Post-conflict societies frequently struggle to reform political institutions that were originally designed to end violence but later become sources of political paralysis. Bosnia and Herzegovina represents one of the most striking examples of this dilemma. The constitutional framework established by the Dayton Peace Agreement succeeded in halting war but has since generated persistent institutional gridlock and limited opportunities for meaningful citizen participation in debates over constitutional change. As a result, discussions of institutional reform are often dominated by political elites and international actors, while systematic evidence about citizens’ preferences remains scarce.

This project examines how empirically identified citizen preferences regarding constitutional reform translate into public deliberation in deeply divided societies. Building on the ongoing CONSENT BiH research initiative (Constitutional Engagement for the Transformation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the project draws on a multi-stage research design that includes elite interviews, focus groups, an expert workshop, and a large-scale survey with a conjoint experiment measuring citizen preferences over alternative constitutional arrangements. While these stages provide detailed evidence about the structure of public opinion, the proposed collaboration focuses on the next critical step: examining how these empirically grounded reform options are interpreted, debated, and contested in public forums.

Through a series of research workshops, deliberative roundtables, and collaborative field visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the project will bring together scholars and practitioners to analyse how citizens respond to experimentally identified compromise solutions when these are introduced into public discussion. By observing and analysing these deliberative processes, the project aims to generate new insights into the relationship between public opinion, democratic legitimacy, and institutional reform in divided societies.

The collaboration will produce a set of analytical outputs, including a jointly authored research article and a policy-oriented report, while advancing broader debates on citizen constitutionalism, deliberative democracy, and institutional design in post-conflict states.