For the first time in nearly two centuries, one ethnic group now constitutes an absolute majority of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s population: the Bosniaks. It is an unlikely development given that, scarcely thirty years ago, they were targeted for extermination and expulsion by Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević. Even as the Bosniak community fought to survive these atrocities, it simultaneously came under attack from militants led by Croatian president Franjo Tuđman, who attempted to partition Bosnia and Herzegovina between Zagreb and Belgrade. Improbably, the Bosniaks and the Bosnian state survived these campaigns. But the country’s fractious sectarian post-war order has produced the world’s most convoluted constitutional regime, always teetering on the brink of collapse. Jasmin Mujanović illuminates the sources of contemporary Bosniak political identity, tracing the evolution of a religious community into a secular nation, and shedding light on the future of a nation at a crossroads. He explores the idea of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a “national homeland,” considers how narratives of genocide influence self-identity, and probes how demographic changes are putting pressure on the country’s political framework. The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s peace and democracy rests on the Bosniaks’ shoulders--and with it, the stability of all Southeastern Europe.

On the 25th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement, this article assesses the current state of Euro-Atlantic integration in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its starting point is that Dayton represented not a breach but a continuation of the politics which destroyed Yugoslavia and that salvaging the country’s democratic potential requires a paradigmatic break from virtually all its socio-political practices and institutions. In these contexts, the article’s central focus on the ‘Bosnian Spring’ which took place right across the country in (and in the run-up to) 2014 provides a salutary reminder of the ability of ordinary people to come together to demand socio-economic justice and, in doing so, to step out of the ethno-nationalist rigidities imposed by Dayton. While those protests ran out of steam, such events are the only ones by which elites can historically be persuaded to concede democratic ground. Dismantling the ethno-nationalist narrative remains the challenge and, when it becomes clear that change will not come from within the system, it becomes the task of ordinary citizens to create democratic institutions that are worth the label.