passive an approach of their former party with regard to the protection of the rights of Serbs in Croatia (Interview 71). In all of the cases identified in this category, the latter of the parties serves as a junior partner in the ruling coalition formed by a local majority group, while the former is excluded from the government despite its significantly higher electoral support. Unsurprisingly, the excluded stronger party considers such arrangement unjust in regard to its higher electoral legitimacy, and dangerous for the minority it represents. The leading minority parties excluded from the executive commonly accuse the ruling group of discrimination and the weaker co-ethnic party serving in the government of betrayal (Saff 2017).
In Vukosavlje, Pelagićevo and Kiseljak, the locally ruling group invited weaker parties representing the local minority into the government and reached a majority in local parliaments thanks to their support, at the cost of the leading parties of the minority which remained excluded, despite their significantly higher legitimacy among the minority population. In the
205 most pronounced case of Pelagićevo, the weaker Croat ethnic party HDZ, with a single representative in the local parliament, joined the ruling coalition on behalf of the Croat minority, while the strongest party in the local parliament, the ethnic Croat HDZ1990 with four deputies, was excluded from the government (RTRS 2016; HDZ1990 2016). A slightly different form of such a situation was recorded in the Croatian municipalities of Gračac and Vojnić, where the leading Croat party formed a coalition government with smaller parties representing the Serb minority, while the cross-ethnic parties that received larger support from the Serb community were isolated in opposition (Interviews 56, 91). In all these situations, the leading parties of the local majority exploiting the internal fragmentation of the local minorities which, in itself, provides them with a useful tool for government formation and cross-ethnic legitimisation of their rule, but without providing the minority a proportional access to power. In an illustrative case of the Bosnian Prijedor, the ruling coalition of Serb parties needed support of some Bosniak representatives in the local parliament to outvote their Serb intra- ethnic competitors, but it repeatedly changed their coalition partners among three Bosniak parties represented in the parliament and thus fully exploited the internal fragmentation of the Bosniak minority (SRNA 2020).
While we still speak about a prevailing political exclusion of one group, we also see that this pattern brings political alliances that crosscut the ethnic cleavage, be it in government or opposition. The accommodative feature makes this form of exclusion certainly softer than the previous hard form based on a full isolation of a minority group out of power. In the small municipality of Vukosavlje in northern Bosnia, two such informal cross-ethnic blocs emerged, one currently holding power and one that previously ruled the municipality and is now in opposition. Both of them were formed on the same partially exclusive principle of coalition between the principal party representing a particular majority ethnic group (SDA for Bosniaks and SNSD for Serbs) and its weaker rival from the other group (SDP for Bosniaks, DNS and PDP for Serbs) (ref Interviews 57-59). This political setting thus can lead to the emergence of new inter-ethnic coalitions within local legislatures where the excluded party representing a minority tends to ally with opposition parties of a majority that are also excluded from the government.
6.2.4 Ethnic accommodation
Across the 81 examined mixed municipalities, inter-ethnic political accommodation is a prevailing pattern of power distribution that has been identified in 47 municipalities across all states of the region and various post-conflict dyads of ethnic groups. The widespread incidence
206 of local power-sharing systems in the states characterised by different institutional structures and inter-ethnic relations on the state level, and, despite a lack of any legal power-sharing regulation, on the local level, is a clear sign that ethnic inclusion can develop locally as an endogenous political principle. Based on the EPR categorisations of single groups ’ access to local power and their possible combinations, two models of ethnic accommodation are defined: symmetric and asymmetric power-sharing. While the former is characterised by equal access to power of all groups from positions of senior partners, the latter is based on proportional access to power divided asymmetrically between junior and senior partner.
Junior partner – senior partner: Asymmetric power-sharing
The model of unequal power-sharing is based on an asymmetric distribution of executive power between ethnic groups who are placed in different relative positions. While the politically and demographically stronger of the groups is in the position of a senior partner from which it controls the decision making, the weaker of the groups is included in the position of a junior partner from which it participates in the executive. However, despite its relatively weaker position in the executive structure, the junior partner is allocated an effective access to decision-making. The amount of actual influence entrusted to the junior partner is controlled by the senior partner, and both of them are aware of the unequal distribution of power. Contrary to the theoretical prescriptions of the ideal consociational model, the principle of mutual veto is absent from this power-sharing model as the junior partner can be outvoted by the senior partner.
The collected empirical data show clearly that this form of asymmetric power-sharing is by far the most common power arrangement across the mixed areas of the region. The division of executive power between a local majority in the position of a senior partner, and a local minority in the position of a junior partner was observed in 39 out of 81 examined municipalities. All the observed cases are listed in the following table together with the information about the groups involved in the asymmetric power-sharing and their respective demographic size.
