On 29 January 2018, the Center for European Neighborhood Studies (CENS) of the Central European University organized a roundtable discussion entitled “Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ethnicity, Politics, and Census -Or Why We Still Don’t Know What Us Means-“.

This event attempted to contextualize the socio-political strife surrounding the long-anticipated census in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) from 2013, whose results were published only in 2016. Since B&H did not have an official census since 1991, the 2013 census was expected to show the actual numbers within the country in the aftermath of the latest war. The census, however, turned out also to be a platform for collecting political points. This interactive roundtable discussion demonstrated how the diversity and multi-culturalism of B&H stood constantly under threat due to increasingly ethno-national politics and increasing ethnic homogeneity of the country. It gave an overview of the modern Bosnian-Herzegovinian history and society, and contextualize the recent political developments and the data produced by the 2013 census. The main goal was to offer a deeper understanding of ethnic division in B&H, while also underlining the horrendous events of the 1990s and their continual impact on her troubled development as a functioning liberal-democratic state.

Please find a detailed event report here.