Constitutional Development Without Constitutional Amendments. The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Western Balkan has always been a borderland between East and West and represented, for the 21st century, the scene of important geopolitical changes. Within the region, present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina can be observed as a place of great complexity: just think of the religious mix that has solidified over hundreds of years or the role that the murder of Archduke Francesco Ferdinando played in Sarajevo to understand the role more central than ever in the country in defining today's Europe. Outskirts and capital at the same time, Sarajevo represented a fruitful experiment in multiculturalism and inter-religiousness until the beginning of the Nineties, when, following the dissolution of Tito’s Yugoslavia, conflicts of independence broke out. Episodes, those of the war, which appear to be indissoluble from the current situation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on all fronts. The Peace Agreements for Bosnia and Herzegovina signed in Dayton and the subsequent actions of reconstruction of the state are at the centre of this work that moves its steps starting from key questions such as: What years of conflict have produced in Bosnian society? How have national and international actors moved to ensure peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina? What were and still are the main effects of the Daytonian system? Why do many believe that the Dayton Peace Agreement represent an element of instability in the framework of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina? Through the study of the parties in conflict and of the different motivations, in order to explain the desire to create an ethnically divided state, we will come to observe how Bosnia and Herzegovina presents itself today using different angles. The paradoxes contained in the Dayton Agreement; its top-bottom application without a real process of citizen involvement; and the prospects for improvement through the involvement of civil society are the three main fields of analysis used for this work. The objective, here, will be to observe the peace created by Dayton and the socio-political ecosystem created by it after the thirty anniversary of the signing of the 8 pax daytoniana. It will shed light on the limits created by it as regards a possible peaceful coexistence between the Croatian, Bosniaks and Serbian communities, focusing the observation on the important role that the citizens themselves could play in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the real overcoming of the sectarian division between ethnic groups. The constitutional ban imposed on those who belong to the "Others" category to access the highest political arenas of the country represented a crucial node in Bosnia in recent years and in its delicate relationship with the European institutions.