Dayton at twenty: towards new politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Dayton Agreement continues to be mentioned as a potential model by Western politicians and pundits for various conflicts and sectarian violence around the globe, most recently for Syria, Ukraine and Iraq. Indeed, the Dayton Agreement is rightly associated by Bosnians and foreigners alike with the end of war and the absence of renewed armed conflict. However, for most people in BiH it is also associated with ushering in a political-economic order of inequality and dispossession, not only of the means of dignified livelihood, but of a future and the agentive capacities to shape that future. For this reason, most long-time observers caution against seeing BiH as a ‘success story,’ or at least recognizing it as one with a morbid after-life. The articles in this collection make clear that negotiations for peace between warring parties may not be the best conditions under which to design a system to secure freedom and prosperity. Indeed, they caution us to draw sharp distinctions between peace accords and social contracts.