Post-Socialist Policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina

In the newly published Sage Handbook of Global Policing, I write on policing after state socialism, comparing Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Georgia and Poland. What follows is a reduced version focusing on BiH only. Full references can be found in the book. It looks at a framework for comparing policing, policing in socialist systems, explores police legitimacy and structures in BiH, and the locates these in the comparative post-socialist framework, also examining police functions.

Police systems and political regimes

Rob I. Mawby suggests three dimensions of police systems for comparison: legitimacy, structure and function. Legitimacy is the source of police power. For example, a social elite, the popular will or an external power. Structures separate the police from other institutions. Structural variations include territorial divisions, hierarchies, functional divisions within and between forces, and the relationship between public and private forms of policing. Function assumes a distribution of tasks including maintenance of law and order and prevention and detection of offences.

Police and policing in exist in a wider environment and react to inputs from law makers, law breakers, from civil society and citizens, and from inside and beyond national frontiers. Changes in respect of any of these can result in changes in a police system. Equally, a police system contributes to its environment.

Police systems in a state socialist environment

János Kornai defined socialism as a ‘social-political-economic’ system based on observed historical formations, rather than on ideas. This led him to focus on the party monopoly on power as the defining element. Change in this monopoly, rather than economic policy, reflects a transition away from socialism.

Party power and police legitimacy

Many communist governments took power during, or just after, periods of revolution, war and disorganisation. The subsequent focus on retaining power was central to Kornai’s analysis. Yugoslavia is something of a special case. As a successful national liberation movement, the partisan movement enjoyed a greater degree of power.   Still, early acts of repression show the regime adopting a defensive position. By 1986, party membership stood at 9.3%, somewhere between Mongolia (4.5%) and Romania (16%). Faced with an ambivalent population, protecting a regime based on the undivided political power of the ruling party was a key task of legal and police systems.

In terms of the legitimacy, the party was the sole source of police authority. In all areas of state activity, the party played a key role in decision making, in supervising state action and in making appointments, leading to the ‘interpenetration’ of state and party. In Yugoslavia, the 1948 split with Stalin encouraged the development of an alternative model of socialism involving greater local autonomy and self-management. Nonetheless, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ) was the basic political force and the country remained a one party state.

The party authorizes the police. The police enforce party domination. But because of their access to means of violence and surveillance, the police can threaten centres of power in the party structure. The party reacts to this periodically, as seen in the removal of Aleksandar Ranković, head of the Interior Ministry and secret police in Yugoslavia.

Structure

There is not one communist model of territorial structures of policing, rather general territorial structures of government shape police structures. Countries with some element of federalism (Czechoslovakia after 1969, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia) reflect this in their police structures, although strong central oversight through the party remained. In Yugoslavia policing was divided functionally between the political Division for the Protection of the People (established with Soviet guidance and later changed to the State Security Service) and a Service for Public Protection.

In line with self-management and reforms geared towards destatisation, Yugoslavia developed a further element of the police system: the socialisation of security’. Responsibility for protecting their own property fell on social enterprises involved in production and socially owned security enterprises were established.

Function

Regime protection was a central function. Police functions have an implication on who is employed within the service and party penetration of the police was particularly high.

Patterns of property ownership further reinforce the function of the police in defending the party regime. Law and police are historically tied to the protection of property and productive capacity. De-privatized ownership mean the position of property in socialist economies is distinctive from that found under capitalism. Party control of property, through state ownership of the means of production, means that the protection of property is another dimension of protecting the party and reinforces the police role in the party-state-bureaucracy nexus of power.

Post-socialist trajectories and policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A special issue of the Slavic Review in 1999 observed that the now ex-socialist regimes in Europe shared certain similarities in form and functioning of regimes, trends leading to regime collapse and the rapidity of the end of single party systems. These commonalities were contrasted with diverse outcomes in terms of post-socialist regimes. Some states successfully consolidated domestic reforms, other slip back to or never really escape authoritarian rule, while the bulk occupy Carothers’ ‘grey zone’ in between.

Within Yugoslavia, single party rule ended in stages. Slovenia and Croatia were the first republics to hold multi-party elections in the spring of 1990, while BiH and others waited until the end of the year. The elections in BiH handed power to three ethnically-based parties which continue to play a major role in politics today. Control of the police and territorial defence units became contentious as the republic, still part of federal Yugoslavia, had no other armed forces. Throughout 1991, tensions mounted between the three parties. By spring 1992 the country was in a de facto situation of war and remained so until external intervention imposed peace in 1995. The dominant drivers of policing in BiH are as much post-conflict as they are post-socialist, reflecting the interaction of legacies of communism and conflict.

