Introduction: The Politics of Numbers in the Post-Yugoslav States
Since 1991, every country in the former Yugoslavia has either held, or has at-tempted to hold, a census. The most recent efforts occurred in or around 2011, reflecting both the interest of harmonizing with the European Union’s (EU) own 2011 census round, as well as the need for accurate data in a region that has experienced significant population flux in the past generation. Macedonia’s 2011 census was cancelled during the enumeration period due to objections related to the counting procedure, but grounded in politics related to the Macedonian and Albanian populations, and representation provisions in the Ohrid Framework Agreement that ended the violent conflict in the country in 2001. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) collected data for the first time since the war in 2013, but as of this writing (October 2015) the results have not been finalised. Kosovo’s census results have been contested by Belgrade, with a number of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo boycotting the census while other mi-norities have also questioned the results.
Soeren Keil
Soeren Keil is Reader in International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom. He has previously studied at the Universities of Würzburg (Germany) and Kent (UK). He has also held teaching positions at the University of Passau (Germany), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and the Centre international de formation europeene (France). His main research focus lies on the political systems of the post-Yugoslav states, as well as EU enlargement and democratization processes.
Valery Perry
Valery Perry is an independent researcher and consultant based in Sarajevo. She is a Senior Associate in the Democratization Policy Council, and is teaching conflict analysis and resolution at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology.
Perry, Valery. “The 2013 Census in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Basic Review.”. Democratization Policy Council Policy Note 3. October 2013. Available at http://www.democratizationpolicy.org/uimages/pdf/dpcpolicynotebihnewseries3bihcensus.pdf
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991; Excerpt from Chapter 10, “Census, Map, Museum,” p. 244-5. Available at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~sj6/AndersonCensusMap.pdf
Friedman, Victor A. “Observing the Observers: Language, Ethnicity, and Power in the 1994 Macedonian Census and Beyond”. New Balkan Politics. Vol. 3/4, 2001 (page numbers not available).
Kertzner, David I. and Dominique Arel (eds.). Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
1. What does the debate leading up to and following the census enumeration in BiH teach us about political systems that are based on real or de facto ethnic keys?
2. The European Union funded a large part of the census exercise in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Why didn’t they exercise their “soft power” to more aggressively promote a census that focused on information directly needed to support BiH’s EU accession prospects, without divisive and unnecessary identity centered questions?
3. As of October 2015 the census results still have not been made public. However, there is much speculation. What would be the impact of results that show that there are more declared “others” than Croats in the country? How might such a result affect current and future power allocation exercises at all levels of government?
Soeren Keil
Soeren Keil is Reader in International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom. He has previously studied at the Universities of Würzburg (Germany) and Kent (UK). He has also held teaching positions at the University of Passau (Germany), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and the Centre international de formation europeene (France). His main research focus lies on the political systems of the post-Yugoslav states, as well as EU enlargement and democratization processes.