Notes on Recent Elections 117 Mainwaring, S. and Scully, T. R. (1995) Introduction: Party systems in Latin America. In Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America, eds S. Mainwaring and T. R. Scully, pp. 1- 34. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Pedersen, M. N. (1983) Changing patterns of electoral volatility in European party systems, 1948-1977: Explorations in explanation. In Western European Par~' Systems: Continuity and Change, eds H, Daalder and P. Mair, pp. 29~56. Sage, Beverly Hills, CA. Verdesoto, L. (1992) El sistema de partidos polfticos y la sociedad civil en Ecuador. In Gobierno v Polftica en el Ecuador Contempor6neo, ed. L. Verdesoto, pp. 475-536. Instituto Latinoamericano de lnvestigaciones Sociales (ILDIS), Quito. 1996 Parliamentary Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina Mirjana Kasapovi6 Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Lepusiceva 6, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia Introduction The General Peace Agreement reached in Dayton, Ohio on 21 November 1995, and signed in Paris 3 weeks later, contains the detailed plans for the post-war political organisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lays out the fundamental political institutions of the new entity and how they are to be run. The Agreement defines Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state consisting of two entities: the Bosnian-Croat Federation (the 'Federation'), with 51 per cent of the territory and (nominally speaking), a population of 2.7 million, and the Republika Srpska (the 'Republic'), with 49 per cent of the territory and a nominal population of 1.6 million. The constitution is not explicitly mentioned in the Agreement, but given that one entity is a federation and the state's organis- ation is confederal, it could be said that Bosnia and Herzegovina resembles an 'asymmetri- cal confederation'. Furthermore, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been defined in the Agreement as a liberal parlia- mentary democracy. Its central institution is a bicameral parliament, whose lower house, the House of Representatives, is elected directly, and whose upper house, the House of Nations, is elected indirectly and constituted on the principle of proportional representation. Thus, the Assembly of the Federation elects ten representatives to the House of Nations, while the Assembly of the Republic elects five. Parliament elects the Council of Ministers, which acts as the government, and the collective head of state is a three-member Presidency, directly elected on the principle of ethnic representation. The Agreement also determines decision-making procedures in the state's central political institutions, which are supposed to prevent renewed de-institutionalisation and the militarisation of ethnic disputes. The political representatives of each of the three main ethnic groups have