Exploring the Electoral Imprint of the 2014 Bosnian Protests: Exit, Voice, Loyalty, or None of the Above?

In February 2014, factory closures in the city of Tuzla triggered widespread citizen-led mobilisation in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), in the form of protests that gradually crystallised around local popular assemblies (or “plenums”). The events of 2014 were unprecedented in the BiH context because of their non-ethnic character and their geographic scale, though they occurred exclusively in the Bosniak- and Croat-predominant sub-state entity of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBiH). The plenums articulated a number of demands to local governments, and were seen by some as the beginnings of new, emancipatory politics in the country. However, most of the plenums soon disbanded, and incumbent ethnic parties were returned in the October 2014 general election. More pessimistic commentators saw this as proof that there had been no political (i.e., electoral) impact of the plenums. These analyses only looked at the national level without investigating more localised changes in electoral results. To address this gap in studying the link between the Bosnian plenums and elections, this paper will employ a difference-in-difference regression analysis using FBiH municipal council elections results in 2012 and 2016. The aim of the study is to explore to what extent and under what conditions the formation of a plenum in 2014 in a municipality is associated with electoral change. Basing the framework loosely on work by Hirschman, three types of electoral change are investigated: increases in invalid/blank votes or lower turnout (exit); increased votes for multi-ethnic “civic” parties (voice); or disillusionment with the plenums and increased votes for incumbents (loyalty). The paper will thus provide a more fine-grained and nuanced empirical analysis of the link between the Bosnian plenums and electoral change, as well as a preliminary framework to study the link between popular dissent and elections in other ethnically divided societies.