Adam Fagan, MAXCAP Partner and Professor at Queen Mary University of London, and Indraneel Sircar, Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, examine in their recent book how new institutions are created in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia following the conflicts in the 1990s and how these new institutions develop alongside existing structures on a national and EU level.

Following the violent conflicts in the 1990s, the internationally-driven peace building missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia have been replaced by strategies to push both countries towards European Union accession.

The two states provide an interesting contrast. The complex, fragmented institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina resulted from an internationally imposed constitution, as part of an ambitious project to build a state from scratch. Serbia inherited its administrative and technical capacities from Yugoslavia, so the transformation is focused on adapting practices from the previous regime to comply with European standards.

Focusing on a particular policy domain – environmental governance – the book considers how new institutions are created and how they develop alongside existing structures on a national and EU level. It analyses consultative processes around major infrastructure projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia funded by international financial institutions such as the World Bank in order to ascertain to what extent international agencies and other governmental and non-governmental organisations have contributed to environmental governance in line with European best practice.

“Europeanization of the Western Balkans. Environmental Governance in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia” has been published with Palgrave Macmillan in August 2015. More information is available here.