Legitimation

In socialist BiH police authority and legitimacy derived from the party, as in other socialist regimes. This was overlaid with ethnic considerations, ensuring leadership posts were shared across ethnic groups. These two factors combined in the new context emerging from the 1990 elections. The three successful parties acted as representatives of ‘their’ people in nominating police chiefs and other senior officers. Tensions surrounding this were part of the process leading to war. The fragmentation of the police along ethnic lines was clearly evident by March of 1992.

At the end of the war two competing sources of legitimation are evident: local sub-state units and external actors. The immediate post-war period saw the division of police authority across sub-state units in BiH. The Republika Srpska and many of the Cantons in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina were now more ethnically homogenous and local police authority provided ethnically-based security to majority groups. At the same time, peace agreements and international institutions supported the right to return for millions of refugees and displaced people. This required oversight of local police to ensure that minority returnees were secure and that they were not victimized by police tied to local ethno-political elites. International oversight applied to individual officers and police organisations and was undertaken primarily by UN and EU missions.

Structure

The territorial fragmentation of state policing in BiH has already been identified. Peace agreements at Washington (1994) and Dayton (1995) translated wartime divisions into peacetime police boundaries, and limited central state policing powers. International agencies in BiH promoted an expansion of police functions under central state control and even attempted (and failed) to implement a consolidated framework for policing with local police areas established without reference to existing entity and cantonal boundaries.

A UN certification process saw large numbers excluded from the police, in part as a response to police involvement in war crimes and in part dealing with the entry of untrained personnel into the police between 1990 and 1995.

In the former Yugoslavia, where socially owned security firms did exist, their function was the protection of socially owned as opposed to individual property. At the end of the war, prior to the establishment of a legal framework for commercial security services, demobilized soldiers and dismissed police officers moved into this sector. Armin Kržalić's survey of licences granted in BiH suggests slow growth.

BiH joined Interpol while at war in 1992. Like other Western Balkan states, BiH’s policing is somewhat shaped by the requirements of EU association and accession. It also responds to more direct international intervention. I wrote elsewhere on the EU role in shaping policing in BiH, and voiced concerns that the EU’s narrow focus on its own security concerns risks marginalizing those of BiH’s citizens. Nonetheless, even in a small and apparently relatively weak state, domestic political forces successfully resisted EU attempts to impose a single state structure of policing. This is a good illustration of David Bayley’s view that police structures resist external change.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s trajectory and post-socialist police systems

New regimes require new forms of legitimation and this extends to police systems. In BiH and the other cases studied, efforts were made to find new sources of legitimation for the police in the absence of single party rule. In BiH the first shift in legitimation was still very much linked to the parties in power and was associated with the stalling of the transition and development of conflict. Post-war international oversight in BiH has addressed this to some extent.

All countries studied engaged in replacing internal security personnel but with variation in how and when it was carried out. Both the Georgian and Bosnian examples show continuity in that the police remained, in the first instance, tied closely to a particular party or governing regime. In both, this is associated with a subsequent breakdown in peace and order. In each of these states, further waves of lustration take place at a later stage. Changes of personnel in line with shifts in power serve important symbolic and practical ends. As well as changes to the personnel, other changes of an important symbolic nature took place including the renaming of forces, changes in ranks and changes in uniform. This apparent shift to civilianisation sometimes sits uneasily against public information campaigns which police in more military style clothing and carrying long-barrelled weapons in the battle against organized crime, particularly in BiH.

Commercial forms of security were largely undeveloped in state-socialist police systems and have experienced ‘sudden booms’ and ‘spectacular growth’ in the subsequent period, but with significant variation. Variable growth can be explained by a range of contextual factors, including legal frameworks, demand and supply.

New possibilities for private enterprise, including in the security sector, combined with a rise of private property to create a potential market and a framework for provision. The collapse of the centrally planned economies and the introduction of market liberalisation opened formerly socialist states to a new level of consumerism and the commodification of goods and services previously provided by the state.

On the demand side of the equation, failures of state police make various forms of private security more attractive. Fear generated by increasing crime rates and the visibility of crime was common across the post-socialist world and further insecurities specific to post-war contexts featured in BiH (and Georgia). On the supply side, a boom in private security was fed by changes in state police personnel.

