THE END OF LIBERAL PEACEBUILDING? STATEBUILDING RECONFIGURATION IN THE EMERGING INTERNATIONAL ORDER: A POST-DAYTON CASE STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbeuropaea.2026.1.05Keywords:
Dayton Agreement, liberal peacebuilding, Bosnia and Herzegovina, European IntegrationAbstract
This article examines the relationship between the Dayton Peace Agreement, liberal peacebuilding, and the contemporary challenges of democratic backsliding within the transformation of the liberal international order. It argues that the Dayton Agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and preserved state sovereignty, but only partially achieved its long-term objectives of democratic consolidation, effective state-building, and sustainable political integration. Persistent ethnic divisions, institutional fragmentation, and contested statehood continue to shape political development and complicate European integration. The article situates Dayton within liberal peacebuilding scholarship by tracing three generations of debate: early optimism about democratization and institutional transfer; a second generation of institutional critiques focused on sequencing, legitimacy, and capacity; and a third generation of post-liberal and hybrid approaches that question externally driven peacebuilding. Engaging scholars such as Roland Paris, Simon Chesterman, Oliver Richmond, David Chandler, Roger Mac Ginty, and James Dobbins, it highlights both the achievements and limitations of liberal peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. The study connects these debates to the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order, marked by geopolitical rivalry, domestic polarization, and declining Western normative authority. It concludes that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stalled state-building reflects both constraints embedded in the Dayton framework and broader systemic uncertainty regarding the future of liberal international engagement.
References
1. Adler, Katya (2026), “Trump’s New World Order Has Become Real and Europe Is Having to Adjust Fast”, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddn002g6qzo.
2. Barnett, Michael; Zürcher, Christoph (2009), “The Peacebuilder’s Contract: How External Statebuilding Reinforces Weak Statehood”, in Paris, Roland; Sisk, Timothy D. (eds.),The Dilemmas of Statebuilding, London: Routledge, 23-52.
3. Bećirović, Zijad (2019), “25 Years After the Dayton Peace Agreement - Way Ahead” in European Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 19, 143-170.
4. Belloni, Roberto (2007), State Building and International Intervention in Bosnia, London: Routledge.
5. Belloni, Roberto; Kappler, Stefanie; Ramović, Jasmin (2016), “Bosnia-Herzegovina: Domestic Agency and the Inadequacy of the Liberal Peace”, in Richmond, Oliver P.; Pogoda, Sandra (eds.), Post-Liberal Peace Transitions, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 47-64.
6. Benková, Lívia (2016), “The Dayton Agreement Then and Now” in Austria Institut für Europa- und Sicherheitspolitik, vol. 6, 1-5.
7. Bessner, Daniel; Brenes, Michael; Franczak, Michael (2024), “A Brief History of Cold War Liberalism” in Cold War History, vol. 24, no. 2, 299-308.
8. Bieber, Florian (2006), Post-War Bosnia: Ethnicity, Inequality and Public Sector Governance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
9. Bontea, George Horațiu (2024), “Enhancing Community Security in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Impact of Identity Politics on European State-Building Strategies” in Studia Securitatis, vol. 1, 52-62.
10. Bose, Sumantra (2006), “The Bosnian State a Decade after Dayton” in International Peacekeeping, vol. 13, no. 3, 322-335.
11. Browning, Gary (2012), “Hegel on War, Recognition and Justice” in Buchwalter, Andrew (ed.), Hegel and Global Justice, Dordrecht: Springer, 193-209.
12. Chandler, David (1999), Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton, London: Pluto Press.
13. Chandler, David (2006), Empire in Denial, London: Pluto Press.
14. Chesterman, Simon (2004), You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration and State-Building, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15. Davidović, Sandra (2020), “Dayton Legacy - 25 Years of Building Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina” in The Review of International Affairs, vol. 71, no. 1179, 5-20.
