Governing through Crime Internationally? Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The article adapts and applies the governing through crime framework to analyse the EU and Office of the High Representative (OHR) as international governing actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Limited, ambiguous and opportunistic use of techniques associated with governing through crime are most evident in relation to OHR, but only as one of a wider range of governing logics, and are linked to specific challenges of legitimation. The outward spread of criminal justice models and metaphors proposed by Simon is shown to be problematic in light of the breadth of activities that such a stance might admit to the framework.

Policing for democracy or democratically responsive policing? Examining the limits of externally driven police reform

“…An OHR representative identified the early advances in inter-party talks as evidence of Brussels ‘leading the agenda’ and described the approach of party representatives at the Vlašić talks of 2005 as, ‘this is something the European Union wants, let’s get on with it’ (Aitchison, interview, Sarajevo, May 2005). Representatives of the European Commission were very clear that restructuring was required to facilitate EU interaction with BiH government and police institutions and to effectively address crimes of particular concern to the Union (Aitchison, 2012: 9). Yet the proposal of cross-IEBL policing areas on the grounds of technical criteria was seen by RS politicians as a failure to recognize ‘the weight and importance of these symbolic issues’ (Mladen Ivanić in OHR, 2005b).…”

“…External pressure to adopt structures that do not correspond to locally contested and defined preferences is accompanied by a tendency for EU intervention to focus on specific forms of crime related to the Union’s security interests rather than those defined in BiH. This has been documented elsewhere (Aitchison, 2012: 8; Collantes-Celador and Ionnides, 2011: 428 ff). In relation to its member states, it makes sense that the EU should restrict its activities to these fields, where pooling state capacity may lead to more effective policing.…”

“…The High Representative draws his authority from those agreements, a series of UN Security Council Resolutions and the conclusions of a Peace Implementation Council. For more detail, see Aitchison (2012: 5).…”