Introduction

It has long been argued that Bosnians are apathetic, apolitical and not capable of, or willing to, bring about political change. The international community has often accused Bosnians of being inert, emphasising how citizens could have a positive impact upon the local political process through the elections but have often failed to do so. As this chapter shows, however, often overlooked processes of political mobilisation have taken place in Bosnia–Herzegovina (BiH) because of, or perhaps in spite of, a system based on international tutelage. Cultural and social movements of resistance have existed in the country for some time but were barely channelled into official political processes. Such movements, as we argue, have laid the foundations for a wave of high-profile protests in many Bosnian towns in February 2014. These protests testify to Bosnian citizens’ attempt to reclaim their agency and suggest alternatives of how their economic, political and social needs can be met. Popular protests as well as bottom-up proposals have faced mixed responses by the international community. In fact, the protest movements have forced international actors to rethink the role of Bosnian citizens in the peace- and state-building jigsaw while, at the same time, clinging firmly to established top-down mechanisms of intervention. It is through the interaction between such competing processes that we can see the potential emergence of a post-liberal peace which, however, is still carrying the burden of two decades of intervention.

This chapter takes an insider–outsider perspective in that one of the authors has been involved in the protest movement himself. These insider experiences are complemented through interviews as well as a long-standing engagement with international peacebuilding on the part of all authors. We have seen the recent protests as a fundamental change to previous patterns of political apathy as well as the ways in which the ‘everyday’ is politicised. At the same time, we acknowledge the continuities of international intervention linked to the power of the state. We see these interactions as particularly relevant in our analysis of agency that responds to the inadequacy of the ‘Liberal Peace’.