Discursive legitimation and the politics of OHR intervention in fiscal sovereignty in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This article examines how the Office of the High Representative (OHR) has justified interventions affecting fiscal sovereignty in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It focuses on fifteen OHR documents issued between June 7, 2022, and May 12, 2026. Drawing on Stephen Krasner’s concept of organised hypocrisy and Maarten Hajer’s theory of story lines and discourse coalitions, it argues that Christian Schmidt’s fiscal interventions mark a cumulative movement from constitutional-political supervision toward external fiscal governance. Four recurring story lines structure this legitimation: institutional dysfunction, electoral integrity, fiscal responsibility and European integration. The analysis shows that OHR discourse under Schmidt supplements the peace implementation language that has traditionally grounded OHR authority. Fiscal intervention is justified less through the Dayton mandate itself than through the language of European values and governance standards. The article concludes that this produces a sovereignty paradox: values associated with democratic accountability and European integration are invoked to justify practices that sit uneasily with the domestic political capacity those values require.