16. Dayton Peace Agreement (1995), “Dayton Peace Agreement”, https://bih.osce.org/bih/126173, accessed April 12, 2026.
17. Dobbins, James (2003), America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, Santa Monica: RAND.
18. Dobbins, James F. (2003), “America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq” in Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 45, no. 4, 87-110.
19. Domènech, Berta López (2026), “Unlocking Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU Accession Path”, https://www.epc.eu/publication/unlocking-bosnia-and-herzegovinas-eu-accession-path/.
20. Doyle, Michael W. (1997), Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism, New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
21. Fukuyama, Francis (1992), The End of History and the Last Man, New York: The Free Press.
22. Hansen, Lene (2014), “Poststructuralism”, in Baylis, John; Smith, Steve; Owens, Patricia (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 169-183.
23. Hartwell, Leon (2019), “Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process” in Negotiation Journal, vol. 35, no. 4, 443-469.
24. Hawthorn, Geoffrey (1999), “Liberalism since the Cold War: An Enemy to Itself?” in Review of International Studies, vol. 25, no. 5, 145-160.
25. Holbrooke, Richard (1998), To End a War: The Conflict in Yugoslavia-America’s Inside Story-Negotiating with Milosevic, New York: The Modern Library.
26. Jentleson, Bruce W. (2010), “Coercive Diplomacy: Scope and Limits, Theory and Policy” in Dunn Cavelty, Myriam; Mauer, Victor (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies, London: Routledge, 404-414.
27. Keil, Soeren; Kudlenko, Anastasiia (2015), “Bosnia and Herzegovina 20 Years after Dayton: Complexity Born of Paradoxes” in International Peacekeeping, vol. 22, no. 5, 471-489.
28. Knežević, Slaven (2024), “The High Representative and the Constitutional Crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina” in SVAROG, vol. 28, 139-161.
29. Lindberg, Staffan I. (2026), “Democracy Report 2026: Unraveling
the Democratic Era”, https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf.
30. Mac Ginty, Roger (2011), International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
31. Mac Ginty, Roger; Richmond, Oliver P. (2013), “The Local Turn in Peace Building: A Critical Agenda for Peace” in Third World Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 5, 763-783.
32. Mearsheimer, John J. (2019), “Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order” in International Security, vol. 43, no. 4, 7-50.
33. Newman, Edward (2009), “‘Liberal’ Peacebuilding Debates” in Newman, Edward; Paris, Roland; Richmond, Oliver P. (eds.), New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding, Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 26-53.
34. Office of the High Representative (n.d.), “General Information”, https://www.ohr.int/about-ohr/general-information/, accessed April 12, 2026.
35. Palacios, Irene (2025), “How Democratic Backsliding and Populism Affect Trust in Democratic Institutions” in Democratization, vol. 32, no. 8, 1827-1850.
36. Paris, Roland (2004), At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
37. Paris, Roland (2009), “Understanding the ‘Coordination Problem’ in Postwar Statebuilding” in Paris, Roland; Sisk, Timothy D. (eds.), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding, London: Routledge, 53-78.
38. Preljević, Hamza; Ljubović, Mirza (2024), “Contested Statehood and EU Integration: The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina” in Politics in Central Europe, vol. 20, no. 3, 403-435.
39. Richmond, Oliver P. (2010), “Resistance and the Post-Liberal Peace” in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, 665-692.
40. Richmond, Oliver P. (2011), A Post-Liberal Peace, London: Routledge.
41. Richmond, Oliver P. (2014), Failed Statebuilding: Intervention, the State, and the Dynamics of Peace Formation, New Haven: Yale University Press.
42. Robinson, Piers (2001), “Misperception in Foreign Policy Making: Operation ‘Deliberate Force’ and the Ending of War in Bosnia” in Civil Wars, vol. 4, no. 4, 115-126.
43. Varouxakis, Georgios (2025), The West: The History of an Idea, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Studia Europaea
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