The opening up of previously closed economies also created opportunities for major players in the globalized security industry to extend their reach into post-socialist countries. Starting from a controlling stake in Alarm West in 2010, Securitas now employs 1,900 staff in BiH. Compared to Poland, growth in BiH and Georgia was slow, suggesting that even in the context of a security gap, a minimum of security and stability is required for the industry to develop.

In BiH, the fragmented structure of the state and state policing is reflected in companies operating in only one political unit, whether entity, canton or district. The difficulties of establishing firms in more than one entity, while not insurmountable, may have slowed consolidation and growth in the sector.

As the opening up of states in the post-socialist period generated the conditions for participation in a global security market, it also created the opportunity for greater police cooperation across borders and with states outside the former communist bloc. Arguably it made such cooperation more important, but it is structured by the integration of states in global and regional frameworks for cooperation. Of post-communist states 12 joined the EU, 4 are candidates, 2 potential candidates and a further 6 are in the Eastern Partnership scheme.

The central function of protecting and maintaining the regime has been identified in socialist police systems. Post socialist policing is often associated with a reorientation public protection. After the end of single-party rule, certain police functions also develop around the need for protection of the democratic form of politics and associated freedoms, securing the space for free political debate.

While the crime control element of policing was never absent under socialist governments, shifts in the balance between private and state ownership of property mean the police crime prevention and detection role is reoriented towards serving the public and businesses rather than the state. Each country studied took steps to break the police-party link in terms of functions of regime protection, but again with variation in timing, with Georgia being the last to do so.

In the full version of this paper, Poland, Georgia and BiH provide examples of states which made a relatively clear break from socialist power structures. They experienced divergent trajectories and development of police systems. Poland shows the clearest example of a clear and quick break, and more than 25 years on it makes as much sense to describe it in terms of its present as against its socialist past. It provided the best environment for such a break: a well-formed civic movement ready to displace and dismantle the authoritarian regime. In Georgia and BiH there was no strong, unified, and non-nationalist civic alternative to communist successors. In these two cases, the result was conflict which undermines a clear break. This shaped the development of the BiH police system through external intervention and oversight, while it took an internal revolution to challenge police abuses in Georgia. In these cases both the domestic and international environments shaped the police system, which can be understood as both post-conflict and post-socialist. If these states are also able to make a clearer break from remaining legacies of their past, it will make sense to remove them from a category defined by that past.

Local Empowerment: An Answer to Constitutional Reform in BiH?

A new civic coalition, K143, has launched a model for constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina that envisions vesting power at the state and local levels. Could this blueprint offer a solution to the dysfunctionality of the BiH state and, moreover, find its way through the protracted deadlock on the issue? Cera Murtagh considers the prospects

The dysfunctionality of Bosnia and Hercegovina's state structures needs little underlining. The need for reform of the complex, multi-layered political system to which the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords gave birth - entailing a weak central state, two sub-state entities, 10 cantons, 143 local municipalities and one semi-autonomous district – has been the constant theme of Bosnia’s post-war transition. This year that need was brought into sharp focus as people took to the streets in protest against a corrupt, expensive political system that is not working for them. The May floods further exposed the inability of the governing structures to serve the needs of its people as delays, inefficiency, lack of coordination and, indeed, corruption, beset responses to the natural disaster.

A 'Municipalization Model'

Now, a coalition of civil society organisations in Bosnia has devised a plan for reform that it believes can address these fundamental problems and transform Bosnia’s state into a functioning democracy. The group, named Koalicija 143 after the number of municipalities in Bosnia, and led by the Center for Civic Cooperation in Livno, is proposing a 'Municipalization Model' that would see the current multi-level governance system shift to a two-level structure: state and local. With these two levels strengthened and the middle levels (entities and cantons) removed, a number of powers would be devolved downwards to the municipal level, such as local transport and local agriculture, forestry and fisheries, while others, such as healthcare, unemployment benefits and pensions, would be pushed upwards to the state. A number of new state ministries would come into being as a result, including a Ministry of Agriculture and a Ministry of Education.

Functionality & accountability

In response to the ills of the Dayton system, the model is based on the twin principles of functionality and democratic accountability. The two-level structure would be significantly more efficient than the current complex apparatus, the coalition argues, reaping efficiencies of 500m km (€255m) that would be ploughed back into spending on public services such as healthcare and education. The group estimates that spending per capita would rise by 22% for RS residents as a result.

