Following the Money

Abstract

A largely understudied aspect of the 1992-95 Bosnian war-the intra-Muslim war in northwestern Bosnia-illustrates the importance of local elites and micro-level economic incentives in civil wars.' Though short factual references to the conflict abound, there exists no systematic explanation as to why the intra-Muslim civil war-which resulted in close to twice the number of battleground deaths as the Serb-Muslim conflict in that area-occurred in the first place.2 Why was there violent conflict within the Bosnian Muslim community at a time when its ethnic group was at war, facing intense violence and forcible expulsion by Serb and Croat forces? Primary source materials, including wartime documents as well as personal interviews with some of the war's leading actors, shed light on the reasons behind this abstruse internecine conflict. In civil wars where the broader conflict is cast in ethnic terms and the opportunity cost of fighting is high, that is, where GDP per capita is high, economic incentives can still seriously affect group behavior. In order to have this effect, there have to be high micro-level economic payoffs as well as local elites who can guarantee the survival of their constituents while providing access to these payoffs. Previous hypotheses fail to explain the puzzle of Bosnia's intra-Muslim war. However, simple tools from consumer choice theory can be utilized to lay out a theoretical conceptualization of the trade-off between ethnicity and economic payoffs during civil wars in the presence as well as the absence of strong local elites. Bosnia's intra-Muslim conflict illustrates this theoretical mechanism.