Barrier to the EU membership: The institutional discrimination of minority groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina

摘要

Although Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has been going through extensive European Unionisation over the last 10 udyears the country is still facing serious democratic deficit. In particular, the post-Dayton public sphere has been uddominated by ethno-nationalist political elites who are doing everything they can to exclude non-nationalists and udmembers of minority groups from the decision-making process. This is a nagging paradox since one of the main udobjectives behind the integration of the European countries into the European Community was to reduce uddisintegrative and dangerous influences of nationalists to establish peaceful, prosperous, and secure community. This udarticle examines how the process of the post-Dayton ethno-nationalization has resulted in widespread uddiscrimination against the so-called Others as they are defined in the Constitution. In the post-war BiH democratic udparticipation has turned into a competition between the three ethnic communities, Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, udrather than between individual nationalities having equal rights of vote. This is why Bosnian people are still living udunder a political system which is closer to ethno-democracy or ethnocracy rather than a democratic regime. Under udsuch discriminatory regime BiH cannot enter the European Union which is a model of open and democratic society.