207 Population Population Municipality State Junior partner share Senior partner share Kamenica KOS Serbs 10% Albanians 89% Visegrad BaH Bosniaks 10% Serbs 88% Bijeljina BaH Bosniaks 12% Serbs 85% Livno BaH Bosniaks 12% Croats 86% Obilic KOS Serbs 12% Albanians 82% Samac BaH Croats 14% Serbs 77% Ugljevik BaH Bosniaks 14% Serbs 85% Pakrac CRO Serbs 16% Croats 73% Bugojno BaH Croats 18% Bosniaks 78% Teslic BaH Bosniaks 19% Serbs 75% Brod BaH Croats 20% Serbs 69% Doboj BaH Bosniaks 21% Serbs 74% Knin CRO Serbs 23% Croats 75% Tetovo MAC Macedonians 23% Albanians 70% Cair MAC Macedonians 24% Albanians 57% Novi Grad BaH Bosniaks 24% Serbs 74% Prozor-Rama BaH Bosniaks 25% Croats 75% Dvor CRO Croats 26% Serbs 72% Kumanovo MAC Albanians 26% Macedonians 60% Kotor Varos BaH Bosniaks 27% Serbs 66% Plitvicka Jezera CRO Serbs 27% Croats 70% Travnik BaH Croats 28% Bosniaks 67% Klokot KOS Albanians 29% Serbs 71% Strpce KOS Albanians 29% Serbs 71% Fojnica BaH Croats 30% Bosniaks 61% Obrovac CRO Serbs 31% Croats 66% Bujanovac SRB Serbs 34% Albanians 55% Zvornik BaH Bosniaks 34% Serbs 66% Milici BaH Bosniaks 37% Serbs 63% Bratunac BaH Bosniaks 38% Serbs 61% Brvenica MAC Macedonians 38% Albanians 62% Zepce BaH Bosniaks 39% Croats 59% Vitez BaH Bosniaks 41% Croats 56% Bosanski Petrovac BaH Bosniaks 43% Serbs 55% Jegunovce MAC Albanians 43% Macedonians 55% Plaski CRO Serbs 46% Croats 51% Novo Gorazde BaH Bosniaks 47% Serbs 52% Osmaci BaH Bosniaks 48% Serbs 51% Busovaca BaH Croats 50% Bosniaks 48%
Table 19: Observed cases of asymmetric power-sharing. Most importantly, the data show that asymmetric power-sharing locally develops across various states of the region as well as in different dyads of ethnic groups. Furthermore, it is present in local political environments characterised by diverse demographic settings and a varying level of ethnic heterogeneity. Generally, most of the groups participating in the
208 government in the position of a junior partner are strong minorities counting for 20-40% of the local population and their political status thus corresponds to their relatively weaker demographic position in respect to their senior partners.
However, there are also very small minorities as well as close-to-equal groups that appear in the power position of a junior partner not directly reflecting their demographic situation. On one end of the continuum, there are very tiny groups counting for just above 10% of local population who are invited by a local majority as junior partners to the government. In an illustrative case of the municipality of Kamenica in Kosovo, the ruling coalition of Albanian parties actively offered the representatives of a small Serb minority a junior position in the government and agreed on providing them an executive position of the deputy mayor that the small minority otherwise would not acquire. The leading representatives of both the Serb minority and the Albanian majority expressed their satisfaction with this arrangement of power-sharing and explained it with a need for political inclusion of the Serb community on the local level (Kafexholli 2018; Vreme 2018).
On the other end of the continuum, the asymmetric form of power-sharing is also observed in municipalities with a near-to-symmetric demographic structure. Even though the two ethnic groups are in a close-to-equal demographic position counting for 40-60% of population, in seven municipalities the slightly weaker of the groups certainly has limited access to the local executive from the position of a junior partner. In most of these cases, the group in the junior position is under-mobilised in the elections and thus unable to transform its demographic share into a proportional political representation. In the two most pronounced cases of the Bosnian municipalities of Osmaci and Novo Goražde, the local Bosniak minorities counting for almost half of the population only gained 13% and 23% of the seats in the local parliaments, and consequently entered the local government in the unequal position of junior partners.
However, even some politically mobilised groups end in a politically unequal position despite their almost equal demographic share, as was observed in several Bosniak-Croat mixed municipalities with almost equal demographic structure in Central Bosnia. In Novi Travnik, the demographically strong Croat minority counting for 46% of the population holds a proportional share of executive positions in the local administration and its political representation is formally part of the local government. However, the political power of Croat representatives is certainly limited when ethnically sensitive issues come to the table because the Bosniak representatives outvote them thanks to their slight majority (Večernji 2017; Dnevnik 2019).
