Consociational Settlements and Reconstruction: Bosnia in Comparative Perspective (1995-Present)

Both Bosnia in 1995 and Northern Ireland in 1998 were extremely fragile in the immediate aftermath of brokered peace negotiations. Each instituted a form of consociationalisma government that institutionalizes a voice for each ethnic groupas an element of brokered peace. In this article, I examine Bosnian postwar governance with comparative insights from Northern Ireland. Bosnia was the recipient of a large amount of international aid. While this aid was crucial to the initial state-building effort, the problems Bosnia now faces are due to its consociational governance structure. Some of the group-based aspects of consociationalism are in tension with individual rights, a problem that cannot be addressed by aid alone.