Abstract
Party leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina is rarely founded on professional leadership qualities, one’s ability to promote or maintain certain basic values, or integrity and competence. An average voter is focused on individuals representing the party and not so much on the essence of party programs or ideologies. As a result, strong leaders have solidified central positions within party organizations over time. Their names have become key for party identification among voters, their personalities outweighing the ideological persuasion of voters who are influenced by the personal appeal of candidates at the top of the voting ballot. This chapter analyzes two party leaders: Milorad Dodik (Alliance of Independent Social Democrats) and Dragan Čović (Croatian Democratic Union). They both shaped the past and contemporary party politics ethno-homogenization in BiH through explicit political embodiment of collectivized nationalist agency of the ordinary people they represent, and implicit preservation of palpable self-serving rival mass sentiments.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Law on Political Organizations of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, published in the Official Gazette of SR BiH, no. 27/91.
- 2.
There are no uniform criteria for political party registration or a registry of political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Political parties in the Republika Srpska entity can be registered in 5 municipal (basic) and in one district court (in East Sarajevo), or in 10 municipal courts in the Federation entity, or in the municipal court of Brčko District. The laws regulating the registration procedure are: the Law on Political Organizations of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (for FBIH) and the Law on Political Organizations (for RS), and the Law on Political Organizations (for Brčko District).
- 3.
For the Bosniak electorate, the dominant parties are SDA (Party of Democratic Action), SBB (Alliance for Better Future), and the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (Stranka za BiH, SBiH). For the Bosnian Croat electorate, HDZ BiH (Croatian Democratic Union of BiH), NHI the New Croatian Initiative, and HDZ-1990 (Croatian Democratic Union 1990) are dominant. For the Bosnian Serb electorate, predominantly voting in the Republika Srpska entity, these are SNSD (Union of Independent Social Democrats), SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) and PDP (Party of Democratic Progress).
- 4.
Savez nezavisnih socijaldemokrata (SNSD) was founded in 1996 following the cooperation of the Independent Members of Parliament Caucus in the National Assembly of RS (Klub nezavisnih poslanika u Narodnoj Skupštini Republike Srpske), which was in opposition to the SDS during the war (Tomić & Herceg, 1999, p. 268).
- 5.
Variations in population size are in direct correlation with the inability of Bosnian Croats to influence the decision-making process as one of the country’s three constituent peoples. This is closely linked to calls for establishing a third, ‘Croat’ entity. Variations in identity explain the establishment of the subnational entities and considerable differences between their internal designs. These variations, supported by those in the political landscape, explain the ethno-territorial compositions of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly. For more information, please see Sahadžić (2019, p. 69).
- 6.
The HDZ BIH leadership has been the target of multiple investigations and indictments by the ICTY for war crimes committed in Central Bosnia and Herzegovina (Subotić, 2016, p. 126).
- 7.
Registered at the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, no. RU-1635/14, officially represented by Dragan Čović, the association president.
- 8.
There were several attempts to reconstruct and remodel the current constitutional set-up of BiH. Most notable ones are April Package in 2006, the Prud Agreement of 2008, and the Butmir Process of 2009. All attempts failed, and effectively reinforced the existing decision-making structures based on ethnic frameworks (Leydesdorff, 2011).
- 9.
For example, RTRS: ‘Dodik za RTRS: Protesti u FBiH politicki motivisani’ (Dodik for RTRS: Protests in FBiH are politically motivated), http://lat.rtrs.tv/vijesti/vijest.php?id=106894 and ‘Dodik za RTRS: Važno je da Srpska sacuva stabilnost’ (Dodik for RTRS: It is important for Srpska to maintain its stability), http://lat.rtrs.tv/vijesti/vijest.php?id=106224.
- 10.
Under Dodik’s patronage, the Assembly of Republika Srpska approved the referendum on the Bosnian State Court in April 2011, which was interpreted by many as a direct attack on the fragile state institutions. A similar thing happened with the referendum in September 2016, when Dodik used his position to mobilize representatives in RS institutions and organized a referendum on RS national day (January 9), thus ignoring the decision of the Constitutional Court of BIH that declared the celebration of this day unconstitutional.
- 11.
SNSD added ‘Milorad Dodik’ or ‘Dodik’ to its public name-tags and displays on all recent elections and all social media, so that voters could identify the party with its leader.
References
Andjelić, N. (2019). BiH foreign policy governance: Evolutive practices and contested discourses. In J. Hasić & D. Karabegović (Eds.), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s foreign policy since independence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bartoszewicz, M. (2019). Celebrity populism: A look at Poland and the Czech Republic. European Politics and Society, 20(4), 470–485.
Birnir, J. (2007). Ethnicity and electoral politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bougarel, X., Helms, E., & Duijzings, G. (2007). The new Bosnian mosaic: Identities, memories and moral claims in a post-war society. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Burg, L. (1997). Bosnia-Herzegovina: A case of failed democratization. In K. Dawisha & B. Parrot (Eds.), Politics, power and struggle for democracy in South-East Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Čepo, D. (2019). Euro-Atlantic integrations of BiH: Shifting gears and reinterpreting motives in foreign affairs. In J. Hasić & D. Karabegović (Eds.), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s foreign policy since independence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chandler, D. (2000). Bosnia: Faking democracy after Dayton. London: Pluto Press.
