Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality

Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality Challenges of Europeanization discourse goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac This paper investigates politico-media discourses of the international community revolving for the last few decades around the process of Europeanization in Bosnia and Herzegovina from its Dayton inception until 2015. We first explain the contours of the BiH context and then use a critical discourse analysis to assess the data collected between 1997 and 2015 drawn from a variety of textual resources such as mainstream newspapers, online media, and international community websites to explain the main trends of the Europeanization discourse in the country. Grounding our analysis within the postcolonial theory and postcommunist studies, we critically examine the post-1996 peace and state building as well as Europeanization processes in BiH with respect to signs of postcolonial condition including perpetual transition and a state of exception. Keywords: discourse, post-coloniality, Bosnia and Herzegovina, transition, Europeanization, state of exception 1. Introduction The post-1996 peace-building and state-building processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) following the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 and the 1992–1995 war in BiH, have resulted in discourses of “perpetual transition” and a permanent “state of emergency” (Agamben 2005; Pandolfi in Didier and Pandolfi 2010). This is reflected in a severely ethnicized and divided society, little consensus on the nature of the 1992–1995 war, poverty, and a shattered economy that requires constant management of disorder. The state building project in a country that had been marked by ethnic violence, genocide, fragmentation and rape was imposed by civilian and military international actors with a top-down approach (Aybet and Bieber 2011, 1934) making BiH look more like an international Journal of Language and Politics 15:2 (2016), 147–172. doi 10.1075/jlp.15.2.02maj issn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 148 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac protectorate than a fully sovereign state. The diffusion of three general EU enlargement norms of democratic governance, the market economy and human rights (Radaelli in Featherstone and Radaelli 2003) often meant changing of conditions to a ubiquitous permanent “crisis” of state-building (Rossiter 2002, 313). Presently, the country consists of two entities, the Republic of Srpska (RS) and the Federation of BiH (FBiH), as well as the autonomous Brčko District. It has a joint Armed Forces, disunited police in charge of the entities, and a tripartite rotating presidency. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) is not the primary legislative body in the country, yet the High Representative has the power to make laws and remove public officials due to his/her special status of the overseer of the Dayton Peace Accords (“Dayton” or DPA). As a dependent European semiperiphery (Blagojević 2010; Arrighi 1994, 2005), it is locked between a promise of a bright EU future and a permanent candidate status, being “never quite there yet” (Chakrabarty 2000). This lack of consensus manifests itself in an ongoing internal conflict inherited from the 1992–1995 war, creating a state of exception as the immediate response to managing the Ethnopolis (Mujkić 2007) as the current power of the state. At first, the international community seemed to work with(in) the Dayton setup trying to democratize and “Europeanize” post-conflict BiH society through various discursive reform strategies. A sharpening of rhetoric on what these reforms might be began after the elections in 2006, when the then RS Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, advocated a referendum on RS secession from BiH while the Bosniak member of the state presidency, Haris Silajdžić, insisted the RS was a “genocidal creation” that needed abolition. This opposing rhetoric in fact greatly reinforced one another between 2006– 2014 the reforms were put to a halt. After the 2010 October presidential elections, it took sixteen months to form a state government in December 2011, which dissolved only six months later. A series of packages aiming at constitutional changes including the “April package”, the “Butmir package” and the “Prud process” (ICG Briefing 2012: 3) ensued and fell through. The European Court of Human Right’s judgment on the Sejdić-Finci case1 in 2009 has further exposed the constitutional flaws and the need for reform, which emerged as a main precondition for EU accession between 2009 and 2014. The February 2014 workers’ protests demanding the revision of post-war privatizations were the first protests to take on class rather than ethnic tones and 1. The Sejdić-Finci case refers to a 2009 ruling of the ECtHR brought by Dervo Sejdić, a Roma activist, and JakobFinci, a Jewish politician, who argued that the Bosnian constitution negotiated as part of Dayton was discriminatory because certain electoral posts could only be held by Serbs, Croats or Bosniak Muslims. goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 149 harbingers of a more active and more political citizenship in BiH. While most protests and plenums were still running, the May 2014 floods further devastated many already impoverished regions of BiH. The subsequent EU response to the new situation was the Compact for Growth and Development,2 which marked a shift from the political to the economic: the Compact was not to deal with constitutional reforms but economic ones, seeking to modernize and reignite the BiH economy, “spur investment and create jobs” (The Compact 2014). What has Europeanization meant in the process of the Euro-Atlantic integration of post-conflict BiH, and how has it been articulated and discursively constructed? This article employs a combined and selective CDA approach to identify the key ideological as well as textual premises relevant for analyzing Europeanization discourse about BiH during the twenty-year period. The period is divided up in accordance with the 1993 Copenhagen criteria,3 which established the preconditions for the process of BiH’s Euro-Atlantic integration: a. Early political restructuring and democratization (1996–2006) b. Late political restructuring (2006–2014) c. Post-2014 economic restructuring These periods, their challenges and prominent themes and approaches are juxtaposed in each subsection and are read against the primary concepts of postcolonial theory and recent post-communist/socialist4 studies. These include constructing BiH’s “semi-peripheral” spatio-temporality as the EU’s “immediate outside” (Jansen 2009, 2014; Spasić 2013), permanent transition (Pandolfi 2010; Buden 2012), and crisis management drawing on a state of emergency (Agamben 2005). In other words, after the socio-economic transition, the promise of EU integration through Europeanization discourse was presented as a preferred goal for crisis-ridden and divided postwar BiH, at the expense of obliterating its Yugoslav past and with it any thinkable socialist future. An argument could be made about why the selected corpora were deemed the best fit for the proposed time periods/themes. The Compact for Growth, for instance, is a political document aiming at restructuring BiH economics. Annex 4 of “Dayton,” which is actually the BiH constitution, and its potential revision 2. http://europa.ba/Download.aspx?id=1525&lang=EN 3. To join the EU, a new Member State must meet political and economic criteria as well as accept the Community acquis. Details are available at http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/ glossary/accession_criteria_copenhague_en.htm. 4. For the purposes of this paper, post-communism and post-socialism have been used as synonyms. 