Balkan Academic News Book Review 20/2003

Nerzuk Curak. Geopolitika kao sudbina. Slucaj Bosna: Postmodernisticki ogled o perifernoj zemlji [Geopolitics as Destiny. The Bosnia Case: a Postmodern Reflection on a Peripheral Land]. Sarajevo: FPN. 2002. 210 pp. 15 USD, ISBN 0315425702 (softcover).

Reviewed by Srdjan Vucetic (Ohio State)

Nerzuk Curak is fed up with Bosnian intellectuals. For him, the post-Dayton Bosnia is fast becoming an "impossible country" because, among other things, its intellectuals have been unable or unwilling to put forward an alternative to predominant geopolitical scenarios which militate against the notion of a unified, sovereign, "multi-ethnic" state. The author finds the intellectual space in Bosnia populated by "coffeehouse strategists" (p. 41) with an "amateur interest" in conspiracy theories (p. 25-6). If the title of the book serves as a homage to Esad Cimic's socio-political treatise Politika kao sudbina (1982) which managed to profoundly unsettle the then Bosnian elites, then such comparison is entirely appropriate. Curak's contribution is lucid and timely and will be of interest not only to Bosnia specialists but also to those curious about the so-called "local voices" on geopolitics.

Curak situates his study in "postmodern geopolitics" or, in the language of International Relations, postmodern realism. In an otherwise uneasy theoretical marriage, the author succeeds in having Derrida and Said parade alongside Waltz and Spykman. Here is an example of how Curak's postmodern geopolitics works:

Who controls the post-Dayton Bosnia controls the former Yugoslavia. Who controls the former Yugoslavia controls the Western Balkans. Who controls the Western Balkans thwarts the "Balkanization" of the West (p. 154).

This logical sequence is a paraphrase of Mackinder's well-known dictum and the key is in the third sentence: while the so-called Macedonian Question may be older and more complex than the Bosnian one, Bosnia nonetheless exhibits comparatively more geopolitical significance in the world today (p. 155). Simply put, the concept of the common, "multi-ethnic" Bosnia has become a social construction of strategic importance to the Western-led international community.

The author links Bosnia to geopolitics in more novel ways. He considers the role of the United States in ending the war and in introducing the Dayton Peace Agreement as a unique postmodern geopolitical model (p. 35, 61). Curak underscores a statement by a White House official that the "US is the only state with global interests" (p. 76) and argues, from a post-Dayton perspective, that the US is the "world-constituting force" (i.e. more than just a moving force; p. 31, also see p. 67, 130-1). It was essentially the will of the US that saved the idea and practice of the common Bosnia, albeit at a high price. Thus, the contemporary Bosnia can be seen as a "paradoxical," "experimental," "ironic," "enigmatic," "incomplete," "postmodern" or just "post-state." And had it not been for the intervention of the Clinton administration, it is questionable whether Bosnia would have survived as such. Curak argues that even the Bosniak leadership essentially accepted partition of the country by "affirming the thesis that, in the wartime chaos, it is more important to save the nation (seen as the Muslim population) than territory (p. 23; parentheses in the original; also see p. 165-6)".

Dayton looms so large in Curak's analysis that at one point the author calls for the institutionalization of "Daytonology" - a scientific discipline which will study linguistic, political, legal, economic, cultural and other values introduced by the agreement (p. 32). The author is fascinated with the fact that the Dayton Peace Agreement serves both as a state constitution and an international legal treaty (p.49; but Dayton is certainly not the first constitution in history written by foreigners; see the origins of the present Japanese constitution, for example). Because he is profoundly skeptical about the willingness of domestic forces to work for the common Bosnia, Curak concludes that Bosnia's current "dependency on the Euro-Atlantic political community stands as a fundamentally positive historical fact" (p. 180; but see p. 133).

The reader may feel shortchanged on several occasions. First, In addition to the reasons listed by Curak, it can be argued that Bosnia was preserved in Dayton because no feasible partition model was ever put forward (consider the debates on the viability of Bosnia's "Muslim state" in 1993). Following this point, Curak could have provided us with a more comprehensive discussion of Serbian and Croatian nationalist geopolitics, which no doubt have also played key roles in Bosnia's destiny. Such discussion would nicely supplement the author's analysis of the geopolitical discourses of the internationally community, the US and Russia and probably support one of Curak's main findings: "the internal politics of the post-Dayton Bosnia is a function of geopolitics" (p. 177).

Second, the author does not engage alternatives and counterfactuals (p.49), which, given the contemplative nature of his study, would be more than fitting. Third, Curak competently discusses the history and meaning of geopolitics but fails to adequately consider "postmodernism" a key term which also suffers from a "bad aura" (p. 154). Lastly, a note on style. While there is no doubt that styles of scholarly writing vary greatly across cultures and languages, I am unconvinced by Curak's claim that the cramming of important arguments into long footnotes is necessary (see p. 26-7). 

Book Review Editor: Daniel Pennell @indiana.edu

© 2003 Balkan Academic News. This review may be distributed and reproduced electronically, if credit is given to Balkan Academic News and the author. For permission for re-printing, contact Balkan Academic News.