Our initial bloc of online first texts is dedicated to politics and democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Brendan O’Leary questions the phrase normal democracy. In the text, he argues that human rights must be balanced with other values, including peace and stability, and concludes that more moral modesty is needed when divided societies are given foreign political advice on democratic constitutional design.
Dražen Barbarić analyzes the decisionistic paradigm of the Political in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It rests on tripartite sovereignty as the foundation of statehood and its associated consociational elements embedded in the political system. It is manifested the legitimizing of extra-institutional decision-making, national communities as approvers of ethnopolitics, the conviviality of national political elites, and in the active participation of the international community in the decisionistic paradigm through the institution of the High Representative.
Valentino Grbavac analyzes the problem of the legitimate representation of Croats in the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) using a composite theoretical prism that includes consociationalism, comparatively recognized “Uncle Tom phenomenon” and unidirectional vote pooling. The main argument of the article is that due to the shortcomings of the election law and illogical operationalization of consociational characteristics in FBiH, Croats are not able to elect their own legitimate representatives to the Croatian Club of the House of Peoples of the FBiH Parliament, the most important political institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mirjana Kasapović analyzes a conspicuous trend in Bosniak politics of history presenting nationalist self-victimization myths based on the ignorance of historical facts and their scientific interpretations. The author argues that it is perilous to ignore scientific concepts and typologies of political violence and violent conflicts, and to classify almost all types of crimes as genocide.
The bloc is completed by Višeslav Raos’s review essay on Mirjana Kasapović's book Bosnia and Herzegovina 1990-2020: War, State and Democracy. Bosna i Hercegovina 1990-2020.: rat, država i demokracija.