ABSTRACT
Institutional reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) were stalled throughout the 1990s.1 BiH was plunged into war, preventing any reforms from being implemented until after the Dayton peace agreement in 1995. FRY, comprising Serbia including the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, and Montenegro, was held under the sway of the authoritarian Milosevic regime, and institutional reforms were effectively stalled until after the overthrow of the regime in 2000. In both cases, the problem of state formation and state-building preoccupied the elites and has only been partially resolved up to the present time. BiH gained a new constitution under the Dayton agreement, but it has required international supervision to monitor and enforce it. FRY became increasingly unstable as two of its component parts, Montenegro and Kosovo, pushed hard for independence. FRY transformed itself into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2004 under European Union (EU) pressure to maintain a unified state, but in 2006 Montenegro achieved its independence through a referendum. The province of Kosovo had declared independence in October 1991, but this was never recognized by the regime in Belgrade. Following the 1999 war, the province was placed under international supervision by the United Nations (UN). Its final status has not yet been determined, although a form of limited sovereignty seems a likely outcome.
