Municipalities and Cities Along the Entity Boundary in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Problems of Local and Regional Development

Abstract

The Dayton Peace Agreement established a new political and territorial division of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, which led to changes in the internal regional structure and the concept of regional development, which was decisively influenced by the Inter-Entity Boundary Line. Such circumstances have caused certain changes also at the local level, where the number of municipalities/cities has increased from 109 to 143. The subject of research in this paper are newly formed units of local administration, among which the majority are those that were created by the inter-entity disintegration of once unique municipalities. In most cases, these are small, rural, underdeveloped and marginalized municipalities, whose economic self-sustainability is highly questionable. This study analyzes the basic socio-economic parameters, which also indicate a certain degree of differentiation among the observed municipalities, with those areas that are closer to larger urban centers being perceived as more positive examples.