Atlas / Organisations / Dayton Bosnia

Dayton Bosnia

1995– · Bosnia · Consociational · Held state power · coding confidence medium

+03ECmarket
+05CUtraditional
+04AUmonist
−03SClocal
+08IDascriptive
−05CHlawful

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

A constitution written to stop a war, which allocates every office by ethnicity and has proved almost impossible to amend.

Economic model

Fragmented across two entities and ten cantons; high unemployment and emigration.

Organisation of powers

A three-member rotating presidency by ethnicity, an international High Representative with power to impose laws and dismiss officials.

Reading note

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2009 that citizens outside the three constituent peoples are unlawfully barred from high office. The ruling remains unimplemented.

Check a claim about Dayton Bosnia. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +03

Coded +3: an economy fragmented across two entities and ten cantons.

  • Comparative datasetPublic administration consumes an unusually high share of GDP across the layers.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored +05

Coded +5: three national communities with parallel institutions.

  • Documented act or statuteSchools operate under the two-schools-under-one-roof arrangement in parts of the federation.

AU · Organisation of power · scored +04

Coded +4: elected institutions under an international official who can dismiss them.

  • Documented act or statuteThe High Representative's Bonn powers permit imposing law and removing elected officials.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −03

Coded −3: authority concentrated in entities and cantons rather than the state.

  • Documented act or statuteThe state has few exclusive competences under the Dayton constitution.

ID · Rule of membership · scored +08

At the exclusionary end: offices allocated by constituent people.

  • Documented act or statuteThe European Court of Human Rights ruled in Sejdić and Finci v Bosnia in 2009 that this is unlawful; it remains in force.

CH · Method and tempo · scored −05

Coded −5: a constitution written to stop a war, and unamendable in practice.

  • Documented act or statuteNo substantive amendment has passed in thirty years.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Bosnia

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Dayton Bosnia. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/dayton/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.