Bosnia’s Paralyzed Peace

This study offers a powerful blow by blow analysis of the attempts to create peace in BiH since the Dayton Agreement. According to Christopher Bennett, Dayton provided a “balance of terror,” was full of unrealistic deadlines, and aimed at providing internationals with an exit strategy (81) and international involvement constantly suffered from an “enforcement gap” (110) derived from the contradiction between trusteeship and democracy as well as limited resources (114). It has even reinforced existing power structures (the ethnos rather than the demos (116, 182), connected to para-states, and undermined democracy. A “new ethno-national reality now exists” even extending to the education system (244). Bennett expertly lays bare the oddity and inconsistencies of the post-Dayton BiH framework for politics. There is much to agree with, and to learn from the analysis as it proceeds chronologically. Even if one does not agree with the final argument and conclusions presented to the reader, it is a very well written and extremely insightful, detailed volume (though more thorough references would have been useful to the sources it uses)