As part of the 17th Days of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian American Academy of Arts and Sciences (BHAAAS), the book Between Ethnonationalism and the Civic State – Integral Politics: A New Social Contract for Bosnia and Herzegovina, by distinguished authors Dr. Asim Haračić, Prof. Dr. Nermina Mujagić and Indira Nović, was promoted at the Faculty of Political Sciences.
The reviewers of the book, published by the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo (UNSA), are Prof. Dr. Asim Mujkić, Prof. Dr. Neven Anđelić and Prof. Dr. Nerzuk Ćurak.
The book begins with the question of whether Bosnia and Herzegovina needs a new social contract regarding the organization of the state.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina’s path toward the European Union is blocked, and one of the reasons is the deep polarization between two political poles: ethnos — the people as a collective — and demos — citizens as individuals.
The focus of ethnos is directed toward ethnic identities and ethnic interests — toward what is considered good for the Bosniak, Serb or Croat people. Ethnos believes that it is necessary to preserve the institutional primacy of ethnic identities, even at the cost of limiting the full equality of all citizens. Demos, on the other hand, starts from the position that political rights must not depend on ethnic self-identification. Thus, from a liberal perspective, ethnopolitics is seen as an obstacle to democratic development — Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot join the EU — while from an ethnic perspective, the civic model of state organization is perceived as an enemy that threatens collective identities,” the book states.
Within this binary logic, each side sees itself as the bearer of truth and the other as a threat.
How integral politics can help Bosnia and Herzegovina move beyond the current stalemate — a state that cannot fall apart, but also cannot develop — and grow into a modern, democratic society is the central theme of this book.
A work that our politicians should read
Speaking about the book, Prof. Dr. Sead Turčalo, Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo, stated:
“Bosnia and Herzegovina has, for three decades, lived between the Dayton ethnonational order, which stopped the war but trapped society, and the civic state, which remains a normative promise but still lacks a sufficiently strong political form. The book by Asim Haračić, Nermina Mujagić and Indira Nović enters precisely into the gap between these two political horizons. The authors offer an ambitious and intellectually provocative discussion on political consciousness, nation, ethnos, demos, the Dayton Constitution, citizenship and the possibility of a new social contract for Bosnia and Herzegovina. By combining their own research interests and different educational backgrounds, Haračić, Mujagić and Nović, through the unifying prism of political theory, social psychology, developmental models of consciousness and a critique of ethnonational mythologies, show that the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be understood if it is viewed only as institutional dysfunctionality, but must also be seen as a crisis of political imagination.”
Turčalo noted that the authors advocate integral politics as a way out of the vicious circle of fear, blockades, ethnic ownership over the state and the production of permanent crisis.
“Civic Bosnia and Herzegovina is not presented here as the erasure of identities, but as a political framework in which identities cease to be instruments of domination, blackmail and discrimination. The book Between Ethnonationalism and the Civic State: Integral Politics – A New Social Contract for Bosnia and Herzegovina is a book about a state still searching for its democratic subject — that is, a citizen who does not negate peoples, but frees politics from their misuse,” he added.
Miro Lazović, wartime President of the Assembly of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, believes that a civic framework should be built into the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Individual rights and freedoms are the foundation of a just and democratic state. The book Between Ethnonationalism and the Civic State is a work that will, I hope, find its place on university reading lists, and it should also be read by our politicians,” Lazović stated.
ZAVNOBiH foundations
On the other hand, Franjo Šarčević believes that the concept of a “civic state” has in recent years become, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, “an empty form into which different groups performatively insert content in line with their national or other ideological agendas.”
“The true meaning is often revealed not in the text itself, but in the context and coded subtext of what is being said. This book seeks, among its other achievements, to give the concept of a ‘civic state’ substantive grounding, so that speaking about it has any meaning at all, while also fighting for the prevalence of one interpretation of that concept — one that corresponds both to the reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to its ZAVNOBiH foundations. This is another discursive struggle, but one that cannot and should not be avoided,” Šarčević stated.
Prof. Dr. Sarina Bakić believes that the integral approach advocated in this book opens space for the development of political practices that connect civic rights, collective identities and the socio-economic needs of all citizens.
“This creates the foundation for the transformation of the political order — from a static balance of constituent peoples toward a dynamic model of a participatory, responsible and functional state. One of the greatest values of this book is that the concept of integral politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina is emphasized as an important attempt to overcome the long-standing tension between ethnonational paradigms and the idea of a civic state, which affects a large number of social and cultural processes. For the author and co-authors of this book, integral politics does not mean compromise, but rather an attempt to establish a more adequate model of political subjectivity that respects the plurality of identities,” Bakić stated.
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