Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Fojnica (Bosnia and Hercegovina)'

Bakgrund: En av de viktigaste förutsättningarna för att Bosnien och Hercegovina ska kunna åstadkomma en hållbar ekonomisk tillväxt, är att landet integreras i världsekonomin och skapar ett klimat som främjar utländska investeringar. Idag råder det hård konkurrens mellan länder när det gäller att attrahera utländska investerare, och det är upp till varje land att utveckla effektiva strategier för att kunna hantera konkurrensen.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad Bosnien och Hercegovina gör för att attrahera utländska direktinvesteringar. Vidare är vårt syfte att studera vilka effekter landets aktiviteter har på utländska investerare.

Metod: För att uppnå syftet med uppsatsen används en metodtriangulering bestående av intervjuer med experter, en enkätundersökning av utländska företag i Bosnien och Hercegovina, en deltagande observation samt olika rapporter och andra skriftliga källor.

Resultat och slutsats: Undersökningen visar att Bosnien och Hercegovina har flera fördelar som kan erbjudas till utländska investerare, framförallt naturresurser, men även turismsektorn har potential att utvecklas. Den makroekonomiska stabiliteten upplevs även som mycket fördelaktig. För närvarande finns det däremot fler hinder än fördelar för utländska investerare. Samtliga intervjurespondenter påpekar att den svaga infrastrukturen och den dåliga imagen som landet har i världen, försvårar för utländska investeringar. Faktorer som upplevs som hinder för utländska investerare bottnar främst i det fattiga företagsklimatet och det otillräckliga stödet från regeringen och andra statliga institutioner. Vissa framsteg har gjorts i detta avseende, men för närvarande är det svårt att göra landet konkurrenskraftigt när det gäller att attrahera utländska investerare. Avsaknaden av ett generöst heltäckande incitamentsprogram gör det omöjligt att framhäva de fördelar som finns. Det geografiska läget kan inte utnyttjas med den undermåliga infrastrukturen och de skatteincitamenten som erbjuds får föga effekt när affärsklimatet upplevs som oattraktivt med krångliga regler och långa procedurer. Detta beror på att landets tillgångar inte är identifierade och att få resurser används för att utveckla effektiva strategier för att marknadsföra dem. Uppgiften att förbättra landets image blir därför svår med de förutsättningar som ges.

Background: To become an economically self-sustainable country Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to create the necessary conditions for an accelerated economic recovery, an integration in the world economy and to create a business environment that promotes FDI. Because of the hard competition among countries there is a need to enhance the capacity to attract FDI. Each country has to develop efficient strategies in order to be competitive.

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to examine what Bosnia and Herzegovina does to attract FDI and to identify those factors that are important in determining investment decisions and that influence the environment for conducting business in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Method: In order to attain the purpose of the essay the authors have used a triangulation of methods consisting interviews with experts, a survey of companies that have made foreign investments in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a participant observation.

Results and Conclusions: The study identifies several available advantages for foreign investors in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There is a potential in industries based on natural resources, but there is also a potential for tourism. The macroeconomic stability is also seen as an advantage for the country. The results of the study also show that there are many obstacles for foreign investors. The interview respondents saw the undeveloped infrastructure and the bad image of the country as factors that aggravate the possibility to attract FDI into the country. The poor business environment and the weak support given from the government and other public institutions have been identified as those factors that mainly influence investment decisions negatively. Progresses have been made in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but not enough to be strongly competitive when it comes to attracting FDI. The lack of a general incentive program makes it difficult to emphasise the existing advantages. The weak infrastructure makes it hard to promote the favourable geographic position, and the tax incentives that are offered can hardly be used to attract FDI, because of the unattractive business climate with long administrative procedures. The assets in Bosnia and Herzegovina have not been recognized and there is no general strategy to promote them. Because of these conditions it’s difficult to improve the image of the country.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if reconciliation between former war-enemies and ethnic groups (Muslims, Croats and Serbs) in Bosnia and Hercegovina is possible today. Reconciliation between these groups is necessary for the development of the state and sustainable peace. In order to fulfil the aim I have applied qualitative conversation interviews together with qualitative literature study.

In this research I have studied the three largest parties (SDA, HDZ and SDS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Conversation interviews were made with two representatives of each party. The reconciliation theory and the recommendations that the theory advocates were used in the study. The recommendations were also used to create interview questions that gave me relevant empirical data from the interviews. The interview data with the high representatives of these political parties led to a valid result.

The conclusions show that reconciliation between these three ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not possible today. Huge political, economical and social changes and improvements are necessary. All three classes, top-level, middle-range and grassroots, must get involved in the process if reconciliation is to be possible.

Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina, reconciliation, ethnic groups, political parties.

This qualitative study focuses on the investigation of different actor’s ideas concerning gender and womanhood in a post-socialist nation Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aim of this study is to try to provide experiences and attitudes of one not a new, but definitely one constantly changing phenomenon, trafficking in women for sexual exploitation. The qualitative data is mainly collected through nine interviews with people from Bosnian Governments, International organizations and NGOs during my stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The causes to trafficking are complex and intertwined but it directly relates to gender discrimination and attitudes on sexual relationships between women and men. The study sheds light on how the global politics and economics development situation and theirs affectsprovide gender segregation through the traditionally structures where men are seen as normative.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the parties (USA, Great Britain, UN and the European Union) legitimize their intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina as seen from without the conceptions of sovereignty and intervention.