150 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 are not only about increasing human rights but also about electoral politics and ethnic quotas, which lie at the heart of post-Dayton BiH. Conscious of the corpora limitations,5 we realize that a selective critical analysis of only three segments of the selected discourses taken to be the most representative of the practice of Europeanization in BiH is not without flaws. This is why we ground our study in post-colonial theory and interdisciplinary post-communist studies, as well as the relevant historical sources and political documents, in order to fill these gaps. 2. Theorizing post-coloniality in the BiH context: The post-communist condition A post-colonial theoretical framework for this analysis is apt, but not without problems. The plausibility of placing BiH in the post-colonial context can inevitably be questioned on the grounds that BiH did not have a classical colonial experience such as severe exploitation of resources and institutional racism. Perhaps the question is not whether this country is a “post-colony” — although a case for that can be made based on the longue durée of its peripherality, including present-day metonymic attributions such as a “laggard” or “the backyard of Europe” — but how this heterogeneous and alternative way of thinking along spatio-temporal lines can be productive and meaningful today, especially if we take that the 1992–1995 war severed BiH and a large part of the former Yugoslavia from Europe? Although theoretically contested (Dupscik 2001), thinking about the Balkans present-day post-coloniality is not new (Pandolfi 2010; Slapšak 2012; BakićHayden and Hayden 1992; Majstorović, 2007a), particularly when one has in mind the process of Europeanization as a path to “normality” juxtaposed with the inherent and inherited, usually negative, quality of “Balkanness” [sic] (Todorova 1997). As a former Turkish and Austro-Hungarian colony and the poorest part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, BiH until WWII was mostly rural and feudal. Its Otherness/Balkanness was briefly interrupted by the fifty years of socialism and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) as a modern socialist project and the leader among the Non-Aligned states fifty years after WWII. 5. a. Discourses produced by the OHR between 1997–2006 operationalized through their press releases available at www.ohr.net some of which include newspaper and magazine articles where the HR in power gave an interview (Dani, Reporter or Nezavisne novine), b. Selection of three most relevant dailies Dnevni Avaz, Nezavisne novine and Glas Srpske followed for a period of ten days in May 2008, March 2010 and December 2011, several weeklies with big interviews including Dani and Reporter as well as some agency news and quotes from regional press when they appeared in the aforementioned papers (e.g. Onasa, Seebiz, Business. ba, Vreme). goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality SFRY ceased to exist in 1992, and after “Dayton” was signed, the international community led by the OHR, created under the DPA to oversee the implementation of the Agreement’s civilian aspects, began to intervene in the peace-building and state-building in BiH. The OHR quickly became the most powerful international body and final authority regarding the implementation of Dayton and the subsequent accession of BiH into the European Union (EU). Between 1998 and 2005 inclusive, successive High Representatives issued 757 decisions, removing 119 people from public office and imposing 286 laws or amendments to laws, with a gross lack of due process in exercising these powers (Parrish 2007, 15). The highly interventionist approach detected in discourses and practices of the international community to postwar BiH as a response to a near-permanent state of emergency (Knaus and Martin 2003; Chandler 2000) can be ascribed to failed Europeanization in which “conventional” conditionality, characteristic of EU enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe (Aybet and Bieber 2011, 1911), simply did not work in BiH. Discussing whether and how different media and political discourses shape the Europe-versus-the Balkans6 dichotomy, both in the sense of identities and historicity (Chakrabarty 2000, 6), one has to take into account that both Europe and the Balkans should be regarded as modern societies despite their divergent paths to modernity (Dimou 2000). After WWII and immediately before the 1990s wars, SFRY was in many ways more similar to the West than East European countries, which means that post-Yugoslav societies “an excellent place to interrogate the concepts of European and Western modernity” (Gilbert et al. 2008). With the traumatic rupture reflected in the 1991/1992–1995 war, dismantling the multiethnic and multinational SFRY, especially in BiH as its mini-version, the promise of a more just society, with greater freedoms and better socialism was irretrievably gone. It was replaced by the emerging ethno-nationalist particularisms that had broken free from the so-called “dungeon of peoples”7 playing a key role in the revisionist politics of the new nation-states. The arrival of the international community also neglected the modern multiculturalism of the Socialist Federal Republic of BiH, as one of SFRY’s six republics, reflected in its coat of arms which contained factory chimneys and mountains, and not a single national symbol. Not only did the new political elites want to remember Yugoslavia, the Western imagery 6. Balkan and Europe have been used in this sense metonymically, notwithstanding their inherent dynamics and heterogeneity. 7. This popular idiom was used by Lenin to refer to Russia and by Franjo Tuđman referring to Yugoslavia as “the dungeon for the Croatian people” (Nemet, D. Život poslije smrti, Strogo pov. (13).Sarajevo. See more in, Albert. “The Past in the Present: Post-communist Croatia ““After Tito… Tito”.” Confronting the Past: European Experiences (2012). 151 goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 152 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac also perceived the Balkans as “permanently transiting” into Europe and prosperity (Močnik 2003, 69–94) due to the permanent “state of exception” that has “become a political instrument in its own right” (Pandolfi 2010, 3) and a “new strategic model for managing disorder” constituting “global biopolitics” (Foucault 2003). The local political elites, mainly ethno-nationalists, have been equally complicit in the maintaining of this state of exception in an attempt to remain in power. Guarding their own positions and unwilling to let go of the divisionary rhetoric, they were also to blame for short-termism and contested statehood (Bechev 2011, 27–42) as two core impediments “on the road to Europe” midst Daytonbased constitutional consociationalism as the politics of social exclusion (Mujkić 2011, 81–98; Sarajlić 2011, 61–80; Stojanović 2011, 99–114 in Cheneval and Ramel 2011) and such political tug of war has restricted any potentially transformative EU influence, resulting in a state of permanent crisis. In the post-1989 Europeanization all post-communist societies, including the post-conflict ones, were treated as temporary and transitory in the process of making up for the lost time. Within this process, BiH was been immune to the discursive