209 Across the observed cases, several common features of asymmetric power-sharing have been identified that define its functioning and the mechanisms of power division. All groups assessed as junior partners are formally included into the local executive as official part of the ruling coalition led primarily by parties representing the local majority. They usually enter the coalition formally during the post-election negotiations about government formation. In some municipalities, the leading parties representing the local minority and majority have a long- term informal agreement on their cooperation. While minorities in the position of junior partners always run their own candidates in the elections for the local parliament, in many locations they do not have their own candidates for the position of the mayor and officially support the candidate of their coalition partner representing the local majority. In the Bosnian towns of Doboj and Bijeljina, the local Bosniak parties in the long-term became stable coalition partners of the locally ruling Serb ethnic SDS and Bosniak voters massively voted for SDS’s local leaders in the mayoral elections. The Bosniak parties then received a proportional share of executive positions in the post-election division of power as a reward for their support (BN 2016; Čalić 2016). The power division thus can be defined through informal pre-election as well as formal post-election coalition of ethnic representatives.
As a junior partner in the ruling coalition, a minority group is allocated an asymmetric amount of executive power. The asymmetry commonly materialises in a lower number of executive positions distributed during the government formation, which is usually proportional to the demographic share of the minority and its political position in the local legislature. Demographically smaller and politically weaker groups are commonly allocated only single or very few positions in the local government. In the Bosnian municipalities Bijeljina and Ugljevik, the tiny Bosniak minority was rewarded for its support of the local ruling coalition with one position of director in the local administration (Opština Ugljevik 2016). In Herzegovian Livno where the main Bosniak party SDA serves formally as a junior partner of the dominant Croat party HDZ, it also holds one director position in the local executive. However, its leader admits that it is effectively subordinated to the Croat leading party who controls the executive (Ridžal 2018). Demographically and politically stronger minorities are usually allocated a larger amount of executive power. In the Kosovar municipality of Klokot, the Albanian parties supporting the local government led by the Serb party took two out of five directors’ positions in the local executive (OSCE 2018a).
Importantly, for the sake of understanding the nature of power-sharing mechanisms, while the amount of power allocated to a local minority is asymmetric, parties representing local majority
210 agree on the division of power without any institutional obligation to do so. In most of the municipalities where asymmetric power-sharing developed, parties representing the local majority could easily agree on a numerically strong coalition and exclude the minority from the executive. However, the leading majority parties commonly prefer representatives of minorities as their coalition partners instead of other parties representing the local majority who are their main competitors on both the state and the local level. Inclusion of minorities as junior partners to local executive thus frequently develops as a consequence of fierce intra- group competition within the local majority. If the local majority is deeply politically fragmented, the few representatives of the local minority in the local parliament become a decisive factor in the government formation and the minority can benefit from this position by gaining significant influence over decision-making. Typically, such a situation is observed across municipalities with Serb majorities in Bosnia and Macedonian majorities in Macedonia that are internally divided into two equally strong political blocs, both seeking support of representatives of local minorities. Similar to that, in the Croatian municipalities where Serbs are a minority, the Serb leading ethnic party SDSS commonly has the decisive position in government formation since its few representatives can decide the outcome of the competition between the right-wing Croat HDZ and the left-wing bloc of civic parties. In contrast to that, in some localities, the locally dominant majority party invites the minority representatives to executive even in situations when it holds an absolute majority in the local parliament and does not need the support for government formation. In the Kosovar municipality of Štrpce, the locally dominant Serb ethnic Srpska lista granted the leading Albanian ethnic party on director position in the local administration regardless of its absolute majority in the local parliament (OSCE 2018b).
Senior partner – senior partner: Symmetric power-sharing
The model of distribution of power where both or all ethnic groups are in the position of a senior partner is the most inclusive form among power-sharing arrangements. Compared to the previously discussed form where a minority group is included in decision-making from a junior position, this type is symmetrical in its essence as it gives all ethnic groups equal access to the local executive, regardless of their demographic share. This symmetric form of equal power division has been identified in 8 municipalities in total, which are located mainly in Bosnia, with a few instances in Kosovo and Croatia.
211 Senior Senior Senior Municipality State partner I Population share partner II Population share partner III Population share Brcko Distrikt BaH Croats 21% Serbs 35% Bosniaks 42% Glamoc BaH Croats 23% Serbs 43% Vares BaH Croats 32% Bosniaks 61% Novo Brdo KOS Albanians 39% Serbs 61% Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje BaH Croats 41% Bosniaks 57% Jajce BaH Bosniaks 43% Croats 46% Srebrenica BaH Serbs 45% Bosniaks 54% Udbina CRO Croats 45% Udbina 51%
Table 20: Observed cases of symmetric power-sharing. Some of the symmetric power-sharing arrangements developed in municipalities with very close-to-equal demographic structure, which also leads to a balanced distribution of political power in local legislatures. Municipalities of Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, Srebrenica and Jajce in Bosnia, and Udbina in Croatia are all areas where the groups count for very similar relative shares of the population and their ethnic parties also receive relatively equal amount of electoral support, thus leading to an ethnically balanced structure of the local legislatures. Furthermore, other municipalities are typical instances of a demographic structure characterised by a strong majority and a weak minority: in Vareš and Novo Brdo, the minority group counts for 30- 40% of the local population. Finally, two instances of power-sharing on an equal basis are found in the Bosnian municipalities with a unique tri-ethnic demographic structure, Brčko and Glamoč. However, while in Brčko all three groups are in equal positions of senior partners in the power- sharing arrangement, in Glamoč only the Serb majority and the Croat strong minority share power equally, while the smaller Bosniak minority is included symbolically in the governance.
