An election in September 1996 produced a tripartite national presidency chaired by Izetbegović and an ethnically apportioned national legislature dominated by nationalist parties. Karadžić had been indicted for war crimes and was prohibited from being a candidate, though he retained some support among Bosnian Serbs into the 21st century. (He eluded capture until his arrest in Belgrade in July 2008.) The national government was largely responsible for foreign affairs, and the internationally appointed Office of the High Representative—established under the Dayton Accords and later granted overriding executive powers (the so-called Bonn Powers)—oversaw the implementation of the peace agreement and acted as the final authority. Meanwhile, the two parts of the republic, the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic), were largely autonomous, each having its own assembly.
Over the next several years the country experienced an uneasy peace. It received extensive international assistance, but the economy remained in shambles. Much of the workforce was unemployed—about 50 percent in the Federation and about 70 percent in the Republika Srpska. By the early 21st century, however, projects funded by the World Bank had succeeded in reconstructing much of the country’s infrastructure, and some political and economic reforms were implemented. In the course of the regional economic boom of 2006–08, unemployment in the country fell to less than 30 percent.As European bank credit and foreign direct investment took the place of declining international aid, rates of economic growth averaged 6 percent. Although the international financial crisis that began in 2008 did affect the economy, it had less of an impact in Bosnia and Herzegovina than elsewhere in the Balkans, as the country’s current account and state budget deficits were relatively small. Regional relations also improved in the early 21st century. In both the Croat and Serb communities, calls for breaking away from Bosnia and Herzegovina to unite with Croatia and Serbia declined in the face of faded interest from both of those states. Relations with Croatia in particular warmed in 2010, following Croatian Pres. Ivo Josipović’s apology for his country’s military actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the warfare of the early 1990s.
Nonetheless, other problems have continued to delay the internal integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, leaving in doubt the possibility of accession into the European Union (EU). Although the danger of renewed violence has remained minimal, the stalemate between the Federation and the Republika Srpska has persisted. Struggles over a potential new constitution, including disputed provisions for a common police force, have steadfastly resisted resolution. The international Office of the High Representative has remained in place, despite repeated attempts to end its authority and transfer its advisory functions to an EU office. Underlying all these difficulties are the continuing troubled relations between Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs. Their leaders’ respective demands for a federation with some central powers in Sarajevo and a loose confederation offering the right of secession have been diametrically opposed. Their disagreement has frustrated repeated efforts to draft a new constitution to replace the Dayton agreement. Some promise for progress did emerge from the elections of October 2010. Although the hard-line president of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, was reelected, the Bosniak presidency passed to Bakir Izetbegović, the son of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first president, Alija Izetbegović. Attracting younger voters to his campaign for reconciliation, he joined Bosnian Croat Pres. Željko Komšić as a moderating figure.
In May 2011 Ratko Mladić, who had commanded the Bosnian Serb forces during the war and was widely held to be responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, was captured in Serbia to be extradited to The Hague to face trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The political deadlock that had hobbled the Bosnian government since the October 2010 election was finally resolved on December 28, 2011. The absence of a central government had threatened to spark a financial crisis, as foreign investment contracted and hundreds of millions of dollars from the EU and the International Monetary Fund were withheld. The six major political parties agreed on Bosnian Croat Vjekoslav Bevanda as a compromise choice as prime minister. Bvenda took office in January 2012, and he began to work on a budget that would allow the new government to function. Economic growth and political reform, however, were impeded by persistent gridlock and the country’s inability to effectively coordinate its policies and to establish functional, sustainable institutions at all levels of government.
In 2013 the parliament’s work was stymied by attempts to reshuffle the government and by street demonstrations in Sarajevo. Later that year the government’s precarious balancing of ethnic-based agendas was further eroded after the breakup of an alliance between the two main Bosnian Serb parties—the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and the Serb Democratic Party (SDS). In its annual progress report, the European Commission warned that Bosnia’s complex decision-making process continued to hamper its progress toward EU membership. The country witnessed widespread civil unrest in 2014 after the government approved plans calling for the privatization of some of Bosnia’s largest state-owned enterprises. Citizen-led protests, dubbed by media outlets as the “Bosnian Spring,” focused primarily on long-festering economic and social problems, but they also called on government officials to resign amid accusations of widespread corruption and indifference. According to the Banja Luka-based Centre for Research and Studies, parliamentarians in Bosnia received more than six times the average salary of Bosnians, the largest proportional gap observed in 31 European countries. Joblessness also remained a persistent issue, with general unemployment reaching 46 percent and youth unemployment topping 70 percent in 2015.
General elections in October 2014 saw the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) claim the most votes, and Denis Zvizdić was confirmed as prime minister in February 2015. Zvizdić made the country’s long-stalled EU accession talks one of his top priorities, and on February 15, 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina formally applied for membership in the EU. Although full accession was likely more than a decade away, the move signaled the country’s commitment to economic and political reform as well as to greater integration with other European countries.
In March 2016 Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadžić was found guilty of genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre, and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. In November 2017 Ratko Mladić was found guilty of war crimes and genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Karadžić and Mladić were among the 161 individuals indicted by the ICTY during its 24 years of existence, and the list of the accused included individuals from every ethnicity and nationality represented in the Bosnian conflict. Although ethnic tensions remained among the various groups within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the conclusion of the ICTY’s mandate in 2017 represented the end of an especially painful chapter in the country’s history.