After the Cold War, international state-building has taken place in several countries as a response to ethnic conflicts. The dissolution of Yugoslavia was also characterized with ethnic conflicts, which ended after international interventions. The inter-ethnic violence destabilized the nexus between eponymous states, nationalizing states, and the minorities living in the latter. The international actors - primarily the EU and the US - involved in state-building saw consociational power-sharing arrangements as a key feature in multi-ethnic state-building processes, notably in post-war Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Using Smith’s quadratic nexus and Germane’s “fifth element” as a theoretical framework, this thesis examines one segment of the nexus - the correlation of international relational field and national minorities relational field – in a ‘top down’ approach. Two central questions are asked: how have international actors influenced power-sharing arrangements in reaction to separatism; and how has the interplay between different ethnic groups from the same ethnic minority living in the same state affected power-sharing arrangements? These questions are addressed by engaging in a comparative case analysis of two ethnically divided states, namely Kosovo and Macedonia, having adopted consociational power-sharing arrangements under the international influence. The work in this thesis examines the international influence on power-sharing arrangements in reaction to separatism through three processes: international mediations, implementation of power-sharing arrangements into the constitutions and the functionality of power-sharing systems in practice. The thesis revolves around these central arguments: the role of international actors in reaction to separatism and the degree of local ownership in the drafting and constitutionalisation of power-sharing arrangements is reflected in asymmetric power-sharing arrangements between the two compared cases and on the functionality of the power-sharing systems; and, relationship between different groups of minorities from the same ethnicity living in the same state - “the sixth element” - has an impact on the functionality of power-sharing systems, giving rise to “the sixth element” as a new relational field within the quadratic nexus, proposed in this thesis.

This paper examines how the serbian president Milorad Dodik in Bosnia and Herzegovina positions himself in regards to the Dayton agreement. The paper focuses on three theoretical positions that Dodik can position himself with; Arend Lijpharts consociational democracy, Sam Smoohas ethnic state, and secession. To investigate which position he takes, I use a content analysis wherein I have chosen statements made by Dodik. These statements are then compared to the three theoretical approaches to see which one Dodik positions himself with. The result shows that Dodik mentions all of the possible positions but does not clearly mention which he positions himself with. However when looking at the result I find that he positions himself with the ruling types that go outside the Dayton agreements consociational democracy sixteen times but positions himself with the Dayton agreement only six times. Therefore Milorad Dodik positions himself outside of the Dayton agreements consociational democracy.