Bosnia's Paralysed Peace

Immediately following Bosnia's recent war, 60,000 NATO troops were deployed to help implement aspects of the Dayton Peace Agreement. A number of international institutions, including the European Commission, the IMF, the OHR, the OSCE, the World Bank, and the United Nations, as well as many development agencies, worked together to make the country whole, cushioned by generous flows of aid. Nevertheless, despite this massive commitment in resources and effort, Bosnia's peace process can at best be described as paralyzed. Various unresolved issues threaten to revive old conflicts, and the zero-sum politics of rival ethnonational leaders threaten to disrupt permanent stability.International officials continue to claim that there is no alternative to Bosnia's European peace path. They urge the country's leaders to temper their rhetoric and hold fast to internationally approved reforms. Christopher Bennett argues instead that the failure to build peace is directly tied to the "liberal peace model" dominating international strategy. While policymakers focus on "what should be" in reproducing Western liberal democracy, they really should consider "what is," especially in terms of ethnonational security. Bennett's account of Bosnia's slow historical disintegration, subsequent brutal war, and present reconstruction institutes a paradigm shift in the scholarship on securing ethnonational security within the country. It also points to a truer method for promoting self-sustaining peace.