The politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina are defined by a parliamentary, representative democratic framework, where the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, named by the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Legislative power is vested in both the Council of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Members of the Parliamentary Assembly are chosen according to a proportional representation system. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords, and colloquially known as the Dayton in ex-Yugoslav parlance, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, United States, finalised on 21 November 1995, and formally signed in Paris, on 14 December 1995. These accords put an end to the three-and-a-half-year-long Bosnian War, which was part of the much larger Yugoslav Wars.
Republika Srpska is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the north and the east of the country and has a population of 1,228,423 people as of the 2013 census. Its largest city and administrative centre is Banja Luka, lying on the Vrbas river, and with a population of about 138,963 people.
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two entities composing Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Republika Srpska. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of ten autonomous cantons with their own governments and legislatures.
More than 96% of population of Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs to one of its three autochthonous constituent peoples : Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. The term constituent refers to the fact that these three ethnic groups are explicitly mentioned in the constitution, and that none of them can be considered a minority or immigrant. The most easily recognisable feature that distinguishes the three ethnic groups is their religion, with Bosniaks predominantly Muslim, Serbs predominantly Eastern Orthodox, and Croats Catholic.
The Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina is a centrist political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The party is one of the most prominent centrist and the most prominent unitarianist party in the country as it staunchly opposes federalism and devolution of political power along ethnic lines by the means of federal entities – i.e. Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska.
Brčko District, officially the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a self-governing administrative unit in north-eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Republika Srpska was a self-proclaimed statelet in Southeastern Europe under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War. It claimed to be a sovereign state, though this claim was only partially recognized by the Bosnian government in the Geneva agreement, the United Nations, and FR Yugoslavia. For the first six months of its existence, it was known as the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Four major international peace plans were proposed before and during the Bosnian War by European Community (EC) and United Nations (UN) diplomats before the conflict was settled by the Dayton Agreement in 1995.
Mrkonjić Grad is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the Bosanska Krajina region, between Banja Luka and Jajce. As of 2013, the municipality has a population of 16,671 inhabitants, while the town of Mrkonjić Grad has a population of 7,915 inhabitants.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a state in Southeastern Europe, existing from 1992 to 1995. It is the direct legal predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia was an unrecognized geopolitical entity and quasi-state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was proclaimed on 18 November 1991 under the name Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia as a "political, cultural, economic and territorial whole" in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and abolished on 14 August 1996.
The Graz agreement was a proposed agreement made between the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and the Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban on 6 May 1992 in the city of Graz, Austria. The agreement publicly declared the territorial division between Republika Srpska and the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia and called for an end of conflicts between Serbs and Croats. The largest group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosniaks, did not take part in the agreement and were purposefully not invited to the negotiations.
From August 1990 to November 1991, during the breakup of Yugoslavia, several Serb Autonomous Regions, Districts were proclaimed in the Yugoslav republics of SR Croatia and SR Bosnia and Herzegovina in light of the possible secession of the republics from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These were autonomous Serb-inhabited entities that subsequently united in their respective republic to form the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia and the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina was discussed and attempted during the 20th century. The issue came to prominence during the Bosnian War, which also involved Bosnia and Herzegovina's largest neighbors, Croatia and Serbia. As of 2024, the country remains one state while internal political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the 1995 Dayton Agreement remain in place.
Several referendums have been held in Republika Srpska during its existence, whilst others have been proposed but not happened.
The Dayton Agreement ended the Bosnian War and created the federal republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which consists of the Bosniak and Croat-inhabited Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Serb-inhabited Republika Srpska (RS). Although the Bosnian Serbs were viewed as "anti-Dayton" during the first years after the war, since 2000 they have been staunch supporters of the Dayton Agreement and the preservation of RS. Bosniaks generally view RS as illegitimate, and an independence referendum from BiH has been proposed in RS. The 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum and Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence have raised the possibility of a referendum and unification with Serbia. In 2015, after a judicial and police crisis, the governing Alliance of Independent Social Democrats said that it would hold an independence referendum in 2018 if RS's autonomy was not preserved. Almost all people vote for pro-independence parties.
The Croat federal unit, Croat entity, or third entity, is a proposed federative unit in Bosnia and Herzegovina encompassing areas populated by Croats, to be created by the partition of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into Croat and Bosniak entities. The proposal is supported by the Croatian National Assembly, which includes the electoral representatives of Bosnian Croats. However, a detailed plan for its partition, including its borders, has yet to be finalized.
Croatian National Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a Sarajevo-based NGO and a civic organisation of Bosnian Croats.
The Exodus of Sarajevo Serbs was the migration of ethnic Serbs from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, between January and March 1996 after the Dayton Agreement that concluded the Bosnian War (1992–95).
Ethnic composition in 1991
Military control before Dayton (1995)
Proposed Croat and Bosniak entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ethnic composition of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2013