USA and the UN have legitimized their intervention on security reasons. The American president, George W. Bush, claimed that democracies never engage in war with each other and that democracies were prosperous just because they were democracies. According to the president, that is why it is important to democratise the whole Balkan region to protect the international community from terrorism which grows in unstable and undemocratic states. UN resolutions claim that the situation in Bosnia is a threat to international peace and security and urged all state members to do everything they can for stability in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

European Union and Great Britain saw the organized crime that spreads through Balkan as a major threat to Europe. To be able to deal with his problem, EU is asking for more cooperation among the European states. Bosnia is a member of the Council of Europe and is also involved in the Stabilisation and association process for South eastern Europe with the EU. The purpose of these memberships is to foster the political and economic development in Bosnia and lead to full membership in the European Union, but only if Bosnia fulfils all the reforms that EU demands. To get economic aid from the EU, Bosnian leaders are forced to reform and engage in regional cooperation.

In the long run democratisation is the goal for all the parties, while security is the main issue at short-term. That is why the main concern for USA is for now the war on terrorism and organized crime for the EU. When signing the Dayton peace agreement, Bosnian leaders have agreed upon sharing sovereignty with the international community indefinitely. Dayton agreement calls also on all the parties to help Bosnia develop stable and democratic institutions and help the Bosnian leaders in theirs strive for peace.

The international community is based on principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention. Sovereignty can be defined as the right for autonomy and the right for non-intervention. These principles are not as important today as they were during the Cold War. Globalisation and marginalisation has made it more acceptable to intervene and share sovereignty with other states and ganisations. That means that the traditional view on sovereignty as a mean for maintaining order and view on interventions as a threat to the sovereignty is less significant in modern times. The reason for this is that the definition on sovereignty and intervention changes to able to adjust its self to the political situation in the world. That is, definition on sovereignty and interventionwill differ from time to time.

The aim of this study is to analyse the institutional problems which restrain the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons to and within Bosnia and Hercegovina with examples from the municipalities of Ilidza, Bosnia and Hercegovina. With intention to fulfil the aim of this study we will try to answer what problems that are connected to the Dayton Peace Agreement and how those problems impact the repatriation issue. Further we intend to discern what role the culture, values and norms play in the repatriation process. We also try to answer what formal institutional problems exist in BiH and what importance they constitute on the repatriation process. Finally we are discussing whether it is possible or not to institutionalise the repatriation process. The thesis is based on the interviews we made in BiH during the spring 2001.

During the war in BiH, more than 2,3 million people were displaced from their homes. Each of the wartime regimes allocated abandoned properties and established complex legal and administrative barriers to return, designed to make the separation of the population irreversible. In this way the separation of the population was permanent. Several years of international efforts have achieved a legal framework that recognises property rights as they stood at the beginning of the conflict, and establishes a legal and administrative claims process for the repossession of the property.

DPA is considered one of the most complicated peace agreements ever constructed and it consists of several objectives, which aim to uphold a tolerant and democratic constitutional state. There are several paradoxes connected to Annex 7 and the fact that both entities were allowed to have their own constitutions, in which they do not recognise each other constitutional rights, may seem peculiar when they at the same time are supposed to constitute one unity, one country. The federal bodies in the country began to develop before the national bodies were functioning. This has created inconsistencies between the different bodies and between the different legal frameworks and DPA still has a long way to go before being completely implemented.

Ethnic nationalist feelings play an important role in political life in BiH and they constitute an effective impediment in the repatriation process. Nationalism has become a common element in the daily life in BiH. Thinking of that the entity constitutions refer to the citizens in the opposite entity as others shows how they perceive each other. After the war each ethnic group seems to concentrate on protecting their own rights, otherwise they will be lost. Citizens in BiH do not have the same constitutional rights in both entities and before this question is solved, a safe minority return is not possible.

The functioning of the judicial system is an important factor in the repatriation process. A problem is that the laws are often contradictory or incomplete. This problem is visible on the local level, where politicians often do not know which law to refer to the result is that the local actors do not know how to interpret the laws and then they often do it arbitrarily or they just ignore the laws. The result is often a situation of passing the buck and the citizen stands powerless to the public officials’ demands. This problem is referred to as the state wall of administrative silence and it is a frequent phenomenon at the local level that severely delays the repatriation process. This attitude reciprocity has been common in both municipalities for a long time, as well as in BiH in general, which has resulted in a slow and inefficient repatriation process.

Post-war Bosnia and Hercegovina finds itself at a crossroads between an antiquated mechanism that protects state authorities on the one hand, and a modern state institution that serves the citizens and protects their rights on the other. In BiH the new institutions imposed by external powers meet the old institutions, which still are powerful. Those are not synchronised in a way they should, i.e. the old structure or the structure leftover from the collapse of Yugoslavia impedes the new structure rather then collaborating with it. The issue of repatriation has been caught in a structural chaos and BiH has a long way to go before a non-political integration can become a reality.