A flawed recipe for how to end a war and build a state: 20 years since the Dayton Agreement

On 14 December 1995, the Dayton Agreement was formally signed in Paris, bringing an end to the Bosnian War. On the 20th anniversary of the agreement, Jessie Hronesova assesses five key lessons on peace and state-building processes that can be taken from the Dayton experience. She writes that while inconsistencies and vague formulations in the agreement have done a great deal of harm to Bosnian governance, it would be unfair to pin all of the on-going struggles in Bosnia on to Dayton, with patronage, corruption and a lack of political willingness to reform being the root cause of many of these issues.