User:Bradyscheiner/Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Inter-ethnic relations
On the other hand, it has been found that direct individual experiences of war did not influence the individual's measured ethno-nationalism. It has been found that ethnic civil war alone does not have a tendency to increase the abundance of ethno-nationalism in a country; though, this is context-dependent. Karin Dyrstad argues that the Dayton agreement, although intended to improve relations following the war, damaged them and segregated the country even further. Her argument lies on her finding that local policy change provides the context that determines the lasting effect of ethnic civil wars on ethno-nationalism. So, the Dayton agreement, she argues, is the local policy change that propelled the Bosnian War into having the disastrous post-war effects on inter-ethnic relations that it did. Before the war, Bosnia had rather good inter-ethnic relations compared to other Western Balkan states. In the years following the war, all three ethnic groups experienced a drastic increase in the prevalence of ethno-nationalism, the group with the most dramatic shift being the Serbs. This increased ethno-nationalism contributed to the deterioration of inter-ethnic relations in the country.

The intensity of communal exposure to violence during the Bosnian War has continued to have significant resounding effects on inter-ethnic relations and the political system, even after twenty years. It has been found that communities that had a higher exposure to violence continue to have lower levels of inter-ethnic trust and associate more with their ethnic political party. This leads to ethnic voting, otherwise known as voting along ethnic party lines; though, the levels of ethnic voting have begun to dwindle in recent elections, suggesting the violence's effect on ethnic voting is beginning to decrease. Still, a lasting effect of this violence is that it eroded social networks that extended beyond an individual's ethnic group and diminished the probability of reforming them. Hadzic et al. found that those with social ties that are almost strictly restricted to their own ethnic group also tend to have even lower levels of inter-ethnic trust than those that do not. They also found that the Bosnian War led to an increase in ethnic homogeneity, which has been shown to influence government spending on ethnically homogenous areas in a way that is meant to further induce ethnic voting. All of these contributing factors help to explain the extremity of political polarization along ethnic cleavages, which is marked by the growth of support for ethnic parties. Hadzic argues that ethnic parties are harming Bosnia's development and preventing the betterment of inter-ethnic relations, as they are incentivized to withhold universally beneficial policies in order to prevent unintentionally helping out-group members.