Abstract
It has been postulated that encouraging the financial recovery of Bosnia and Herzegovinawill promote the easing of its ethnic polarization. However, when juxtaposing the resultsof Bosnian parliamentary elections from 2002 to 2022 with the country’s economicfluctuations in the same period, our longitudinal study shows that ethno-nationalist votingbehavior correlates with unemployment levels especially in the Banja Luka and Prijedorareas of the Republika Srpska. In an effort to update Modernization Theory, the mainfinding of this paper is that an improving economy—as measured by unemployment—maybe a factor in helping to ease ethnic tensions in certain subsets of BiH’s society. As thecorrelation cannot be shown with GDP, however, or in most individual voting districts inBiH, economic performance cannot be assumed to be the powerful influence on ethnicreconciliation that some had expected or assumed after the signing of the Dayton PeaceAgreement.