In contrast to the imbalanced model of power-division between a junior and a senior partner, whose influence over decision-making are proportional to their demographic positions, the balanced model presumes an equal distribution of executive positions. Regardless of the population size of the demographically weaker group and its relative political position in the local legislature, the local majority grants it equal access to the executive. Importantly, in all the observed cases of symmetric power-sharing, there is a clearly identifiable politically stronger group that could aspire at another model of distribution of power and seek another coalition partners on an asymmetric basis, yet it prefers to form a grand coalition with the strongest party representing the minority on an equal basis. The leading parties of the respective majorities could form a coalition with other smaller parties representing the majority, or with marginal parties representing the minority, and thus easily exclude the leading minority party, as was shown in the section that discusses symbolic partners. Nevertheless, in all the eight
212 cases the local majority avoided such exclusive approach and instead agreed on a symmetric grand coalition.
Specific mechanisms leading to the balanced power-sharing vary across the eight cases, but generally reflect long-term patterns of inter-ethnic accommodation in the local politics. In some instances, the power-sharing on equal principles stems from the longstanding informal arrangements negotiated between the conflict parties under the auspices of the international community shortly after the end of the conflict. In Brčko, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje and Glamoč, international agencies were actively involved as mediators in the locally tense post-war settings characterised by deep ethno-political divisions and exclusion, and finally assisted representatives of the local groups in reaching a compromise based on a balanced division of power (Interview 13, Moore 2013; NINA 2005). These principles have later translated into political practice repeated after every elections when the local government is formed on an equal basis. In Udbina, the leading ethnic parties representing two almost equally strong groups used to compete for local power in several election cycles, but agreed a grand pre-election coalition prior to 2013 elections that was confirmed in the elections for years later (Ciglenečki 2017).
However, the balanced power-sharing arrangement in some municipalities develops on an ad hoc basis as a result of tough post-election negotiations in each electoral cycle. Typically, in the Bosnian municipality of Srebrenica whose local political affairs are cautiously followed on the national level because of its politicised symbolical importance, parties representing local the Serb and the Bosniak community go through long negotiations on government formation after each local elections. In 2016, the local government was formed after weeks of tense consultations and the coalition was again renegotiated a few months later (Vijesti 2016; SRNA 2016; Šišić 2016). A similar course of post-election negotiations was recorded in the Bosnian municipality of Jajce, where the grand coalition between the leading Bosniak and Croat party was only confirmed half a year after the elections when the stronger Bosniak party finally agreed on conditions set by the Croat HDZ that provided Croats with a balanced number of executive functions and control over the local legislature (Aljović 2017; Karačić 2017).
In all instances, the symmetric form of power-sharing, as the most inclusive model of power distribution, has in fact developed from deep ethno-political divisions that have finally been overcome by local ethnic representatives, either due to an external mediation or through their internal, yet severe negotiations.
213 7 Conclusions
Is it possible for previously hostile ethnic groups to coexist peacefully and politically cooperate after experiencing a violent inter-communal conflict? This is the central question of the theoretical and policy debate within the field of ethnic conflict resolution that has been intensively discussed since the onset of the liberal peace building in 1990s. The debate has developed in response to the rising occurrence of ethnic conflict in the post-Cold War international system and its unfading destructive effect on security and stability in the globalising world. The answers offered by different approaches have been grounded in the history of diverse societies and their attempts to find models of political accommodation and power-sharing, ranging from political and territorial separation to internal integration of diverse societies.
Departing from these theoretical underpinnings, the presented thesis intends to contribute to this theoretically and politically resonating debate by looking at political relations between previously belligerent ethnic communities on the local level in the post-Yugoslav space. Through a methodologically innovative qualitative comparative study of 81 ethnically diverse post-conflict municipalities, it maps the intra-group political dynamics of 165 local ethnic communities and the respective local inter-group relations. The research is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, including an extensive field research conducted in 27 municipalities. The empirical data were collected through 114 semi-structured interviews with direct actors of investigated processes and extensive desk research. Theoretically, the thesis follows on the debate between integrative and separationist models of post-conflict peace and reflects their assumptions empirically through the distinct stages of the political process from political organisation, through electoral mobilisation up to division of executive power.
