Since the war´s end in the 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a young nation in the center of Europe, has struggled to establish a functional democratic system. In line with the Dayton Agreement, which ended the conflict, the nation was split up into two autonomous regions, one of which would belong to the Serbian population and the other to the Bosnian and Croatian populations. In addition to being a peace treaty, the Dayton Agreement would also serve as the nation´s constitution with the intention to construct a democratic government and society. Bosnia and Herzegovina have struggled to establish a fully democratic state of governance since the peace, because of the Dayton Agreement´s power-sharing model, which in practice has given room for the country´s rulers as well as international actors, to view the country as a surface where two independent parts meets, rather than a unified state. The aim of this study is to examine Bosnia and Herzegovina´s democratic constraints from 2018 to 2022 using Wolfgang Merkel´s theory of embedded and defective democracy. It also seeks to determine to what extent Bosnia and Herzegovina can be considered as a defective democracy, based on the theory´s premises. The outcome of this study, in short, implies that Bosnia and Herzegovina´s democratic constraints can be attributed to national political abuse of power, together with corruption, the absence of functioning state institutions and an undue reliance on international actors.

This essay has covered the democratic development in Poland between 2008 and 2018. The purpose of this essay is to test and see if an existing democracy theory can explain the democratic development in Poland. The questions that I will be answering are;  Is Poland an embedded or defect democracy?  Can Merkel’s theory about embedded and defect democracy explain the development in Poland?  The theory that is used and will be tested is Wolfgang Merkel’s theory about embedded and defect democracy. This theory will be carried out in the same way as Matthijs Bogaards and his addition of a diffusely defect democracy. Bogaards’ addition of diffusely defect democracy complements Markel’s theory with another definition of a defect democracy combining several of Merkel´s definitions of defect democracies.  This is a qualitative essay with a qualitative method. The theory will be in the form of both dimensions and definitions. The result is that Poland shows signs of a defect democracy, but Merkel’s theory about defect democracy, and carried out according to Bogaards, cannot totally explain the development in Poland. The conclusions are that Poland should be seen as a diffusely defect democracy and that Merkel’s theory cannot explain the democratic development in Poland.