formation of Euro-orientalism (Adamovsky 2006; Dupscik 2001) in which symbolic borders within Europe are created, defined, accepted or questioned by the “West”, and the “East” is usually presented as “chauvinistic, atypical, and with nationalist tendencies” (Dupcsik 2001, 31–39). In other words, the “East” is represented as an absence that needed to be filled, both symbolically and materially and western liberal endeavors have therefore aimed to “educate” or “rear” postcommunist societies, perceiving their citizens as children (Buden 2012, 40–41). After 1995, the Yugoslav, socialist past was simply erased in the wake of the liberal democratic promise of not-yet European Bosnia. Excluding this part of reality from everyday life, on the part of both the international community and the local anti-Yugoslav politicians, practically excluded any thinkable post-communist reality that could have resisted the dictatorship of cultural fundamentalisms legitimized and cemented by “Dayton”. What was lost here was the social solidarity among different social groups in BiH, which could have been united in criticism both of the international community’s authoritative protectionism and of the newly-emerged postwar elites that have used ethnic nationalism to win popular consent and stay in power. This solidarity as potential for bottom-up social change after so long was briefly seen during the workers’ protests in BiH in 2014 resonating with the Syriza/Podemos axis in Greece and Spain in creating an alternative to neoliberal capitalist Europe attentive to the needs of workers, impoverished middle classes, the precarious, immigrants, women, youth etc. More than anything else since 1995, the protests, plenums and the social engagement around them brought about a previously-nonexistent social solidarity, proving that Bosnia’s true European future may not be forever lost. Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 3. Early political restructuring and democratization: Carrot-and-stick style europeanization in BiH (1996–2006) Europeanization in all transitional countries is rather ambiguous; sometimes it is volatile in terms of preconditions for newcomers, while at other times it is constructed as “a passage from a well-defined point of departure to a unitary and welldefined destination” (Fairclough 2005, 9–34). Construction of EU-newcomers’ “otherness” can be seen in discursive axes of inclusive/exclusive and distance/ nearness (Busch and Krzyzanowski 2007, 3) and metaphors of “dream” and “journey” (Musloff 2004). After “Dayton,” Europeanization discourse in BiH has remained rather ambivalent: Europe was presented as an idyllic place of safety and comfort (lat. locus amoenus) to which there was no alternative but also as a set of demanding reforms which needed to be fulfilled. Although transition discourse has undergone a lot of scholarly criticism (Carothers 2002, 5–21; King 2000, 43–72; Buden 2012; Gordy 2013), the OHR and the EC insisted on it. They described Europe as the locus amoenus and also used the carrot-and-stick strategy prescribing how and under what conditions the dream of Europe could become real for a political and economic periphery such as BiH. The strategy of positive self-representation (Europe) and negative-other representation (BiH) strengthens the center/periphery distinction and has been very powerful in the maintenance of the permanent transition discourse. It has been realized through the topoi8 of contrast and difference and positive self- and negative-other representations (Van Dijk 1993). Hortatory reports as universal discourse genres or type of argument that aim at influencing conduct based on what has been said (Fairclough 2003) also played a role in the maintenance of paternalistic morality towards BiH. In the passage below, the High Representative, Wolfgang Petritsch quoted a Balkans expert to strengthen his argument for a topdown Europeanization. The Austrian author and Balkan expert Karl-Markus Gauss recently stated critically: “The Balkans as a pejorative term have returned to themselves, and among the Balkan nations there is a competition over which one belongs to the Balkans, which means is lost (sic), and which one has managed to escape the dirt, corruption and hatred of the Balkans and can be counted as a part of Europe, that means of civilization.” This also goes for Bosnia and Herzegovina… I believe this 8. In critical discourse analysis there has been a lot of polemic about how the noton of topos or topi should be used. Richardson (2004: 230) talks of topoi ‘as reservoirs of generalized key ideas from which specific statements or arguments can be generated’ while in argumentation theory they have been defined as ‘content-related warrants’ securing the transition from an argument to a conclusion (Žagar 2010). 153 154 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 is the only way in which BiH can become a democratic, self-sustaining and selfconfident state. This is the essence of Europeanization (“The HR discusses Protectorate in Dani,” March 3, 2000). The contrast between the metonymies of the Balkans and Europe is created by placing the former in a negative semantic context (eg. “Balkan as a pejorative,” “lost,” “dirt,” “corruption,” “hatred”) as opposed to Europe, which is surrounded by words denoting a positive semantic context (eg. “civilization,” “democracy,” “selfsustaining,” and “self-confident”). “The Balkans as a pejorative term has returned” presupposes the long-term negative legacy of the Balkans. Those who belong to the Balkans are constructed as Other; they are “lost,” “dirty,” “corrupted,” “full of hatred,” and “do not belong to Europe,” which is essentially constructed as civilized, democratic, self-sustaining etc. Not all Balkan people are bad; the topos of difference is used to mitigate the epistemic status of this proposition by labeling some social actors from the Balkans more positively. These are the ones who “have escaped the Balkans” and “can be counted as a part of Europe.” This is hegemonic meaning-making, as this argument is presented as black-and-white; by belonging to Europe, we become democratic, self-sustaining, and self-confident, while belonging to the Balkans is presented as inherently and essentially bad. Along the lines of this permanent transition discourse, Europeanization in BiH has often been presented as a journey, be it a road to progress or a passage to normality, both presupposing Bosnia’s lack thereof. Today, I firmly believe, we are looking at the historic chance to turn BiH into a really normal European country, which functions and offers its citizens the things that citizens need: security, jobs, social services, a working administration. In relation to the outside world, a “normal” country meets its international obligations (Ibid.). Normality as a well-defined destination has been realized through the topos of idyllic place and the presupposition that being European means being normal. A normal country “functions,” “offers security and jobs,” and “meets its international obligations.” “Normality” has been recontextualized as an essentially “European” condition, by placing the adjectives “normal” and “European” in a paratactic relationship of coordination or equal status. Six years ago, the peace agreement that has guided BiH’s recovery from the war was signed. It has kept its most important promise: it has maintained peace and paved the way for BiH’s return — albeit slowly — to normality (“Open Letter from the HR, Wolfgang Petritsch, to the Citizens of BiH,” 20 November 2001). Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality In the paragraph above, Bosnia is first “guided” by the peace agreement and then “slowly returns to normality” There are also two way-movement-speed metaphors, in which a political process is a journey that “proceeds from a departure point toward a goal/destination along a specific path” (Musloff 2004, 43) aiming at “normality” and “Europeanization.” Following Musloff ’s taxonomy, the realization of the metaphors is given in the table below. goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Table 1. Taxonomy of metaphors (following Musloff 2004). Metaphor 1: speed (slowly) point (war period ended by Dayton)/ goal (normality) Metaphor 2: speed (gradually) point (6th anniversary of Dayton) goal (Europeanization) The so-called carrot-and-stick strategy has been continuously applied in Europeanization discourse in BiH; it proposes that the country is always in “a critical moment” or at a crossroads, about to decide if and how fast the dream of Europe — for BiH can only dream about it — will become a reality, suggesting the EU is a definite point of arrival for BiH after the transition has been completed. Progress has been made so far not through the Bonn powers of the HR, but the power of a dream. A dream that this country can one day become a member of the European Union. Can one day become a member of NATO. Can one day become a normal country, capable of providing a better and safer life for its citizens (“Hard Work and Confidence Will Take BiH from Dayton to Brussels,” December 3, 2003). Ample stylistic repetition of “can one day become” and “dream” as preacher-like rhetoric refers to some future potential promising a better future as an eventual reward. It also contains apparent denial (Van Dijk 1993); the progress the HR is referring to has been made possible not through the Bonn powers, but the sweetness and power of a dream, that is, accession to the EU. The presuppositions in this paragraph are plentiful pointing at ideological assumptions of Euro-centric constituting of the Balkans as a lack and, which is a common Euro-orientalist trope (Adamovsky 2006). “Can one day” presupposes “it is not yet, but it might be”, just as “the dream of a prosperous, secure future” is not a reality, since BiH “is not a member of the EU and NATO” or “a normal country able to provide a good and safe enough life for its citizens.” The sentences “can one day become a member of the EU,” “can one day become a member of NATO,” “can one day become a normal country” are all attributive 155 goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 156 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac subject+verb+complement sentences whereby the paratactic relationship between the three attributes presumes the relationship of equivalence between them. This equivalence is problematic, for it implies that “membership in the EU” equals “membership in NATO,” which is further equated with “being a normal country able to provide good and safe life for its citizens.” These three have been made into textual synonyms, although they cannot be found in any known discourse type, suggesting that in transitional countries such as BiH the synonymy between “NATO membership” and “the normality of the country” has become legitimate and commonsensical. The metaphor “from Dayton to Brussels,” whereby synecdoches of the two cities have been used to denote points of arrival and departure in Europeanization, does not refer to the geographical distance between the two, as this path in reality does not even cross BiH, but reflects an ideological assumption. Dayton is taken as a ground zero signifying the end of the war and also the end of socialism; Brussels, as the city where the NATO and EU headquarters are, as the final point of arrival signifying the market economy and capitalism, the EU and NATO; while the memory of the socialist Yugoslavia has been completely left out as if it never existed and the 1992–1995 conflict is used as a ground zero for BiH. BiH has reached a moment in its postwar history when critical choices will determine whether or not the people of this country are to enjoy a prosperous future inside Europe, the HR, Paddy Ashdown, said on Wednesday. The question facing the citizens of BiH is whether, and how quickly, the dream of a prosperous, secure future in Europe will become a reality (Ibid.). Table 2 (below) shows the presuppositions of some of the major claims in the paragraph: Table 2. Presuppositions of major claims. Statement Presupposition a prosperous future inside Europe future is prosperous in Europe a prosperous secure future in Europe future is secure and prosperous in Europe The recontextualization (Bernstein 1990) of security and prosperity within NATO and the EU is realized primarily through foregrounding the adjective “secure” and “prosperous” and through the recontextualization of NATO and the EU as newly-coined textual synonyms (see more in Kovacs and Wodak 2003). Europe/ NATO have been qualified as a “good thing” through the presupposition that the future is “secure and prosperous” inside the EU, and security discourse and practice, along with the initial humanitarian responsibility discourse that preceded it, have already been identified as applicable to passive subjects (Hansen 2006: 127). goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 157 Different “threats and instabilities” are not, as Hansen suggests, “simply there” but appear in NATO’s own discursive articulation of the alliance’s (transformed) postCold War rationale (Ibid. 25). By recontextualizing the NATO and EU, using them as synonyms, the HR also recontextualizes the rhetoric of peace and security provided by the most powerful security alliance in the world with the rhetoric of financial progress, using phrases such as “encouraged investments” and “creation of jobs.” As in the paragraph above, the rationale for joining both NATO and Europe is security/stability, which is the main topos to be found in the postwar discourse on BiH in general and a way of overcoming the wartime past. Joining the NATO and EU are represented as an unquestionable and guaranteed way to this security, stability and prosperity (the carrot), but only if BiH completes the necessary reforms and cooperates with the ICTY, which is often seen as the stick. Membership of Partnership for Peace and, eventually, NATO, the world’s most powerful and successful security alliance, will greatly enhance BiH’s security… its institutions have shown that they can tackle the most difficult burdens of BiH’s past, in favor of a more stable and secure BiH on the road to the EU and NATO (“High representative Welcomes BiH Euro-Atlantic Vision,” 6 October 2005). Particularly interesting is a NATO paid ad in a cinematic style that appeared in several issues of Nezavisne novine in 2007 and on several billboards in different cities. The drawing featured two stern and tough-looking men and two women, one woman smiling ecstatically and raising her arms to the sky and the other looking indifferent. NATO is underlined with the title “security” and the text below reads that it will “reward” BiH with strength and bring the lacking “security” to the country. The ad read: NATO and BiH armed forces present: NATO mission: Security. Script: We need someone to take care of our well-being and security. We need someone who will protect us on the road to peace and justice. Award: Strength Directed by: You and us because… together we are stronger. NATO for a better tomorrow. Aside from its persuasive visual content, the presuppositions in the ad are that someone needs to take care of BiH’s well-being and security and protect its citizens. The implications are