Thread by @dmdebruijn

As @OHR_BiH looks set to make elxn changes, some context (and a different analysis from 👇). What goes missing below is fact that state structures are founded in a peace agreement: Dayton. This is not unique: think Good Friday Agreements & Lebanese Taif Accords. A brief #thread🧵

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1549457687586304000

1. First bit of context necessary is the 1994 Washington Agreement. Here the US, at considerable trouble, forced a union between Bosniaks and Bosnian-Croats. Then a US negotiator for Clinton, @derekchollet in his seminal study of the Dayton Accords stresses the significance:

2. Just so: in their classic BBC analysis Laura Silber and Allan Little describe the essential role in resolving the '90s conflict that Bosniaks and Bosnian-Croats reached an understanding. This is what founded the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina--and enshrined it in Dayton

3. Expressing the diplomatic Bosniak-Croat coalition in the Federation (that along with the Republika Srpska makes up BiH), a power-sharing agreement was reached, based on the principle of "constituent peoples" having to share power. As BIH's Constitutional Court has stated:

4. And the same has recently been endorsed both by the EU Council and the Venice Commission. Owing to key importance of the peace started in Washington 1994, enshrined at Dayton, & founded on Bosniak/Croat power-sharing, elections should represent all "constituent peoples". #Fin

(5. Indeed, this notion fits one of the core models of democracy: consociationalism (e.g. Lijphart 1968, Pepić 2018). It means peace and diplomacy matter, and must be weighed against mere "individualistic" liberalism. @MartaVrbetic, @ZvonimirMilas, @MiseticLaw &c. for ideas.)

"fin." not Finland.