Political organisation
In order to comprehensively map the local patterns of political identification and organisation in ethnically mixed areas and to examine their links to the state-level, the first stage of the research systematically collects and analyses electoral data about all political subjects active in the local politics. Based on their level of organisation and proved electoral appeal, XXX political parties were categorised along two conceptual dimensions: central vs. local and ethnic vs. cross-ethnic. The analysis of the electoral performance of these types of parties has proven that the prevailing forms of political identification and organisation on the local level clearly
214 reflect the state-level structure. In parallel to the central level, local political scenes are dominated by established ethno-national parties organised on the state level which operate within ethnically defined segments of local politics. On the contrary, authentic local political movements are rare and generally do not seek to cross-cut the ethnic divide. Cross-ethnic political parties, organised either on the central or the local level, are almost non-existent in the local politics of mixed municipalities. The only exception to this general rule are mixed municipalities in Croatia where both local movements and cross-ethnic parties play a significant role in the local politics and partly disrupt the dominance of traditional ethnic politics, which also reflects the partially distinct structure of Croatian politics on the state level. In general, the local political landscapes do not differ from the ethnicised state level politics and do not develop autonomous forms of political organisation that would evade the trap of the ethnically defined state political structures.
Political mobilisation
In the next stage of the analysis, the political mobilisation of the local ethnic groups was examined in two subsequent steps. First, to uncover the absolute and the relative levels of political mobilisation on ethnic basis in local politics, the ethnic structure of voting was systematically compared with the demographic structure of individual municipalities. The calculated index of ethno-political mobilisation has further confirmed deep ethnicisation of local politics with massive mobilisation along ethnic lines, but has also revealed important structural differences in the recorded levels of mobilisation of individual groups. While almost all local ethnic groups mobilise primarily along ethnic lines in local elections, the structure of their electoral power does not correspond with the demographic structure of the electoral units. Importantly, structural difference in the level of mobilisation has been recorded between groups that are in a political majority position on the higher political level, and those that are politically disadvantaged as minorities. While the observed under-mobilisation of political minorities has structural causes in their long-term demographic and political dynamics on the state level, it has important consequences for their under-representation in local politics, which later becomes a potential source of inequality and exclusion.
In the second step, the analysis examines the intra-group patterns of ethnic mobilisation and systematically compares the levels of ethno-political fragmentation and homogeneity to test the theoretical assumption of ethnic homogenisation driven by political stakes arising from the relative demographic position of the group. The test has confirmed the assumption of high political fragmentation of local majorities which are internally politically divided, but only to
215 the extent that does not threaten their political dominance. On the contrary, it has largely disproved the assumption of homogeneity of minorities and close-to-equal groups who, despite the risk of losing relative political power, internally fragment in the local politics. Importantly, the causes of intra-ethnic fragmentation are mainly transmitted from the state level politics, where these groups are politically divided to the extent that they cannot overcome their divisions on the local level. The local intra-group political dynamics thus follows the state- level patterns in political mobilisation rather than locally specific demographic and political factors.
Power distribution
Finally, the comparative analysis focuses on the inter-group dynamics within the decisive stage of the political process which determines the distribution of executive political power between ethnic groups. To set the local ethnic politics within the theoretical context of power distribution in divided societies, the conceptual debate between two principal approaches to inter-ethnic power-sharing, the consociational and the centripetal approach, is applied to the local political level, which is specific for its absence of institutional power-sharing regulation. Based on the empirical evidence from selected diverse municipalities across the Balkans, ideal types of the two conceptually defined power-sharing models have been developed on the local level and their underlying mechanisms have been identified, along with the ideal type of ethnic exclusion. Both power-sharing models proved to be applicable in the local political settings even in the absence of institutional regulation. However, while the empirical evidence shows that the consociational model develops locally relatively frequently, the centripetal model is observed only rarely and on a temporal basis because of the deeply ethnicised structure of the local political organisation and mobilisation.