that its citizens are in need of protection and are weak and lack strength. To conclude, Europeanization discourse during the early political restructuring in BiH is primarily top-down, presenting EU and NATO as strong protectors, guarantors of stability and democratic values for weak, post-conflict goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 158 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac Figure 1. NATO advert. BiH. Apart from the issues of war crimes and economics, there are no specific demands, as will be the case in later examples: the rhetoric is primarily about vague political criteria in which security, normality and happiness are guaranteed if BiH joins the EU/NATO. 4. Late political restructuring: Bosnia’s europeanization between ethnic nationalism and human rights (2006–2014) The period between 2006 and 2014 is generally termed as a period of stagnation in which the ethno-nationalist order in BiH solidified, making the “dream of Europe” even more unlikely. Dayton brought peace to BiH but failed to resolve the national question(s), instead further cementing the existing ethnic divisions. Although the international community has gradually stripped entities of some of their powers, the constitutional or “Dayton” reform as a prerequisite for EU accession (Hayes and Crosby 2006) became synonymous with the “erasure of entities” and thus seen as problematic even among those BiH citizens who desired the EU. The problematic constitutional changes emerged as some of the most strongly articulated and stringent EU demands were embodied in the implementation of the Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 159 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) 2009 ruling on the Sejdić-Finci case, which found the country’s constitution in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by restricting the access of non-constituent peoples in BiH politics. The statement such as the one below: “Constitutional changes will strengthen the state that cannot protect fundamental human rights.” (Dnevni Avaz, March 7, 2010) goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 explicitly says the state of BiH cannot protect fundamental human rights, which is why the EU insisted on the implementation of the Sejdić-Finci ruling, making it a number one condition for accession. The EU moved Sejdić-Finci to the top of the agenda, making it a condition for further progress in accession that in turn would unblock significant funds BiH now badly needs. In March 2011, the Council of the EU concluded that a “credible effort” to implement the decision…was “key to fulfilling the country’s obligations” under the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA)…While the ECtHR is not an EU body, the treaty it enforces is incorporated into Bosnia’s SAA. So without a “credible effort” to implement Sejdić-Finci, Bosnia’s SAA cannot come into force; and without a “satisfactory track record” in implementing the SAA/Interim Agreement, Bosnia cannot submit a “credible application” for EU membership (ICG Briefing 2012: 8). To understand the context in which any potential disruption of Dayton was impossible, we have to consider that 2006 started with solidification of nationalist rhetoric by the leaders of the SNSD (Union of Independent Social Democrats), Milorad Dodik, and the SBiH (Party for BiH), Haris Silajdžić. Dodik questioned the idea of BiH statehood by stating that it is “an impossible state that exists only in the thoughts of certain foreigners, “while Silajdžić claimed “the RS was a genocidal creation” that needed to be abolished. While the electoral success of Milorad Dodik in the RS was based on undoing much of the state building since the late 1990s, Haris Silajdžić won the Bosniak vote on the promise of undoing Dayton and the RS (Aybet and Bieber 2011, 1914), and the Croats in BiH demanded a “third entity.” Any potential change of the constitution was seen as disruptive to the tripartite rotating presidency because a fourth member could potentially usurp it as well as the quotas. Ivan Lovrenović, a famous Bosnian journalist, sums up this paradoxical discursive situation with respect to these politicians’ declarative uses of Europe: That is, says Dodik, a European concept because all European countries are decentralized. Both Silajdžić and Dodik refer to, as it is, European criteria. And yet there can be no harmonization between their claims. When you “scratch beneath the surface”, you see the nationalist nature of their agendas. goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 160 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac With Silajdžić, you see it because there is no cogent answer to the crucial question about concrete political arrangements that would remove the danger of Bosniak domination should the one person — one vote principle be applied. Therefore it is plausible to suspect his advocating of ‘liberal-democracy’ to be a fig-leaf for concealment of majority nationalism… Dodik on the other hand is only interested in preservation of the RS as an exclusively national entity. However justifiable his objections to Sarajevo political autism [?] may be, Milorad Dodik up until this day has nowhere shown in practice that he holds dear the democratic customs and rights of non-Serbs so that we could believe [him] when he speaks about BiH federalization as “a European solution.” Silajdžić and Dodik’s Bosnia are mutually exclusive and their “Europe” is everything but the Europe we need (Lovrenović 2006). Lovrenović calls this “a tam-tam communication” rhythm, which is used to garner electoral support that will secure the unbridled power of ethno-nationalist leaders, exposing how the seemingly Europeanist discourse has been recontextualized within the nationalist discourse, through an artificial relationship of equality between constituents using various linguistic means: Political sound space has been recently filled by the voices of two persons — Milorad Dodik and Haris Silajdžić. They didn’t take it through a dialogue, but irreconcilable exclusion. They didn’t take it by offering better life but by strong ideological rhetoric on state constitution… It is imposed by a tam-tam system of communication functioning in such a way that a strong national call is unmistakably recognized even when it is not explicitly uttered but clad in paroles of “normal, European state” constituted on a “civic principle” (Ibid.). Also, as of 2011, the OHR was no longer in charge of EU accession in BiH, as Peter Sørensen was appointed Special EU Representative. Sørensen, together with the High Representative Valentin Inzko, continued employing the “journey” metaphor, but the tone of Europeanization was different. It was now very bureaucratic and value-free, articulating the process as a set of legal conditions and obligations which BiH had no choice but to accept: Inzko: Their task will be to fulfill obligations that will assure progress in the direction of the EU integrations (December 29, 2011, Dnevni Avaz). In the passage below, the precondition has been recontextualized as the adoption of laws on state aid and the census, implying harmonization with the Acquis Communautaire. Sørensen: It is very important that local politicians have succeeded in finding a solution in terms of the laws on state aid and the census, which are part of the Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 161 European set of laws and that are extremely important for the future BiH steps in the process of European integrations (29 December 2011, Dnevni Avaz). goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Collocations such as “steps” or “road to Europe” or going “back on track” and “lost time” suggest similar discourses expressed via spatio-temporal metaphors suggesting a well-defined point of arrival, and implying BiH’s belatedness and slowness in this respect, as shown in the italicized segments of the paragraphs below. In a joint statement EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fuele said in a joint statement that they were encouraged by this development and look forward to further concrete steps to put BosniaHerzegovina firmly back on track towards the EU. (30 December 2011, Dnevni Avaz). German head of diplomacy Westerwelle: The roadblock of the country on its way to the EU must be removed at once. (30 December 2011, Dnevni Avaz) Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mladenov: The new cabinet will face the task of making up for lost time and instantly implement reforms necessary for the acceleration of the EU and NATO integrations. (30 December 2011, Dnevni Avaz) This particular way of spatio-temporal positioning implicates Bosnia as a semi-peripheral country, along with other countries in the region and some recent member countries like Romania and Bulgaria. In the passage above, a Bulgarian politician uses the same metaphors with respect to BiH to construct a new European voice that is also post-socialist. In the semi-periphery, influences of both the developed, capitalist democracies and the post-communist countries overlap, and metaphors like the ones we detected above are to a great extent common for all transitional countries (Busch and Krzyzanowski 2007). As late as 17 February 2014, the EC still demanded the Sejdić-Finci decision be implemented as Štefan Füle, Commissioner for EU Enlargement, refused to discuss the protests with BiH political leaders (Fule Arrived to Sarajevo and Will Not Discuss Protests in BiH Political Leaders, “February 17, 2014). However, a day later, in a rapid press release, he seemed to change his mind. To look at the nuanced sequencing of change preconditions following the protests and floods in BiH and the failed EU endeavor to get BiH to implement the Sejdić-Finci decision, Füle’s 18 February 2014 “Bosnia-Herzegovina-EU: Deep disappointment on Sejdić-Finci implementation” speech (lines 1–57) has been analyzed through its episodic segmentation. Episodes as semantic units of discourse (Van Dijk 1981, 192) or macropropositions of text are usually, but not always, orthographically organized as paragraphs (Ibid. 177), and time and place deictics play a key role in providing textual cohesion and coherence. In the text below, we thought that 162 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac sequencing of these episodes would be most revealing of the discourse shift that emerged after the 2014 protests. We thus looked at the text below (Table 3) in terms of a combination of its episodic organization, its segmentation criteria, and the relevant argumentative and pragmalinguistic features used to legitimize the shift. goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Table 3. Episode segmentation of “Bosnia-Herzegovina — EU: Deep disappointment on Sejdić-Finci implementation”. Episode lines Sentences Segmentation criteria+ Argumentative strategy/Pragmatic features 1: 1–4 Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle visited BiH … This is what Commissioner Füle said: General thematic introduction of Füle’s visit 2: 5–8 “Good morning. … people who have been participating in the work of ‘plenums’ in Tuzla and Sarajevo. So my first remark is about civil society. Specification: introducing his meetings, transition to plenums and civil society Implication: accountability of BiH politicians to BiH citizens after the protests 3: 9–14 “It is clear that the political system in BiH must become more responsive to the citizens’ agenda … it is completely unacceptable General: BiH politicians should be more responsive to citizens Presupposition: they are not or are insufficiently responsive and implied by the protests and plenums 4: 15–23 “Implementation of this judg- General: Sejdić-Finci disappointment, ment…every citizen of BiH” implementation not virtual, an international obligation leading to EU accession, issue with clear and not virtual consequences on the lives of BiH citizens Implication: accountability of BiH politicians to BiH citizens, BiH citizens presumed to be in favor of EU accession 5: 24–27 “Do not forget that since 2010, three formal initiatives…no possible method aside” Specification: there have been three initiatives, all of them unsuccessful Positive self-presentation: EU made efforts Negative other-representation: BiH politicians could not agree goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 163 6: 28–36 “Throughout the process… calling politicians to be accountable. Specification: some politicians made efforts while some haven’t, conclusion of his efforts on this issue, reporting to relevant bodies, BiH remains in breach of its international commitments Positive other-representation: some BiH politicians made their best efforts Negative other representation: other BiH politicians were talking but were not sincere 7: 37–40 “My third remark…citizens of BiH” General: this is not the end of “our” engagement with BiH, three new initiatives Positive self-presentation: EU is patient with BiH, there is a second chance reflected in the three new initiatives 8: 41–43 “First in the whole region… new approach” Specific: focus on better economic governance in the whole region Positive self-presentation: EU wants better economic situation in the region 9: 44–46 “We will assist …better environment for business: Specific: EU will help BiH prepare National Economic Reform Program Positive self-presentation: EU is helpful 10: 47–52 “With the same aim…in your Specific: EU will propose Competitiveness country” and Growth Programme to push forward the sectoral reforms Positive self-presentation: EU is helpful 11: 53–57 “Secondly…economic and social ones Specific: EU will propose a joint EU-BiH working group to accelerate the implementation of EU funded project, 210 million Euro of projects on-going and we have almost 150 million Euro of projects which are yet to start Positive self-presentation: EU is cooperative, there is financial gain for BiH to be made through the EU funds The sequencing of these episodes, separated by episode markers such as “my first, second and third remark,” pertaining to the policy switch could be summarized in a series of macropropositions: despite EU and some “sincere” politicians’ efforts, the ECtHR’s decision was not implemented and was thus terminated as the main precondition for EU accession. In the light of new circumstances such as violent civic unrest and the floods, an economic shift in a cooperative manner is about to be made in order for the EU money to flow into BiH. What exactly the Compact entails and what reforms it tackles will be made clear in the following passage. 