Politics & Administration

The administrative division

A lot of local institutions comprise an equal amount of “constituent people” representatives. Each representative has a right of veto, which leads to political sclerosis.

The governement of the state must be composed of ⅔ of inhabitants from the Federation and of ⅓ of Republika Srpska.

- Chief of state: Chairman of the Presidency. The presidency has 3 members (one Bosniak, one Croat, one Serb) directly elected by simple majority popular vote for a 4-year term. The chairmanship rotates every eight months. The current Chairman is the Bosniak Bakir Izetbegović (since March 17th, 2016), the son of the first President of independant Bosnia & Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović.

- Head of government: Chairman of the Council of Ministers, appointed by the presidency and confirmed by the state-level House of Representatives. The current Chairman is the Bosniak Denis Zvizdić (since March 1st, 2015).
- Legislative aspect : bicameral Parliamentary Assembly at the national level, but there are more and more assemblies for each level.

Coming from the Dayton Agreement, it is a complex issue. By wanting to balance the power between the different communities, the powerhouses producted an unefficient political structure for Bosnia & Herzegovina, especially by creating a lot of different administrative layers. Let's be clearer. We can see 3 levels : state, entities and cantons.

Bosnia & Herzegovina is the central state, but is composed of two “entities” (Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation, mainly inhabited by muslims Bosniaks and Republika Srpska, mainly inhabited by Serbs). There is also the internationally supervised district of Brcko.

Each of the two main entities has its own Constitution, governement, president and Assembly. Republika Srpska is a centralised entity whereas the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina is divided itself in 10 cantons, having each one a Constitution, government and an assembly.

These multiple levels have an obvious consequence : in total, the country has 14 governements, and around 180 ministers.

Army is one interesting aspect of Bosnian policies : it is only national. But the global military expenditures are decreasing, which can be a sign of a further pacification, or the transfer of the defense to another organisation.

Indeed, in 2010, Bosnia & Herzegovina became part of the Membership Action Plan, which is the last step before full membership of NATO.

Political power

Bakir Izetbegović

Army & Defense

Denis Zvizdić

Roll over the pictures to discover the names !

Links with the EU

After years of increasing market and economic relations, the country was officially recognized as a potential candidate state in 2003.

To reinforce the links between them, European Union and the country signed a Stabilisation and Association Process in 2008, which came into force only in 2015.

In February 2016, Bosnia & Herzegovina officially applied for EU membership, but it keeps a potential candidate status until the Council answers.

Another key role of EU is the pressure that it put on Serbia : to ensure the candidacy of the country, it should deeply act to find the remaining criminals linked to the war.