ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the political economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in the post-Dayton period. It is concerned first with the crisis of ‘public squalor and private affluence’, occasioned by the diminishing public realm through the privatization of public enterprises. Peacebuilding in BiH appears to conform to characteristics of Bauman’s thesis in at least one significant respect, the diminution and changing functions of public space. Public space can be defined as an arena for civil society, configured and set aside by the state, in which citizens organize themselves collectively for the common good. In liquid modernity, economic power is no longer exerted from a territorial base or from the commanding heights of a national economy, and this has an impact on political participation. In each of the Croat and Bosniak areas of the Federation and the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, the organizations that took BiH into war adapted to peace through appropriation of local resources.
