The Dayton Accords: Anchor to the Past or Bridge to the Future?
The Dayton Accords: Anchor to the Past or Bridge to the Future?

Summary/Abstract: The Dayton Accords, signed in 1995, aimed to do things: end hostilities in Bosnia and establish the framework for a working relationship among the three major ethnic groups that would lead to the establishment of a centralized, unified, multi-ethnic, democratic, free enterprise state in the Balkans.While the Accords did end the Bosnian iteration of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, it has been woefully inadequate as a vehicle to political success, at least as its authors and supporters intended it to be. Although all eleven annexes were supposed to play a role in establishing the political framework, Annex IV—as the constitution for the new state—was tasked with defining the primary structures and functions of the hoped for relationship. The stated objective of Western officials was that Bosnia would evolve quickly under the guiding hand of the “international community.”The difficulties in fashioning that state are now well documented. Indeed, no sooner had the Dayton Accords been signed, than there were calls to revise them and even abandon them for something better, something that would more permanently cement the constitutional order of Bosnia in place. Most of these calls came from Washington, from many of the same people who had authored the Dayton process in the first place, including Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the chief architect. Ever since 1995 there has been no dearth of criticism and speculation about the Accords, especially the veracity and usefulness of Annex IV. Seemingly, we never tire of debating the future of Bosnia and what it will take to make it a truly modern, functioning European state.

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