Electoral Geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Social Cleavages Affecting Party Support

Abstract

Experts label Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political life as ethnicized and consider it its determinative aspect. As a consequence, and also due to the overcomplicated political system, only a few papers have been published so far on the electoral geography of the country. Our objective, while accepting the importance of the ethnic approach, is to uncover what other factors affect party performance and what, if any, territorial pattern, different from the ethnic one, can be drawn. We calculated correlation of social variables and party results, and used cluster analysis to define its territoriality. We argue that besides the ‘ethnic rule’ the classic social cleavages are also present in the country in a similar way to the rest of Europe, but less significantly. This also has a clear territoriality besides the ethnic one, which in the majority of cases is still the decisive factor.