Building and Sustaining Cooperation Across Divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina examines how cooperation works across political and ethnonational divisions, why it produces different results depending on the setting, and where institutions have room to act.

The paper draws on fieldwork carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States between June and August 2026, comprising 23 key informant interviews and 11 focus groups and roundtables with participants from the Armed Forces, business, academia, civil society and the U.S.-based diaspora, together with European Union officials working on the Bosnia and Herzegovina accession portfolio. The research also reviewed 118 scholarly, policy and official sources on cooperation and institutional change in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The study documents forms of cooperation that are often less visible than political conflict in public and media accounts and examines the institutional conditions that allow that cooperation to continue, influence public decisions and become part of institutional practice.

Key findings

• Cooperation across political and ethnonational divisions is more common in Bosnia and Herzegovina than political and public discourse might suggest. People routinely work, trade, research, organize and solve problems with others despite divisions that remain highly salient in the country’s politics.
• Cooperative arrangements worked best when participants had a clear reason to rely on one another and sufficient authority and institutional support to carry the work forward. The Armed Forces provide the clearest case, with personnel from different parts of the country working within a single institution, under a common mission, chain of command and professional standards.
• Cooperation could produce substantial results, yet fail to translate into institutional action. This was especially evident where the people and organizations working together remained institutionally separate and the next approval, financing decision, legal change or political agreement lay elsewhere.
• Three points where cooperation loses force recur across sectors: when political backing changes; when the next decision lies with another institution; and when funding or institutional knowledge is lost.
• International support helped institutions complete technical and administrative work, but had less influence when political agreement over authority was required. The EU accession process illustrates this distinction. Requirements that institutions can meet within existing mandates can move forward through technical and administrative work. Changes to the distribution of authority still depend on political agreement.
• Public agreement is far stronger on how institutions should perform than on how political power should be organized. The 2026 CONSENT BiH survey found views much closer on judicial independence, professional public administration, equal rights and institutional integrity than on territory, sovereignty, representation and international supervision.

Recommendations

Many of the constraints identified in the research can be anticipated at the outset of a program. The paper identifies five areas where there is room to act:

1. Leverage broad public support to create room for reform. Public agreement is far stronger on how institutions should perform than on how political power should be organized. Use it to make professional criteria, documented decisions and verifiable rules concrete.
2. Map decision processes and identify where existing authority ends. Establish at the outset which body holds each required decision, and whether it can be built into the work from the start.
3. Establish handoffs between institutions. For each dependency, agree what the receiving institution needs, who provides it and when, and resolve incompatible procedures before they interrupt implementation.
4. Sustain cooperation through early transfers of responsibility and knowledge. Transfer responsibility, relationships and recurring finance to a successor before external support ends or experienced people leave.
5. Establish a durable public counterpart for diaspora engagement. Create a standing function, at the level the issue requires, that can connect diaspora expertise and investment with institutions able to use them.

Reference

Panter-Brick, C., Simon, D., Nurkić, M., Pozderac, A., & Šabić-Hamidović, D. (2026). Building and Sustaining Cooperation Across Divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Policy Paper. Jackson School of Global Affairs, Yale University, and Institute for Development Impact (I4DI).

Co-authors’ affiliations

¹ Jackson School of Global Affairs, Yale University, New Haven, CT
² Institute for Development Impact (I4DI), Washington, DC