Rebuilding multi-ethnic communities in post-conflict nations: returnee assessment of municipal services in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Local administrative units are crucial to the reconstruction of a sustainable multi-ethnic social consensus in fragile states. Using the delivery of public goods and social services in Bosnia and Herzegovina as our case study, we ask whether the level of heterogeneity in community composition has any effect on resident opinion of public services at the municipal level. We find that post-war residency status is not the only factor defining community-level heterogeneity and that evaluations of public services at the local level are not neutral to community composition.