Britain does not have a written constitution. It has rather, over centuries, developed a set of miscellaneous conventions, rules, and norms that govern political behavior. By contrast, Bosnia’s constitution was written, quite literally, overnight in a military hanger in Dayton, USA, to conclude a devastating war. By most standards it does not work and is seen to have merely frozen a conflict and all development with it. What might these seemingly unrelated countries be able to teach each other? Britain, racked by recent crises from Brexit to national separatism, may be able to avert long-term political conflict by understanding the pitfalls of writing rigid constitutional rules without popular participation or the cultivation of good political culture. Bosnia, in turn, may be able to thaw its frozen conflict by subjecting parts of its written constitution to amendment, with civic involvement, on a fixed and regular basis; a ’revolving constitution’ to replicate some of that flexibility inherent in the British system. A book not just about Bosnia and Britain; a standard may be set for other plural, multi-ethnic polities to follow.
Author(s): Aarif Abraham
Series: Balkan Politics and Society
Publisher: ibidem Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 380
City: Stuttgart
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
1. “A text about a text”: constitutions of Britain and Bosnia
1.1 Searching for the soul of a state
1.2 Overview of the British constitution
1.3 Overview of the Bosnian constitution
1.4 Comparative constitutional histories
2. “Look a shoot is sprouting”: measuring culture
2.1 Political culture in theory
2.2 Political culture in practice
2.3 Political culture applied to Bosnia and Britain
2.4 Problem of political apathy
3. “Going back to whence I sprang”: assessing apathy
3.1 A-systemic orientations
3.2 Anti-systemic orientations
3.3 Absence of interpersonal trust
3.4 Institutions as an explanation
4. “We’ve still not found a cure”: constitutional rules
4.1 Constitutional choice and change
4.2 Recurrent crisis and rarefied reform in Bosnia
4.3 Rising strain amidst weak reform in Britain
4.4 Reform dilemmas and deadlock
5. “We need to uncover lost paths”: modelling change
5.1 Modelling intransigence
5.2 Modelling the failure of reform
5.3 Modelling successful evolution in the short run
5.4 Modelling future co-operation and participation
6. “A text about hope”: lessons from Bosnia and Britain
6.1 Debate, deliberation and participation
6.2 Lessons for Bosnia and post-conflict societies
6.3 Lessons for Britain and pre-conflict societies
6.4 Pathways out of constitutional quagmires
BEYOND LAW, PRESCRIPTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
AFTERWORD
APPENDICES
GLOSSARY
REFERENCES
