The Industrial Structure of Ethnonational Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnian politics has been dominated by ethnonationalism since the end of the conflict in 1995. The entrenched ethnic tension in the political arena over these 30 years has significantly hindered the postwar reconstruction of the country and affected the low standard of living of its people. Nevertheless, Bosnian citizens continue to support ethnonational politicians. Why ethnonational politicians continue to gain citizen support? In this paper, I will address this question by seeking the relationship between ethnonational politics and the industrial structure of Bosnian economy. Existing research tends to explain support for ethnonational politicians from the perspective of the people’s ethnic identity. However, as Armakolas (2011) points out, the party–industry relationship created the variation of ethnonational politics among Bosnian local towns. Under the socialist rule of Yugoslavia, Bosnian industry was led by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in heavy industry. Ethnonationalists, who replaced communists in power, took control of these SOEs through the conflict and have maintained their influence over the management of the SOEs despite pressure for privatization by the international society. Taking advantage of the control over the SOEs, which are the center of the country’s industry, ethnonationalists attract support from citizens in exchange for distributing employment opportunities in those companies, namely through clientelism. This ethno-clientelism has sustained robust support for ethnonational politicians even in the face of low economic performance (Piacentini 2019). In this paper, based on fieldworks in several local towns in Bosnia, I will investigate how the industrial structure affects the political domination of ethnonationalists. In some local towns, new industries have begun to emerge besides the SOEs, and such industrial diversification is gradually eroding the ethnonationalists’ monopoly over employment opportunities. Thus, I will address the question of the political domination of ethnonationalists from the perspectives of industrial structure, especially by investigating what industrial policies ethnonational parties adopt to sustain their power, how industrial policies change when multiethnic parties come to power, and how newly emerged industries affect the political domination of ethnonationalists. Through addressing these questions, I will examine the industrial structure of ethnonational politics in Bosnia.