Upright Spines and Sticky Signs: Affective Politics in Bosnia’s 2022 Election Campaign

Abstract

Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are consistently framed by emotionally charged disputes rooted in the country’s ethnonational divides. This article analyzes the 2022 general election through the lens of affective politics. Drawing on systematic monitoring of media coverage, it examines mainstream and party-aligned outlets to map how leaders and partisan media mobilized fear, spite (inat), resentment, humiliation, pride, and dignity to rally bases and delegitimize opponents. Rather than appearing as isolated outbursts, these emotions circulated through recognizable repertoires of naming and shaming, commemorative invocations of past injury, and choreographed displays of defiance. The analysis shows how distinct affects were bundled into mutually reinforcing scripts that displaced policy debate and stabilized antagonistic expectations across communities. While the specific cues and targets varied by party and region, the underlying affective grammar was strikingly shared, helping explain both the persistence of bloc voting and the limited traction of cross-ethnic appeals. Conceptually, the article bridges affect theory and discourse analysis to operationalize “affective repertoires” for electoral contexts. Empirically, it demonstrates how these repertoires sustain adversarial structures even under formal democratic competition.