The thesis focuses on the post-conflict reconstruction of a small Balkan state, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the emphasis on a wide-range mandate assigned by the Dayton Peace Accords to the regional security organization OSCE. The second part of the thesis takes a closer look at the main causes of the current political, economic and social crisis hindering the development of the country. Although Bosnia is a unitary country, it is strongly decentralized in most of its public life as well as political and social sectors, including the political parties, media or education system.

This thesis examines the political impact of Salafi-Wahhabism in contemporary Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) since the El Mujahed Brigade of mujahedeen introduced this puritanical Saudi form of Islam during the 1992-1995 War that broke apart the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFROY). This study employs tenets of the English School of International Relations and utilizes a historical analytic approach to identify durable features of Bosnian Muslim religious economic activity, Bosnian education, and Bosnian political processes to answer the research question: what kind of influence has Salafi-Wahhabism had on BiH society and government since the end of the 1992-1995 Balkan War? Emergent evidence captured by these variables suggests a momentum of Salafi-Wahhabism influence is developing that may undercut the sovereignty of BiH and possibly impede its European Union membership bid. As a result of this rising Wahhabi influence in several facets of Bosnian society, the aggregate level of Islamism in the country is also likely increasing. / Master of Arts

abstract: Tourism is not always a lighthearted affair. Visitors are often attracted to places associated with dark and complex pasts, where communities host a wide range of lived experiences, memories and associations. While tourism has potential to facilitate progress and create opportunities, it may also emphasize a place’s hardships or its controversial history. For tourism development to be ethical and sustainable, it is vital to understand its community impacts, including how it may influence residents’ perceptions and wellbeing.This research investigated residents’ senses of affect and emotion within touristic spaces of Mostar, a re-emerging destination city in Bosnia and Herzegovina that experienced some of the worst physical destruction and human casualties during the Bosnian War of the 1990s. An interdisciplinary, multiple-methods approach employed qualitative and quantitative methods, including an intercept survey, resident interviews, participant observation, and autoethnography. In Part 1, construal level theory of psychological distance was applied in quantitative, survey-based research to understand how tourism may impact residents’ affective responses to local places. In Part 2, fourteen young adult residents were invited to experience their city as “tourists for a day,” visiting attractions alongside the researcher and reflecting upon their experiences via a three-stage interview process. The resulting article specifically explores the concept of affective atmospheres, drawing connections to interdependence theory. Part 3 employed a creative and introspective autoethnographic approach incorporating journaling, poetry and photography to examine the researcher’s own experiences and observations as a visiting researcher in a post-war city. This inquiry was inspired by works from cultural geography engaging non-representational theory and affect theory. These three discrete studies under a shared thematic umbrella allowed for an in-depth exploration of affect, emotion, and lived experiences within touristic spaces of a post-war, recovering city. Overall, findings suggest that residents perceive tourism as a generally positive force, fostering senses of pride and creating opportunities for the city to move on from the persistent social and economic repercussions of war. However, the social and affective impacts of war are deeply engrained within the fabric of the city, and tourism has the capacity to emphasize differences and discomforts amongst residents and visitors alike. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Community Resources and Development 2020

Over time, hundreds of peace agreements have been signed in different parts of the world. Most of those peace agreements have not brought sustainable peace. Studies show that only 50% of the peace agreements survive for 5 years. After undergoing civil war between the ethnic groups, Bosnia and Herzegovina ended the bloodiest conflict in European history since the second world war with a peace agreement with the official name The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also called the Dayton Peace Agreement. The main purpose of the Dayton Agreement was to bring peace and stability between the ethnic groups. Stability and peace would later democratize the country and bring it closer to the Western standards. 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement. The Dayton peace agreement constitutes a big portion of the Bosnian constitution, outlining the structure of the new government and the division of power between the three ethnic groups in the country. Using the democratic pillar of the Liberal Peace concept as an analytical framework, this research investigates the impact of the Dayton peace agreement on the democratization process in Bosnia and Herzegovina and determines whether Liberal Peace has after all been achieved in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25 years after the signing of the peace agreement. The study is conducted as a qualitative case study. The findings present that the Dayton agreement has been based on the liberal peace principles. The latest development in BiH show that the country has moved beyond the Dayton peace agreement to the European integration and European Union membership. The liberal peacebuilding has therefore taken another shift and the country’s main focus nowadays relies on resolving the needed reforms that will bring the country closer to the EU. The impact of the Dayton peace agreement is still present within the political sphere in the country, where many of the obstacles to becoming a European Union member state are caused by the Dayton agreement. There is thus high interest by the political elite in the country to move beyond what has happened 25-years ago and focus on the future of the country.

