ABSTRACT
Mostar presents a dispiriting story not just of the devastation of war, but also of how post-war local governance and urbanism can become means by which war profiteers solidify their power and reinforce nationalist divisions. The collective interest of the city collapsed and dissolved, being usurped and exploited by nationalist political leaders who used the urban area to construct new demographic, social, and psychological realities. Planning and urbanism have been at the core of this fight over the post-war city and have disintegrated into absurd conditions of parallelism. The active form of war stopped in 1994, but the antagonisms that created the war continued and found other means by which to implement their hatred. Primary among the spoils of the war has been the city and its collective sphere.