In the final step, the analysis follows on the theoretically grounded discussion with an empirical comparative study of patterns of power distribution between 165 local ethnic groups in 81 mixed municipalities across the post-Yugoslav space. To compile a comparative dataset, it adapts the categorisation of the Ethnic Power Relations project to the local level politics and qualitatively classifies all ethnic groups according to their access to local decision-making into three categories (one-group rule, power-sharing and exclusion), and eight sub-categories describing the specific mechanisms of political exclusion and inclusion. Based on the recorded combinations of the groups ’ political positions, the observed patterns of power distribution are described within two main categories of ethnic exclusion and ethnic accommodation. The category of ethnic exclusion is further developed into four sub-types according to the extent
216 and specific mechanism of exclusion. Ethnic accommodation is developed into two types of symmetric and asymmetric power-sharing. Various levels and forms of exclusion and accommodation have been observed across cases with different demographic settings. In contradiction to theoretical assumptions of the effect that ethnic demography has on inter- ethnic relations, the collected empirical data show that groups of various demographic sizes can agree on power-sharing as well as exclude each other from decision making. Inter-group ethnic accommodation slightly prevails across the region regardless of the local demographic structure and power relations on the state level, while instances of extreme exclusion through ethnic discrimination are very rare. However, ethnic exclusion is still commonly present on the local level in the region, even though mainly in its softer forms, regardless of the local demographic settings. These findings suggest that the causes of ethnic exclusion and accommodation need to be searched elsewhere, not in the local demographic structure which does not directly determine the local power relations.
In general, the comparative analysis shows that under locally specific conditions, stable ethnic accommodation is possible in various demographic settings despite the lack of its regulation and potentially malign political influences from the ethnicised state-level politics. Both exclusion and accommodation is observed across different state and sub-state units and regardless of whether the politically dominant majority on the state level is the majority on the local level. The local level of politics is thus partly autonomous from the state politics in regard to the inter-group dynamics and the ability to reach compromise. Even in states and entities where the inter-ethnic relations are tense on the top level and minority groups as a whole feel threatened by the majority, the local ethnic communities can effectively agree on sharing the power locally despite the lack of any power-sharing regulation. On the other hand, the cases of forced exclusion and discrimination are rare on the local level but materialise in violations of the already weak minority protection mechanisms, while soft forms of exclusion are still relatively frequent.
Does the local turn bring in political moderation?
Both theorists and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution have increasingly argued that the local level is the political area where post-conflict reintegration of hostile groups should be sought, initiated, and facilitated. In line with their assumptions, institutional decentralisation was applied as a peace building strategy in the Balkans and beyond with the aim to politically enhance local communities and provide them with sufficient space for autonomous inter-ethnic accommodation, unburdened by the ethnically tense state-level politics. However, we need to
217 ask the question whether the local post-conflict political dynamics is truly distinct from the traditional state-level politics of the societies divided by ethnic conflict. Do the local structures and actors actually provide more potential for moderation and ethnic accommodation? The findings of this research provide some potentially valuable insights in this regard and also raise questions to be further investigated.
The presented analysis of the local political dynamics across the three principal stages of the political process shows that the structure of local politics remains mainly determined by the state-level political dynamics. In the first two stages of political organisation and mobilisation that shape the local political structures, the top-down factors stemming from the state level heavily affect local dynamics and foster ethnicisation of the local politics which thus reflects the ethnicised nature of the high politics. Local political scenes are dominated by traditional ethnic parties organised on the state level, while authentic local forms of political organisation as well as forces bridging the interethnic divide are rare and mainly unviable. Under deeply ethnicised party politics on the state level, local politics does not provide independent and authentic movements enough space to grow into relevant political actors. The ethnic cleavage formed historically, primarily on the state level, is thus transmitted to the local politics where it determines the structure and actors in all stages of the political process.
Furthermore, structural power positions of single ethnic groups on the state level to a great extent translate into the local political dynamics in the mobilisation stage as they manifest in a significantly different ability of minorities and majorities to mobilise politically. Specifically, the structurally disadvantaged political status of minority groups on the state level through specific demographic and political mechanisms affects their political potential on the local level. In the fully ethnicised political settings of local politics, the under-mobilised political minorities end underrepresented in respect to state-level majorities whose relative political position is thus further enhanced on the local level. Finally, the internal political fragmentation of ethnic groups on the top political level is directly transmitted to the local settings where these groups are unable to act politically united even in a politically inferior position of a local minority and therefore loose their political potential. State-level political dynamics on the inter- group and the intra-group level thus mainly determines the structural settings of local politics in the first two stages of the political process when citizens get politically organised and mobilised.
In contrast to that, the political dynamics on the local level becomes much more localised and distinct from the state level in the decisive stage of the political process when actual executive
218 power is divided through post-election coalition making and government formation. In contrast to the state level, where various power-sharing mechanisms are institutionally applied to prevent ethnic exclusion, municipal politics is an unregulated arena where access to power is not granted to minorities and ethnic majorities can thus easily apply their majority rule. Even under this lack of regulation, in a majority of the examined mixed areas, the local ethnic groups effectively share power, regardless of their relative demographic and political position on the higher levels. Even ethnic minorities that are structurally excluded on the state level are commonly included in decision making based on locally specific informal power-sharing arrangements. The observed situation on the local level across the post-Yugoslav space shows that even in political settings where sharing power is not regulated institutionally, authentic power-sharing mechanisms can develop between local actors, preventing ethnic exclusion. On the contrary, a significant part of the local minorities still ends excluded from the executive, yet mainly through locally specific mechanisms.
