The Dayton Accord: Defining Success.

The Dayton Accord was initialed on November 21, 1995 and was formally signed in Paris, on December 14, 1995. It is a negotiated settlement that required compromises by all parties concerned. Its principal feature is establishment of a single state of Bosnia-Herzegovina within its pre-war borders. The state is comprised of two separate republics, a Muslim-Croat republic known as the Federation, and the Bosnian Serb Republic. With implementation proceeding more or less on schedule, it is prudent to ask whether the agreement reached in Dayton can provide the basis for a permanent peace. Two theories of nationalism, modernism and primordialism, provide a framework within which the fundamental nature and underlying causes of the war are analyzed. The paper discusses how modernists and primordialists might explain why the war occurred, who is to blame, and what the long term prospects for peace are. It concludes that the long term prospects for peace are not good, because the Dayton Accord implements a modernist solution to a primordial problem. Failure to understand and account for the primordial aspects of the war may result in a resumption of the fighting after NATOs departure.