The dissertation discusses the impact of the process of accession to the European Union (EU) – i.e. Europeanisation – on the formulation of the ethnic identity of Bosnian Serbs and the political identity of Republika Srpska (RS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The centrepiece of the doctoral thesis is an examination of how it is possible that the expected effect of Europeanisation on ethnic identities in a post-conflict environment – a transformation of ethnic
identities through desecuritisation – does not materialise in the case of BiH and the RS. We start from the assumption that the political elite in the RS uses Europeanisation as a context for the securitisation of two sources of threats – the internal and external Other. This prevents the transformation of ethnic identities in BiH, and as a result also the desecuritisation of antagonisms among the ethnic groups of BiH. In this case, the internal Other are Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, while the external Other is the EU. Consequently, we reveal how the political elite in the RS maintains the ontological security of the RS as a political entity by preserving the antagonisms among the ethnic groups of BiH in the context of the EU accession process;
securitisation is used as a technique of governance by the RS political elite. We test this argument on three events that are understood as points of ruptures: negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the Prud and Butmir processes, and the referendum on the Day of Republika Srpska. We establish that the EU does not possess the potential to desecuritise the antagonisms among the ethnic groups of BiH. Any attempt at a more active engagement by the EU was interpreted by the RS political elite as a Bosniak agenda aimed against the RS. The analysis shows that the RS political elite and Bosnian Serbs see the
presence of the EU in a more positive light when its goals are less political and focused more on the economy. The results of the dissertation show that BiH’s EU accession process or a clearer EU perspective alone do not outweigh the potential costs for the RS political elite if reforms aimed at creating a more functional BiH were to succeed. In all three analysed points of ruptures, the RS political elite presented motions for a more functional BiH as attempts to centralise the country, and framed them as the beginning of the end for the RS as a political entity.
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