In general, while the local political structure is defined by the state-level factors, the actors of political processes are largely autonomous in their bargaining over power division and primarily follow their locally specific interests in the final stage of the political process. As diverse as they are, the stories of local ethnic power (non)sharing in all parts of the region have one important feature in common – the leading ethnic parties as the main protagonists. Regardless of whether the outcome of their local competition is inclusion or exclusion of the weaker group, the actors who determine the outcome are local leaders of the same ethnic parties that rule the higher politics.
Therefore, it would be naïve to expect that decentralisation of political power to the local level would automatically bring more stability and inclusion to regions characterised by long-term political instability, ethnic division, and exclusion on higher political levels. Throughout the post-Yugoslav space, the structure and actors of the local politics have not been a solution to state-level problems but rather its reflection. The empirical record from the region shows that the unregulated local politics provides enough space for inter-ethnic cooperation, but also for conflict. The potential of local level politics to facilitate political moderation should thus not be taken for granted, especially in ethnically diverse countries whose top-level politics is characterised by deep ethnic divisions and persisting nationalist rhetoric.
Principal questions and directions for further research
219 Overall, the findings of this research offer an obvious answer to the central question of the conflict resolution debate, which is whether once hostile ethnic groups can live together peacefully again. The peaceful coexistence of 165 local communities in 81 ethnically diverse municipalities across the post-Yugoslav space more than two decades after the end of their mutual conflicts is a clear evidence that such coexistence is possible. In fact, the more important question arising from the findings of the research is that of the quality and intensity of the coexistence. In this regard, the research presents some promising findings documenting that, regardless of the legacy of bloody conflict and tense relations on the higher level, a majority of local ethnic groups voluntarily engages in local political cooperation despite the lack of enforceable institutional mechanisms. On the contrary, the persisting ethnic exclusion in its various forms, ranging from hard discrimination to soft forms of non-inclusion, is an important reminder that the ethnic politics, when left unregulated, provides space for a majority rule.
A principal question arising from the findings of the research for further investigation is that of the causal pathways leading to observed various patterns and outcomes of inter-ethnic relations. Future research of the local level post-conflict dynamics should thus focus on specific conditions, causes and pathways that lead to either ethnic exclusion or accommodation in the unregulated local settings. This field provides a large potential for methodologically innovative quantitative, qualitative as well as mixed-method research that would bring original empirical evidence into this understudied field. In this regard, the empirical data presented in this thesis and its conclusions will be available for further elaboration and scrutiny. The collected data and the compiled dataset offer the potential for further comparisons both within and outside of the regional context of the post-Yugoslav space. The data can also be further extended to other ethnically mixed municipalities of the region which did not go through a violent conflict and can thus serve as a control sample to identify political processes that are distinct to the post- conflict dynamics. Going beyond the regional context, the data can be used for cross-regional qualitative and quantitative comparisons that would possibly uncover regionally specific factors and distinguish them from the general post-conflict dynamics. By taking these directions, further comparative research in the field should keep trying to answer the principle question of conflict resolution: under what conditions can once hostile groups develop stable cooperation?
220 List of interviews
Interviews are listed in chronological order; all identities are anonymised:
1. SDP candidate, Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.10.2012 2. SDA official, Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.10.2012 3. NGO worker, Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.10.2012 4. SDP member, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 14.10.2012 5. HDZ1990 official, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 15.10.2012 6. SBiH official, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 16.10.2012 7. Journalist, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 16.10.2012 8. NGO worker, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 16.10.2012 9. SDP official, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 17.10.2012 10. NGO worker, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 17.10.2012 11. NGO worker, Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 18.10.2012 12. Local official, Glamoč, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 19.10.2012 13. OSCE official, Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 19.10.2012 14. NGO worker, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 21.10.2012 15. Independent politician, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 22.10.2012 16. PDP official, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 22.10.2012 17. Bosniak minority representative, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 22.10.2012 18. SDP official, Čapljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 23.10.2012 19. PDP official, Istočno Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 24.10.2012 20. SDA official, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25.10.2012 21. Journalist, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25.10.2012 22. NGO