Clark, K. (2014). War reparations and litigation: The case of Bosnia. International Litigation Series. Amsterdam: Nuhanovic Foundation.
Court of BiH: Čović Case—Criminal Proceeding. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.sudbih.gov.ba/predmet/2418/show. Accessed 15 April 2019.
Čović, D. (2017). Introductory Presentation “European Union—Challenges and Perspectives”. Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Mostaru.
Domi, T., & Petrić, D. (2019). BiH’s contributions to international military-security-peace operations. In J. Hasić & D. Karabegović (Eds.), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s foreign policy since independence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Džananović, N., & Karamehić, M. (2017). Bosnia and Herzegovina: Populism in transition. In T. Aalberg, F. Esser, C. Reinemann, J. Stromback, & C. De Vreese (Eds.), Populist political communication in Europe. New York: Routledge.
Emerson, P., & Šedo, J. (2010). Electoral systems and the link to the party systems. In V. Stojarova & P. Emerson (Eds.), Party politics in the Western Balkans. London and New York: Routledge.
Fieschi, C. (2019). Populocracy: The tyranny of authenticity and the rise of populism. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing.
Grandits, H. (2016). The power of ‘Armchair politicians: Ethnic loyalty and political factionalism among Herzegovinian Croats. In X. Bougarel, E. Helms, & G. Duijzings (Eds.), The new Bosnian mosaic: Identities, memories and moral claims in a post-war society. Abington: Routledge.
Grebenar, B. (2016). Unutarstranačka demokratija u Bosni i Hercegovini [Intra-party democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina]. Sarajevo: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung BiH.
Hasić, J., & Dedić, D. (2019). Chasing the candidacy status: Tacit contestations of EU norms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In V. Vučković & V. Đorđević (Eds.), Balkanizing Europeanization. Bern: Peter Lang Publishing.
Hasić, J., & Karabegović, D. (2018). Elite responses to contentious politics on the subnational level: The 2014 Bosnian protests. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 18(3), 367–380.
Hasić, J., & Sijamija, M. (2018). Stable and state subsidized party membership in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In S. Gherghina, A. Iancu, & S. Soare (Eds.), Party members and their importance in non-EU countries: A comparative analysis. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hladky, L. (2005). Bosenska otazka v 19. a 20. Stoleti. Brno: MPU MU.
Hooper, A. (2015). Dissatisfied voters and no alternative: The unchallenged position of political elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ECMI Working Paper No. 88).
Katz, R., & Mair, P. (2002). The ascendancy of the party in public office: Party organizational change in twentieth century democracies. In R. Gunther (Ed.), Political parties: Old concepts, new challenges. New York: Oxford University Press.
Leydesdorff, S. (2011). Surviving the Bosnian genocide: The women of Srebrenica speak. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Lobo, M., & Curtice, J. (2015). Personality politics? The role of leader evaluations in democratic elections. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meyer, G. (2006). Formal institutions and informal politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers.
Moser, R. (2005). Ethnicity, elections, and party systems in post-communist states. In Z. Barany & R. Moser (Eds.), Ethnic politics after communism. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Mujanovic, J. (2019). A strategic review of BiH’s bilateral relations with the major powers. In J. Hasić & D. Karabegović (Eds.), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s foreign policy since independence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Office of High Representative for BiH. (2001). Decision on removing Ante Jelavic from his position as the Croat Member of the BiH Presidency. Retrived from http://www.ohr.int/?p=67244. Accessed 22 November 2018.
Office of High Representative for BiH. (2005). Decision on removing Dragan Čović from his position as a Member of the Presidency of BiH. Retrived from http://www.ohr.int/?p=65331. Accessed 22 November 2018.
ONASA. (1997). D. Kalinić optužio B. Plavšić da destabilizuje Republiku Srpsku. Retrieved from http://www.idoconline.info/article/176143. Accessed 20 March 2019.
Paris, R., & Sisk, T. (2009). The Dilemmas of statebuilding: Confronting the contradictions of postwar peace operations. London: Routledge.
Richman, B. (2018). Is Republika Srpska Europe’s next de facto state? New Eastern Europe, 32(3–4), 79–82.
Sahadžić, M. (2019). Mild asymmetry and ethnoterritorial overlap in charge of the consequences of multinationalism: A country study of constitutional asymmetry in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In P. Popelier & M. Sahadžić (Eds.), Constitutional asymmetry in multinational federalism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Šedo, J. (2007). Volební systémy postkomunistických zemí. Brno: CDK.
Stojarova, V., & Emerson, P. (Eds.). (2010). Party politics in the Western Balkans. London and New York: Routledge.
Subotić, J. (2016). For the love of homeland. In S. Ramet & M. Valenta (Eds.), Ethnic minorities and politics in post-socialist Southeastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tomić, Z., & Herceg, N. (1999). Izbori u Bosni i Hercegovini, Centar za studije novinarstva, Mostar [Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, University of Mostar Center for Journalistic Studies, Mostar].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hasić, J. (2020). ‘Deviating’ Party Leadership Strategies in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Comparison of Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović. In: Gherghina, S. (eds) Party Leaders in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Studies in Political Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32025-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32025-6_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32024-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32025-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)