ABSTRACT
It is ten years since the Dayton peace settlement, which formally ended the warin Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in November 1995. BiH was the first such extensive international project since the post-Second World War US-led occupations of the defeated Axis powers Germany and Japan. Today, with the end of cold war geo-political divisions, BiH has become widely seen as a template for new experiments in international administration and external assistance in state reconstruction and post-conflict reconciliation. The powers of the international administration have grown in an ad hoc way since Dayton, reflecting a greater international consensus behind new, and more interventionist, state-building practices. Huntington’s assertion of the centrality of the political sphere and the need for strong connections between states and their citizens is entirely missing from today’s international policy documents outlining‘best practices’ for international administrations.
