The effects of banal nationalism on the decision making behaviour of Milorad Dodik in Republica Srpska: A poliheuristic analysis

Balkan geography has been both a centre of interest and a turbulent region in every period of history due to its various political, ethnic, religious and cultural motives. So much so that even the fuse of world wars was ignited in the Balkans. For this reason, the Balkans have been analysed from various angles and have been the subject of many academic studies. Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Western Balkan country, is a sui generis country with its unique state structure and form of government, where three ethnic and religious elements live together. After the Bosnian War, the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended with the so-called Dayton Agreement, which legitimised the ethnic-based division of the country, determined the political and administrative structure of the country and established the constitution of the country. According to the treaty, Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two entities and one autonomous region, and the Republika Srpska, where Serbs live in majority, has 49 per cent of the country's territory. The country is governed by a Tripartite Presidential Council, which is elected for a 24-month term and has one representative from each nation. The presidency of the Council changes every eight months. Milorad Dodik, the Serbian member of the Trilateral Presidential Council and chairman of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, has both caused crises within the country during his term as council chairman, making the country's integration difficult, and caused international reactions. It would be useful to examine the nationalist rhetoric used by Milorad Dodik to place his politics and decisions on an ideological basis. Dodik constantly makes discourses that clearly state that the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is weak and that Republika Srpska should separate from Bosnia and Herzegovina and become an independent state. It is very possible to trace traces of nationalism in Dodik's discourses, but in order to explain which of the various nationalism approaches Dodik's nationalism is more in line with, a theoretical framework of nationalism approaches is drawn. In this thesis, Dodik's decision-making processes are analysed on the basis of banal nationalism. Based on Dodik's discourses and statements, the decision-making processes of Milorad Dodik, the leader of Republika Srpska, are analysed on ideological grounds. In the first part, it is argued that Dodik's policies are related to banal nationalism by analysing different theories of nationalism. The second part analyses Dodik's political emergence and crises during the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the establishment of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In particular, it focuses on the 9 January Republika Srpska Day and analyses this day in the context of the Polyheuristic Decision-Making Model, a foreign policy decision-making model. This model reveals how Dodik uses nationalist rhetoric in his decision-making process and the impact of banal nationalism when evaluating different alternatives. Furthermore, frequency analysis is used to analyse the repetitions in Dodik's discourse and the results are presented based on the most emphasised nationalist words. As a result, it is argued that Dodik's decisions are shaped by banal nationalist symbols and the role of these symbols in political crises. KEY WORDS: Banal Nationalism, Bosnia Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, Poliheuristic Decision-Making Model, Republica Srpska.