164 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac Throughout the text, the EU is presented as positive and BiH politicians as negative. However, the EU is not ending its benevolence, despite the lack of cooperation; rather, it wants to make sure that growth and development are accomplished, secured by economic reforms as the core rationale behind the shift. goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 5. Europeanization in post-2014 protest BiH: From human rights to economic reforms The volatile EU stance visible in the previous analysis may be legitimized from various points of view, some of which can be read as more politically pragmatic than merely favoring the Bosnian status quo. The reassertion of EU influence in BiH, backed by the so-called British-German initiative in November 2014 to support the Compact, speaks more in favor of the former. The European Foreign Policy Scorecard (2015), reflecting Europe’s foreign policy performance, assesses the legitimization of the shift in BiH in the following way: Episode 1: Bosnia faced widespread protests and a faltering economy. EU states launched a number of initiatives to reverse the country’s downward trend… Episode 2: The EU recognized Bosnia’s European “standstill” and called off its facilitation efforts with Bosnian leaders to reach agreement on the constitutional reform required by the European Court of Human Rights’ Sejdić-Finci ruling. Episode 3: Instead, Europe tried to tailor its policies to the challenges at play. One such challenge was Moscow’s support for Republika Srpska’s Milorad Dodik, who toyed with a Crimea-style independence declaration. Bosnia’s stance on the Ukraine crisis and EU sanctions against Russia, like Serbia’s, was ambiguous. Episode 4: The EU renewed its emphasis on the socio-economic situation, including through the EU Compact for Growth and Jobs, a socio-economic reform programme launched under the aegis of the EU Special Representative in Bosnia and international partners such as the IMF…Austria launched a civil society initiative and is taking over from Germany in preparing a second Balkans conference. The Czech Republic was among states hosting discussions on Sejdić-Finci. Crucially, in November, the German and British foreign ministers, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Philip Hammond, launched an initiative to revitalize Bosnia’s European path and end the deadlock, through a “resequencing” of EU conditionality (delaying implementation of Sejdić-Finci as a precondition for entry into force of the 2008 Stabilization and Association Agreement), in return for a commitment to reform. Episode 5: EU ministers endorsed this refocusing of EU policy in December, though with emphasis on conditionality and Sejdić-Finci’s implementation. Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 165 goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Nevertheless, widespread skepticism persists about the initiative’s viability and about European unity on Bosnia. The negative representation of BiH is visible in the negative lexical choices such as “faltering,” “downward trend, “standstill,” while the metaphors “to revitalize its European path” and “end the deadlock” presuppose the weakness, illness or even termination of the process. “Resequencing of EU conditionality”, on the other hand, presupposes that the process never ends, but that one sequence is replaced by another. In terms of “reforms” stipulated by the initiative, another text dated 5 November 2014 about the British-German initiative informs us that, although vague and undefined in terms of realization and consequences, they are of economic nature and have no alternative. The new British-German initiative asks Bosnian politicians to give a written commitment to see through a package of as yet undefined reforms, but which are “closely linked to the Compact for Growth and Jobs that was published earlier this year”… There is only one path into the European Union-through reforms that help Bosnia and Herzegovina reach the standard of governance and economic development of EU Member States, “the open letter from German Foreign Minister Fran-Walter Steinmeier and Britain’s Philip Hammond reads.9 The gravity of BiH’s situation was confirmed at a conference in Oxford, (in)conveniently titled New International Thinking, which included only one BiH civil sector person and not a single Bosnian public intellectual who had engaged with the issue. The conference was held in March 2015 urging the international community to take a tougher approach towards “the dangerous political and economic backsliding in Bosnia.” Paddy Ashdown, the former High representative, most notorious for removing BiH politicians from office (Majstorović 2007a) stated that “after more than a decade of real progress towards statehood and stability, Bosnia started to go backwards nearly 10 years ago, and now tracks with increasing speed towards either break-up or the dubious status of being Europe’s deepest and most intractable black hole. “Referring to the conference title, Ashdown said it was not “new thinking that was required in Bosnia, but a new international will and a renewed determination to insist on reforms to the country’s dysfunctional institutions, “not the “ideas that have failed the International Community these last 10 years, but political will, coordination and ability to use the levers that we have in a united and effective fashion” (Jukić 2015). 9. The Sejdić-Finci case refers to a 2009 ruling of the ECtHR brought by Dervo Sejdić, a Roma activist, and JakobFinci, a Jewish politician, who argued that the Bosnian constitution negotiated as part of Dayton was discriminatory because certain electoral posts could only be held by Serbs, Croats or Bosniak Muslims. 166 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 Instead of the Sejdić-Finci decision implementation, the resequencing of conditionality as the “new will and determination” is embedded in the previouslymentioned Compact for Growth and Development under the pretext of Bosnia’s backsliding. The online brochure containing the Compact opens up with a foreword by Peter Sørensen, who uses a cooperative tone visible in the use of the direct address “you” to BiH citizens, and an exclusive “we”, referring to the EU, to simulate solidarity about the Compact: BiH needs to reform. Otherwise it risks falling further behind her neighbors in terms of the business environment and other policies necessary to spur investment and create jobs. Already the overall unemployment rate stands at over a quarter of the workforce and the rate of youth unemployment is the highest in Europe. But you know this. And you know that reform is needed…. We set out to answer this question at the Forum for Prosperity and Jobs in May in Sarajevo. We did so to assist Bosnia and Herzegovina to fulfill the Copenhagen economic criteria…But, more importantly, we did this to help the people of BiH to improve your own lives and prospects (The Compact for Growth and Jobs 2014: 3). The issue of social actors is important here because it is stated that the Forum was attended by a broad spectrum of civil, academic, business and political members of the society identifying a package of six concrete and urgent measures endorsed by the IMF, WB, USA and other concerned nations, organizations, and visiting experts.10 Yet when asked about the Bosnians consulted in the process, as the jour- 10. The six measures were stated as follows: 1. BiH needs to spur employment and improve competitiveness by reducing the cost of working to a far lower percentage of labour costs — from levels close to 40 percent toward the average for new EU member states at 35 percent. 2. BiH needs to enact a set of labour market reforms to increase job creation, including by revitalising the collective bargaining process, reducing the disincentives for hiring and, in particular, promoting the inclusion of young people in the workforce. 3. BiH needs to boost competitiveness by approving a results-based plan aimed at improving the conditions measured by Doing Business indicators to match the regional average. 4. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a weak private sector and serious difficulties in attracting investors. Better investor protection laws and practices are needed, including corporate governance, strengthened risk-management practices to improve access to financing (especially for new enterprises) and a more efficient insolvency framework. 