Political Parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Principle of the Constituency of Peoples
Political Parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Principle of the Constituency of Peoples

Summary/Abstract: This article provides an overview of how, although the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina itself proclaims the principle of democracy, it still contains many elements that limit the democratic capacity of the country's institutions. In this regard, the study is particularly interested in the scope of the principle of the constituency of the people, which is the product of the activities of ethno-national political parties in the peace negotiations of 1992–1995 and the negotiation of a new constitutional order, on the electoral and political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This article contributes to help filling the gap in the existing literature on the study of the interplay between the democratic process, the choice of the electoral systems and the role of the political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a new democracy in the Western Balkans. The novelty to the general theory on the models of democracy is the historical development that led to the application of the model of consociational democracy, which includes a combination of the international factors, internal conflicts, and political parties. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina is interesting because it shows how the constitutional system has changed from citizen-based to an ethnicity-based fundamentals, because of the activity of political parties.

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