State-Building in Crisis: The Sejdic-Finci Deadlock and its Impact on the Politics of Corruption in BiH

This paper investigates whether the Sejdic-Finci ruling triggered a constitutional and political deadlock in BiH used by domestic elites as an opportunity to maintain the status-quo and to advance regressive reforms as opposed to a liberal state-building agenda. It has long been acknowledged that the constitution of BiH, agreed at Dayton in 1995, acts as a formidable barrier to sustainable political, socio-economic and administrative change. In 2009 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ‘Sejdic-Finci’ ruling deemed parts of BiH’s constitution discriminatory towards minorities. What were the domestic dynamics behind the Sejdic-Finci deadlock, and what were the consequences for the anti-corruption effort? Using an institutionalist analytical toolset and process tracing it is contended that the Sejdic-Finci deadlock revealed the inherent contradictions between promoting technical and political reforms proposed by the 'institutionalisation before liberalisation' state-building stratagem.