On the democratic side, K143 believes the model would bring government in Bosnia closer to the people. On the state level, voters would directly elect members to the House of Representatives under a First Past the Post model, unlike the current party list system of proportional representation whereby voters can only choose from a list put together by parties. The municipality would form the electoral unit with each municipality electing at least one Member of Parliament. In multi-member municipalities a form of rank-order PR would replace FPTP. State government would be headed by a Prime Minister who would have to gain three-fifths majority in parliament, while a single president, with solely representative functions, would also be elected by parliament.

Local empowerment

But this is also a blueprint for local empowerment. The model would see as much power as possible devolved downward to Bosnia's 143 municipalities. As the level of government closest to, and most trusted by, people, the coalition argues this redistribution will empower Bosnia's citizens, giving them more control over how they are governed and making representatives more accountable to their demands. In this way, the model chimes with wider global arguments for democratic reform based on local empowerment, such as those along the lines of the Nordic model being advanced by some ahead of the independence referendum in Scotland.

A further hope is that shifting the focus to local issues that matter to people could give rise to more issue-based politics and an end to the dominance of ethno-national politics. The coalition foresees regional cooperation between municipalities in the interest of economic development, on areas like forestry and tourism. Foča arguably has more to gain from regional economic links with Sarajevo than it does with Banja Luka, for example. The group believes this ground-up approach could gradually change the character of politics in BiH, as rational local self-interest trumps ethnic interests.

Group protections

But, needless to say, in the post-Dayton context no model would see the light of day without guarantees for the 'constitutent peoples'. Mindful of this reality, the model includes a number of direct and indirect mechanisms for group protection. At state level, sensitive issues, such as electing governments and passing budgets, would be dealt with through qualified majority voting, requiring a three-fifths majority in Parliament. Furthermore, voters would elect a Council of Peoples to oversee legislation from the House of Representatives in order to safeguard Vital National Interests. Unlike under the current system however, these interests would be constitutionally defined. The 20 member body would consist of five representatives of each constituent people, as well as five others/national minorities and would be elected within a single country-wide electoral unit. At the local level, a Council for Intercommunity Relations with similar powers would be elected.

Rational self-interest

The product of several years of work by many of those involved, the Municipalization Model comes as a sophisticated and well thought through plan for constitutional reform in BiH. This is a model with rational choice at its core. It has looked at the issue from the perspective of each 'constituent people', as well as those who do not identify as a member of any of these groups, pre-empted concerns and outlined what is in it for each. Under the model, it argues, no group could be dominated by another, while, for example, Croat-majority communities would gain greater representation at local and state level and RS residents would benefit from greater public spending and better services.

Challenges

Appealing to the rational self-interest of actors is no doubt a smart move. But what about the self-interest of the political elites? Nationalist parties and politicians have little to gain and a great deal to lose from this model, which, in abolishing entities and cantons, proposes to cut away a substantial portion of their power base.

The K143 document admits that there 'nothing in here for the current political elites', but says it plans to build consensus from the bottom-up: 'a critical mass of citizens drawn from each self-defined group of people in society'. But as the persistent block to previous attempts at constitutional reform, it is not clear how the coalition plans to by-pass the entrenched power of Bosnia's elites and their interest in perpetuating the status-quo. Although it has put forward some solid arguments for how each community would be protected under the model, it will still be all too easy for parties, particularly in the RS, to portray it as threatening 'their group's' interests – as has been evident from some of the reaction already.

Countering these emotive forces will be no small challenge for the coalition. Other questions include how the system would tackle – or prevent increasing - political corruption and patronage at the local level. Nevertheless, this civic initiative comes as a positive and significant contribution to the debate on constitutional reform in Bosnia. In the coming year it plans to build a broad coalition of individuals and organisations in support of the model. It has a hefty task ahead of it, but if it manages to move the debate forward and contribute to a longer term solution it will be a considerable achievement.

Bosnia’s Elections 2014 – Cantonal Level

It’s an election year here in Bosnia, with October elections to legislatures in 10 cantons, both entities and the state parliament, and direct presidential elections in Republika Srpska and for the three member state presidency. The elections run on a four year cycle, with elections to the municipal councils running every four years in the interim. Olympic games – municipal elections; Football world cup – state, entities and cantons.
Municipal elections as a mid-term indicator

The municipal elections can serve as a useful guide to directions of change – when I was writing Making the Transition the 2008 vote pointed towards the decline of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) one of the main advocates of centralisation in Bosnia. They had enjoyed major success in 2006, including securing the Bosniak seat on the state Presidency; and many of their 2006 gains were subsequently wiped out in 2010.

