Crisis Governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia: The Study of Floods in 2014 (Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe) PDF
Preview Crisis Governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia: The Study of Floods in 2014 (Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe)
ISBN 978-3-03-432747-3 9 783034 327473 www.peterlang.com www.peterlang.com CRISIS GOVERNANCE IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, CROATIA AND SERBIA INTERDISCIPLINARY STuDIES ON CENTRAL AND EASTERN EuROPE Vol. 17 Edited by Nicolas Hayoz, Jens Herlth & Julia Richers PETER LANG Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Oxford • Warszawa • Wien vedran DŽIHIĆ, magdalena SolSKA (eds) CRISIS GOVERNANCE IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, CROATIA AND SERBIA The Study of Floods in 2014 PETER LANG Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Oxford • Warszawa • Wien Bibliographic information published by die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National- bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at ‹http://dnb.d-nb.de›. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960477 Cover illustration: ISBN 978-3-0343-2747-3 pb. ISBN 978-3-0343-2883-8 eBook ISBN 978-3-0343-2885-2 MOBI ISBN 978-3-0343-2884-5 EPuB ISSN 1661-1349 pb. ISSN 2235-7025 eBook DOI 10.3726/b13392 This publication has been peer reviewed. © Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2018 Wabernstrasse 40, CH-3007 Bern [email protected], www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Contents Vedran Džihić and Magdalena Solska 1. The Floods of 2014: Crisis Governance, State Capacities and Political Regimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia ....................................................................................7 Damir Kapidžić, Dušan Pavlović and Gordan Bosanac 2. Crisis Response in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia ........27 Marko Vujačić 3. Leadership in Megacrisis: The Case of the 2014 Floods in Serbia......59 Snježana Milivojević and Bojana Barlovac 4. Media and Floods under Crisis in Serbia .........................................85 Danijela Majstorović and Zoran Vučkovac 5. Managing Floods, Challenging Ethnopolitics in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Example of the Town of Doboj ...................101 Adnan Efendić 6. The Role of Economic and Social Capital during the Floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina .........................................125 Iva Kornfein Groš 7. International Financial Aid in the Postcrisis Phase in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia ..............................151 Sanneke Kuipers 8. Crisis Leadership in Governing Floods: Lessons from the Western Balkans ............................................................173 Damir Kapidžić, Dušan Pavlović and Gordan Bosanac Appendix 1: Mapping an Unfolding Crisis: Key Developments during the Floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia .......189 Dušan Pavlović, Damir Kapidžić and Gordan Bosanac Appendix 2: Flood Protection Systems in the Precrisis Phase: The Cases of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina ........................199 Notes on Contributors ................................................................................223 Vedran Džihić and Magdalena Solska 1. The Floods of 2014: Crisis Governance, State Capacities and Political Regimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia This introductory chapter considers the different political systems in Bosnia and Her- zegovina (BiH), Serbia and Croatia and tries to capture theoretically the relationship between crisis management, the art of leadership and governance. It also seeks to draw conclusions about state capacity through the lenses of crisis governance. Finally, it looks at the relationship between the specific response to the crisis and the process of learning at individual and institutional levels in democratic and nondemocratic regimes. We argue in this chapter and throughout the whole volume that the ways in which countries deal with major crises reveal much about their state capacity and about the fundamental character of their regimes. Keywords: crisis governance, leadership, learning, state capacity Introduction The floods in May 2014 in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been termed the most devastating event since the wars. Despite this landmark occurrence, the causes of the disproportionate damage, the apparent lack of preparedness or efficiency of the main institutions and individuals in charge have not attracted much academic attention. This volume attempts to fill in this gap and explore central tenets of crisis governance in the three countries under study.1 1 This book is the final result of a 2-year research project, Governing the Floods in the Western Balkans, financed by the Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP) at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. The project brought together eight research teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia. The scholars represented different disciplines and were therefore interested in different aspects of crisis governance during the floods in May 2014. Their research evolved gradually 8 Vedran Džihić and Magdalena Solska Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina share a common past in the former Yugoslavia and the fact that they were severely affected by the wars of the 1990s. The point of departure for the transition towards democracy for all three countries was marked by the end of the war in Bosnia in 1995 but, more fundamentally, by the death of Franjo Tuđman in Croatia in 1999 and the so-called “Serbian October revolution” in 2000, when Slobodan Milošević was overthrown. The sudden changes in Croatia and Serbia were accompanied by the emerging perspective of EU integra- tion for the Western Balkans in 1999 and 2000. Following the years from 2000 until the financial crisis of 2007–2012, which hit the Balkans particularly hard, democratization efforts translated into reform programs and agendas aiming to strengthen democratic insti- tutions, the rule of law and the economy in the region. There were also signs of democratic convergence and of the rather linear transitional path previously traced in the majority of countries in Central and Northeastern Europe that entered the EU in 2004. However, the economic crisis revealed the weaknesses of institutions and democratic governance in the region. In Bosnia the new economic and social downturn in the late 2000s had a very negative impact on the political climate in the country. Already strong ethnonationalism became even more pronounced, leading to a situation where major political parties and their leaders in the country emphasized symbolic politics rather than reforms and incremental societal changes. Serbia was also hit hard by the economic crisis, leading to an increase in unemployment, reduced economic growth and rising public debt and trade deficit. Parallel to the economic crisis, Serbia at that time found itself in a very painful process of dealing with the Kosovo issue (Kosovo became independent in February 2008), so the economic downturn went hand in hand with very emotional public discourse on Kosovo, which resulted in democratic reforms slowing down. with extensive fieldwork and several workshops organized in Fribourg, Sarajevo and Belgrade during the years 2015–2016. We would like to thank Lidija Knežević, Jelena Puđak, Amer Osmić, Sanjin Hamidičević, Ivan Stanojević, Saša Grujović, Mirko Dautović and Višeslav Raos for the valuable support and assitance in this project. We are also grateful to Vedran Horvat for preparing a policy brief: “Opportunity (Lost) for Climate Policy Reforms? Case of Floods in the Western Balkans”, and to Damir Kapidžić for the policy brief “Governing the Floods: Bosnia and Herzegovina”. Both documents are available at: http://www.rrpp-westernbalkans.net/en/research/Govern ing-the-Floods.html (accessed 12 October 2017). Finally, the editors of this book are indebted to the RRPP management for financial support for this project.
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