Patterns of Ethno-Spatial Change in Bosnia and Herzegovina after 1991

Sanja Klempic Bogadi, Institute for Migration Research
Vladimir Nikitovic , Institute of Social Sciences

The disintegration of Yugoslavia severely impacted Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily due to its complex ethnic composition. Despite the Dayton Peace Agreement, tensions between Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats persist, deepening the crisis. The lack of reliable demographic data, especially on ethnic composition, and uncritical interpretations of demographic and migration processes since 1991 contribute to interethnic confusion. Given the post-Dayton political and administrative organization’s reliance on ethnic homogeneity and its source of current crises, improving knowledge of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s spatial and temporal ethno-demographic processes is crucial. This research examines changes in the spatial homogenization and dispersion of the country's population by ethnicity following Yugoslavia’s breakup. Considering ethnicity as a key driver of demographic variations and geographical ethnic concentration provides deeper insights into demographic and socioeconomic processes. We used spatial autocorrelation indicators – global and local Moran’s I indices – to measure and test how local administrative units cluster or disperse in space with respect to ethnic composition. These statistics were calculated from the 1991 and 2013 Censuses of population. All three ethnic groups show significant spatial homogenization at the state level in both time points, with Croats having the highest and Bosniaks the lowest levels. Contrary to popular belief, global spatial homogenization declined among all three ethnicities between 1991 and 2013, with the largest decline among Bosniaks and the smallest among Serbs. Bivariate autocorrelation analysis shows a similar spatial pattern of ethnic homogenization between the two censuses, with pronounced changes in areas affected by forced migration and mortality due to ethnic cleansing.

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 Presented in Session P8. Demographic Trends, History, Data and Methods