2014 seems more difficult to predict, given the unrest and dissatisfaction evident, especially in the Federation. It doesn’t seem that any party has been able to respond to the dissatisfaction in a way that might translate into electoral support.

A tale of two peoples? Stability and change

Maps showing the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Brčko District, and the 10 Cantons of the federation. Maps taken from Making the Transition, 2011.

At the level of the cantons, pooling the results of Municipal elections suggested a fair degree of stability in the three cantons more heavily populated by Croats (Posavina [2 in the map above] in the north and Western Herzegovina [8] and Canton 10*). Here, politics is dominated by the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and their splinter party, HDZ 1990.

There are five Cantons which have larger concentrations of Bosniaks (1 Una Sana, 3 Tuzla, 4 Zenica-Doboj, 5 Bosnian Podrinja, 9 Sarajevo). Throughout these, the main picture seems to be that the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the party formerly led by Alija Izetbegović, is gaining in strength, mainly at the expense of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). This fits with a degree of disillusionment over the SDP record in government; the SDP member of the state Presidency resigned from the party in the middle of his term, serving the remaining time as an independent. 

Tuzla Canton: Projections for 2014 elections based on 2012 municipal results, showing stability for most parties but a loss of 3 seats for SDP and an equivalent gain for SDA. 

Two further cantons, Central Bosnia [6], and Herzegovina-Neretva [7], based around Mostar, have a more even split between the Bosniak and Croat population. Mostar failed to hold municipal elections in 2012, and as it has the largest electorate in the H-N canton, the absence this means there is less of a solid indicator of changes or stability in political direction

In Central Bosnia, the patterns of the Bosniak and Croat-dominated cantons are repeated: stability in HDZ BiH and other Croat-oriented parties (who make up around 1/3 of assembly members). There are drops in support for the SDP as well as for Bosniak-oriented and Multi-ethnic parties (SBB, SBiH, NSRB, the latter possibly winning no seats). The SDA looks to gain from these losses to make up roughly 1/3 of the assembly. 

‘All else being equal’ these educated guesses might suggest a shift back to the domination of the SDA and HDZ in the Federation, but in light of the protests and the Plenums in this part of the country, ‘all things being equal’ does not seem like a safe assumption. New parties can emerge and make an impact relatively swiftly here, as was seen when media-boss Fahrudin Radončić launched his Union for a Better Future (SBB) party in 2009, gaining enough support to secure ministerial representation in the state government after the 2010 elections. Not everyone has a media empire to back them up (Alfa TV, daily paper Dnevni Avaz), but to a lesser extent, other new parties (NSRB, founded 2001) and splinter parties (HDZ 1990, Party of Democratic Activity ASDA) have been able to form a presence, especially at the local level. 

The parties

Following is a list of the main parties covered here

• ASDA, Party of Democratic Activity, splinter party of SDA, Bosniak-oriented, strongest in Una Sana and Zenica cantons. 
• HDZ BiH, Croatian Democratic Union, largest Croat-oriented party, strongest in Croat-dominated cantons and mixed cantons, but present in Assemblies in Zenica-Doboj and Tuzla too. One of the main pre-war parties of government. 
• HDZ 1990, Croatian Democratic Union 1990, splinter party of HDZ BiH, present in Croat and mixed cantons. 
• NSRB, People’s Party for Improvement through Work, multi-ethnic, liberal party founded in 2001, presence has been building in most cantons, but mid-term results suggest a fall-off in support. 
• SBB, multi-ethnic party founded by media-boss and construction entrepreneur Fahrudin Radončić, recently removed from office as minister of security following violent anti-government protests in February. Represented in all cantons except Western Herzegovina and Canton 10. 
• SBiH, Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina, pro-centralisation Bosniak party, enjoyed success in 2006 elections, but saw a major turnaround in 2010. Represented in all cantons except Western Herzegovina and Canton 10.
• SDA, Party of Democratic Action, the largest Bosniak-oriented party and another of the main pre-war parties, represented in all Cantons except Western Herzegovina. After losses in 2010, bounced back in municipal elections. 
• SDP, Social Democratic Party, multi-ethnic party, has been in office at various levels and stages in post-war Bosnia. Largest party in a number of Cantons in 2010 elections (Una Sana, Tuzla, Bosnian Podrinja, Sarajevo). 

*The naming of Canton 10 is a matter of dispute, and it is known variously as Kanton 10, Livanjski kanton, and Hercegbosanska županija.