Die CD Kratka muzička biografija Bosne i Hercegovine (1878–1918) [dt.: Eine kurze musikalische Biografie von Bosnien und Herzegowina] entstand dank der Forschungsarbeiten der jungen bosnisch-herzegowinischen Musikwissenschaftlerin Lana Paćuka, Dozentin an der Musikakademie in Sarajevo.

The thesis based on analysis of international community peacebuilding policy and consequent reaction by local actors assesses the influence of this interaction onto the liberal peace and changes in missions' operation. The extent of local ownership and the real agency of local actors is then dependent on the time of mission occurrence, power related interests of international community and the force and accessibility of structures that the international community tries to influence. Key words: peacebuilding, hybridization, local ownership, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone

Barbora Chrzová Citizenship Rhetorics in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Enacting Citizenship and Nationality in a Divided Country Abstract: This thesis deals with the rhetorical dimension of citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The disputed legitimacy of Bosnian statehood, ethnicization of every-day life, and a multilayered citizenship regime which leaves little space for purely civic loyalties to the state, pose an important challenge to the symbolic dimension of Bosnian citizenship. Drawing upon rhetorical approaches to citizenship, this thesis analyses how citizenship was crafted on the discursive level; how various actors formulated the question of 'who is a Bosnian citizen', how their narratives interacted and influenced each other. The thesis specifically focuses on two series of protests, the so-called 'JMBG protests' that took place in June 2013 and the 'Social uprising' which arose in February 2014. The protests challenged the dominant ethno- national framework and represented periods of intensive debates on fundamental questions of citizenship. The analysis has shown that the emptiness of the notion of Bosnian citizenship makes its discursive constructions largely context-dependent and shifting. The boundary between 'the citizens' and 'the elites,' however, appeared as a salient societal cleavage that...

Ethnic nationalism produces conflicts through constructing identities that include certain groups and exclude or marginalize others. This process often continues in post-war periods and hinders inter-ethnic reconciliation. Political actors proceed with constructing ethno-national identities and (re-)writing national narratives in the realm of remembering. This thesis seeks to understand how memorial sites are used for nation-building processes in post-war contexts, based on the municipality of Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This single instrumental case study analyzes two memorial sites through fieldwork, newspaper articles, and archival records. The theoretical framework builds on concepts from nationalism studies, memory studies, as well as cultural and political geography. The analysis demonstrates that the studied memorial sites are used as follows: 1) to depict the nation's objects of identification for demarcating the national Self from the Other; 2) to promote myths of victimization for unifying the group and justifying atrocities; 3) to silence narratives and memories that contradict or challenge those of the own group; and 4) to mark territory as an integral part of the spatial narrative in which public places are transformed into “owned” places. All four practices are closely interrelated and give the memorial sites meaning and authority to convey the Bosnian-Serbian nation-building project.

Diploma thesis deals with the connection between the nature of implemented peacekeeping operation and possible positive output of this activity and thus with successful peacebuilding in the specific context of etnopolitical conflicts. Etnopolitical disputes constitute a vivid challenge aimed towards United Nations organisation. Mainly, because this organisation is one of the main actors of international system in finding solutions of etnopolitical conflicts and because United Nations also proposes concrete tools for their resolving - peacekeeping missions. We work with assumption that the nature of etnopolitical conflict and the nature of conflicting parties involved influence, to an important extent, involvement and impact of peacekeeping operations in resolving these conflicts. Diploma thesis, through the use of theories of origin and solvability of ethnic conflicts, creates the framework within which their more complicated solvability can be explained as well as inhibitors of theoretically successful models. Likewise, the typology of peacekeeping operations is defined and also narrower understanding of peacebuilding, as a set of political and security aspects, is described. Datas from four case studies then offer an opportunity to formulate partial endings and findings of examined causal relation. C lick...

The Master thesis deals with potential solutions of transport connection between two parts of the Croatian territory separated by Neum of Bosna and Hercegovina. The territorial separation became rather problematic after the Croatian entry into the European Union on July 1, 2013. Much stricter border controls between Croatia and Bosnia have considerably complicated traveling to the two parts of Croatia. In its historical section, the study explains why and when the unusual separation originated. Further, it deals with possible solutions that arise and assesses their economic and ecological demands while taking international law aspects into consideration. In the analytical part, the thesis aims to analyse the interests and goals of each player that directly influences the problem or the problem indirectly affects them. The players are the European Union, both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, local authorities, and Croatian political parties. The author concludes that the Peljesac Bridge, going from the Croatian territory to the Peljesac Peninsula, is the most likely solution out of all discussed options. To finish the bridge successfully, however, Croatia needs to get considerable amount of money from the EU as it does not have sufficient means to finance such a technology and construction...