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2 - Fighting Windmills, Ignoring Dragons

International Assistance to Civil Society in Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina

from Part I - Understanding the Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2018

Paige Arthur
Affiliation:
New York University
Christalla Yakinthou
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Summary

Christalla Yakinthou argues that the shape of international assistance to civil society in BiH was set very early by a combination of factors, but especially by the Dayton Agreement, the early robust exercise of the Bonn Powers, and a heavy investment in criminal prosecutions as a result of commitment to the ICTY. This combination of a constitutional structure that ended the war but embedded the divisions that sparked it, a heavy focus on one aspect of transitional justice without commensurate consideration for supportive elements, and missed opportunities for building inter-group trust has left multiple marks on the development of a robust and connected civil society. Yakinthou’s chapter describes how these factors are reflected in civil society and its relationship(s) with the donor community and the broader public: CSOs that meaningfully challenge the political status quo are few and far between, a great deal of civil society work on TJ falls into larger patterns of ethnic division, issues exist around the legitimacy of much work that is done, and vulnerable groups complain of increasing marginalization. While a significant amount of pioneering work in TJ is and has been done, particularly around criminal prosecutions, the recovery of missing persons, and documentation of human rights violations, there is also a widespread perception that TJ is not addressing core legacies of the conflict, and that this work has had minimal impact on broader Bosnian society. The chapter shows the chasm and the tensions between professionalised and non-professionalised CSOs, picking up on the way NGOs and CSOs have adjusted their work to focus on delivering projects—the broader liberal twenty-first century theme of “projectitis”—and the impact of this approach on collaboration, independence, and the flourishing of a socially meaningful CSO sector.
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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