Policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2021)
Policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2021)

Author(s): Stiven Tremaria
Subject(s): Politics, Security and defense, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Centar za Sigurnosne Studije
Keywords: BiH; pandemic; security; policing; COVID-19; pandemics;
Summary/Abstract: This paper provides an account of the developments of policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2021 to shed light on elements of continuity and changes from previous trends observable since the 2010s. It is contended that the COVID-19 has made manifest the extent to which the factual management capacity of the Bosnian state administration and the police forces has consolidated in the entities and cantons. By contrast, central state police agencies suffer from chronic stagnation, institutional dysfunctionality, and a lack of factual management capacity to face unexpected challenges and emergencies. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has fostered certain conditions for advancing the rollback of the democratically oriented police reform observable at the entity and cantonal levels since the last decade, which manifests through politicisation, militarisation and slight informalisation of policing. In particular, such police counter-reform has been more acute in the Republika Srpska under the SNSD rule, in contrast to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose police forces are affected by severe degrees of institutional fragmentation, dysfunctional working and clientelism.

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