Jurica Botić
USPOREDNA ANALIZA HISTORIJSKO-GEOGRAFSKE UVJETOVANOSTI ŽUPANIJSKOG/KANTONALNOG UREĐENJA HRVATSKE TE BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE
DOI: 10.35666/28310438.2014.3.958
UDC: 911.3:711.061(497.5:497.6)(091)
Abstract: The internal administrative-territorial organization guarantees a higher or lower level of decentralization of each state through the delegation of authority of the central government to local or regional administration. Considering the specific conditions in which the state systems of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were formed, this article attempts to determine similarities and differences in the processes of the formation of existing cantonal division of these two countries through the comparative analysis of their historical-geographical compatibilities. In the first section the article provides an overview of the administrativeterritorial structure of these countries, where the author acknowledges the diversity of the administrative-territorial organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the entity level, which is the reason why the further analysis relates primarily to the administrative-territorial organization of only one entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the following, the article compares the appreciation of the historicalgeographical legitimacy under which the current cantonal units in these countries were formed. In the case of Republic of Croatia, there was noticed a greater consistency in respecting the historical-geographical principles, but also excessive territorial fragmentation which makes dubious economic justification of such a territorial division. On the other hand, in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the historicalgeographical principle, including the economic one, was sacrificed in favor of the ethnic principle, which resulted in economic and demographic imbalances of administrative-territorial structure of this entity.
Keywords: cantons, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, historicalgeographical principle, the ethnic principle.