Institutionalization of Ethnicity in Post-Conflict Agreements: The Experience of the Ohrid Agreement

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the Ohrid Framework Agreement of 2001, which put an end to the armed conflict between ethnic Macedonians and Albanians in Northern Macedonia, as well as the study of its impact on the formation of new political institutions. The relevance of the study is due to the need to analyze the mechanisms of post-conflict peace building and ethnic diversity management in the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The scientific novelty of the research consists in a comprehensive analysis of the impact of institutional mechanisms fixed by the Framework Agreement on ethnic and civil identity from the point of view of the development of consensus democracy. The research methodology includes a content analysis of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, as well as a study of analytical publications by Russian and foreign authors. The results prove that the OFA effectively ended violence and expanded the political and cultural rights of ethnic communities, while simultaneously institutionalizing ethnicity as a structural element of power, fostering segregation and reinforcing the dependence of political competition on ethnic divisions. The analysis demonstrates the dual effect of the agreement: it stabilizes the political order but limits the formation of a common civic identity, providing valuable empirical material for improving post-conflict agreement models and inclusive representation of ethnic groups in state institutions.