5. Bosnia and Herzegovina needs stronger adherence to the rule of law and deep public administration reform. In the short term, there should be a comprehensive public listing of para-fiscal fees and other costs, permits and licenses with a view to elevating their transparency. 6. Bosnia and Herzegovina must improve the targeting of social assistance through a set of measures that would make social protection policies more effective, efficient and equitable. Social protection needs to work for those who really need it — or who pay for it — and must be put on a sustainable financial footing. Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 167 nalist tried to find them but did not manage to (Ahmetašević 2014), Ambassador Kraak’s answer was an apparent denial: goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 I completely disagree. I was in Ilidža at the presentations. Those were long sessions with many participants. Present were representative of international financial institutions and foreign experts, sure. But the Compact is formulated with a substantial participation by Bosnian authorities, syndicate representatives, different non-governmental organizations. These measures were perceived by social actors including activists, unions and intellectuals as problematic insofar as they aimed at more austerity measures in an already impoverished economy. These actors saw Bosnia’s European path precisely in the February 2014 protests. The Movement for Social Justice Sarajevo issued a statement titled “Compact with the devil” (2014) critically assessing the new set of reforms, its vagueness and its purported Europeanness, while suggesting potential strategies to overcome the crisis: In order for the economy to recover, the income of those who have the least will have to grow as they are the pillars of public spending, not the rich ones, since income is not just cash but also social contributions into healthcare, education and other services of common interest. Mass post-flood employment would be a good way to go… Money for such programs would be secured by taxing the richest, VAT differentiation, taxation of luxury goods, reducing salaries of high ranking public administration officers, nationalization of industries most relevant for development etc. (“Compact with the Devil” 2014) Their criticism on how the global financial situation generally discouraged investment and that only larger social investment would yield economic recovery brings the “socialist discourse” back into the picture and redefined the meaning of European in the wake of “tectonic changes” (Kovras and Loizides 2015) in which there may still be some alternatives to the politics of social exploitation. 6. Conclusions In BiH, political elites have managed to stay in power by pandering to popular interests, while no joint vision of BiH has emerged to accommodate all sides ensuring greater liberties and human rights for all. Yet, in spite of this, EU membership is still considered desirable by the majority of BiH citizens although the conditions have been severely politicized (Bechev 2011). Accordingly, BiH could be an “eternal EU candidate” or could be accepted based on high politics and not the fulfillment of its obligations. This change of gears was illustrated by the 2014 Compact whose implementation aided by socialist tendencies may take BiH either towards goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 168 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac the European left, anti-austerity alliances but also, with less and less available jobs, unpunished ethnic cleansing, and unchecked but glorified nationalism, even more so towards the growing European Right. Over the period of almost twenty years, the international community has neglected the socialist, Yugoslav legacy, supporting the new, democratically elected politicians after Dayton. Yet, when Dayton was no longer seen as the document that brought peace but instead as a document which had perpetuated the war by supporting ethno-nationalist oligarchs and contravening the basic human rights of non-constituent peoples, it was too late. The citizens’ protests escalated, demanding more workers’ rights, social justice, and revised privatizations echoing contemporary European turmoil that may seriously redefine the Europe of today. The EU answer after Sejdić-Finci failure was the Compact, but also an international conference in Oxford, both of which failed to seriously engage local social actors other than the main political leaders. Yet, unlike in 1996, there are more and more critical and progressive voices to be heard. Albeit marginal, they have the potential to become the main social force, together with the protesters of 2014, redefining Europeanization on the very margin of Europe. This is a difficult position, one that truly discloses the problems of parliamentary democracy, especially in post-conflict societies in which the level of security and trust is still very low. One could rightly ask why Bosnians are choosing the leaders that they are, and whether direct democracy can offer any new paths, as was briefly seen in the Bosnian plenums. What, if any, kind of social change is possible? The article presents a dynamic playground of the transitional BiH where different social actors operate by means of different discourses, ranging from nationalist to liberal or socialist, with respect to the EU. It remains to be seen how BiH politicians will reconfigure Europeanization, bearing in mind the increasing economic challenges on the one hand and the looming social unrest on the other. The new fluctuations and destabilizations, especially if BiH takes the route of austerity measures and economic reforms could also aggravate its present contradictions, however appealing the promise of Euro-Atlantic integration. One thing is certain: Europeanization needs a different signified, in Bosnia as well as throughout Europe, not brought from the top down but cooperatively worked on from the bottom up, more shared than passed down, and more attuned to and accountable with those in need for all of us who need it. Rethinking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-coloniality 169 goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:45:55 References Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. The State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ahmetašević, Nidžara. “Ambassador Kraak interview about the Compact for Growth and Jobs.” August 6, 2014. http://bosniaherzegovina.nlembassy.org/news/2014/august/interviewwith-ambassador-kraak.html (accessed September 30, 2014). 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Petra Bojovića 78 000 Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina Zoran Vučkovac Gundulićeva 86 78 000 Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina [email protected] [email protected] About the authors Danijela Majstorović is Associate professor of linguistics and cultural studies at the University of Banja Luka’s English department. Her research interests involve critical discourse analysis, ethnic-nationalism, gender, Europeanization and, most recently, social movements in postsocialism. Zoran Vučkovac holds an MA degree in English and film studies and is active in several art-theory groups. He is one of the founders of the Banja Luka Social Center and his research interests are focused around nationalism, memory politics, monuments, genocide studies, Marxism etc.