worker, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25.10.2012 23. SDA official, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25.10.2012 24. SDP official, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25.10.2012 25. SDS candidate, Rogatica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 26.10.2012 26. NGO worker, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 28.10.2012 27. SNS candidate, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.10.2012 28. SBB candidate, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.10.2012 29. SDP official, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.10.2012 30. Local official, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.10.2012 31. NGO worker, Orašje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.10.2012 32. SBB candidate, Orašje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.10.2012 33. PS official, Orašje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 30.10.2012 34. SDA official, Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina, email interview, 3.11.2012 35. HDZ official, Orašje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25.3.2013 36. SDP official, Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 26.3.2013 37. NGO worker, Glamoč, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27.3.2013 38. HDZ official, Glamoč, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27.3.2013 39. SNSD official, Glamoč, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27.3.2013 40. HSP official, Čapljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 28.3.2013 41. Independent politician, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.3.2013 42. NGO worker, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29.3.2013 43. NGO worker, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2.4.2013 44. NGO worker, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2.4.2013 45. SDA official, Rogatica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 3.4.2013
221 46. NGO worker, Rogatica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 3.4.2013 47. Serb minority representative, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 4.4.2013 48. SDS official, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 4.4.2013 49. Journalist, Topusko, Croatia, 14.5.2015 50. Deputy mayor, Topusko, Croatia, 14.5.2015 51. Bosniak minority representative, Topusko, Croatia, 9.6.2015 52. Former mayor (HDZ), Topusko, Croatia, 10.6.2015 53. Serb minority representative, Topusko, Croatia, 10.6.2015 54. Bosniak minority representative, Cetingrad/Vojnić, Croatia, 10.6.2015 55. Former mayor (SDP), Vojnić, Croatia, 10.6.2015 56. SDP official, Vojnić, Croatia, 10.6.2015 57. HDZ official, Vukosavlje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11.6.2015 58. PDP official, Vukosavlje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11.6.2015 59. SNSD official, Vukosavlje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11.6.2015 60. DF official, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.6.2015 61. SDP official, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.6.2015 62. NGO worker, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.6.2015 63. SBiH official, Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.6.2015 64. Mayor (HDRS), Topusko, Croatia, 17.6.2015 65. Mayor (HDZ), Vojnić, Croatia, 17.6.2015 66. SNSD official, Darda, Croatia, 24.4.2017 67. HDZ official, Darda, Croatia, 24.4.2017 68. Deputy mayor (HDSSB), Erdut, Croatia, 25.4.2017 69. Mayor (SDSS), Erdut, Croatia, 27.4.2017 70. Deputy mayor (HKS), Vukovar, Croatia, 27.4.2017 71. Deputy mayor (SDSS), Vukovar, Croatia, 27.4.2017 72. SDP official, Vukovar, Croatia, 27.4.2017 73. Researcher, Vukovar, Croatia, 27.4.2017 74. SDSS official, Vukovar, Croatia, 28.4.2017 75. NGO worker, Vukovar, Croatia, 28.4.2017 76. MOST candidate, Skradin, Croatia, 9.5.2017 77. HSP candidate, Skradin, Croatia, 9.5.2017 78. HDZ official, Skradin, Croatia, 9.5.2017 79. Deputy mayor (DSS), Skradin, Croatia, 9.5.2017 80. Serb minority representative, Skradin, Croatia, 10.5.2017 81. Independent politician, Obrovac, 11.5.2017 82. HSLS official, Obrovac, 12.5.2017 83. Deputy mayor (SDSS), Obrovac, 12.5.2017 84. SDP official, Knin, Croatia, 16.5.2017 85. Independent politician, Knin, Croatia, 16.5.2017 86. Deputy mayor (SDSS), Knin, Croatia, 16.5.2017 87. NGO worker, Knin, Croatia, 16.5.2017 88. HDZ official, Knin, Croatia, 17.5.2017 89. Deputy mayor (HDZ), Kistanje, Croatia, 17.5.2017 90. Mayor, Gračac, Croatia, 19.9.2017 91. Independent politician, Gračac, Croatia, 19.9.2017 92. NGO worker, Doboj, 26.9.2017 93. SBiH official, Doboj, 26.9.2017 94. DNS official, Doboj, 26.9.2017 95. SDP official, Žepče, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 26.9.2017
222 96. HDZ official, Žepče, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27.9.2017 97. HDZ official, Žepče, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27.9.2017 98. SDA official, Žepče, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 27.9.2017 99. Mayor (HDZ), Vareš, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 28.9.2017 100. DF member, Vareš, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 28.9.2017 101. SDA official, Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 10.9.2018 102. NGO worker, Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 10.9.2018 103. Journalist, Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 10.9.2018 104. SDP official, Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11.9.2018 105. Mayor (DNS), Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11.9.2018 106. DF official, Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11.9.2018 107. NS official, Bosanski Petrovac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.9.2018 108. Serb politician (SP), Bosanski Petrovac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12.9.2018 109. SDP official from Stolac, Mostar, 13.9.2018 110. SDP official, Stolac, 13.9.2018 111. SDA official, Stolac, 14.9.2018 112. HSP official, Stolac, 14.9.2018 113. SDP official from Čapljina, Mostar, 3.12.2019 114. NS official, Čapljina, 3.12.2019
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