The contemporary development pattern of the post-socialist societies of south-eastern Europe cannot be understood as a linear transition from a planned to a market economy. It should rather be understood as a profound structural transformation, in which industrial production (as the bearer of social integration), technological development, and relative social security are replaced by a peripheral, extractivist form of capitalism. This is a model that does not produce lasting productive capacities or autonomous developmental potentials, but relies on the depletion of natural resources, of flexible and cheap labour force, and institutional weaknesses that allow for minimal regulatory hurdles.
In this sense, the post-socialist transition in many environments has not resulted in modernisation, but led to a kind of de-industrialised reintegration into the global economy, where it sits in the position of a supplier of raw materials, and a space for risky investments. To put it simply: Corrupt officials become traders in goods that are not their own. And, in a more concrete, local context: Lead is poisoning the residents of Vareš, while the gold bars are taken away by capitalists, leaving pocket change for the corrupt.
This article was first published in Bosnian langage on 25 February 2026 in the Sarajevan Urban Magazine (Link). In agreement with the author, we have translated it into both German and English and republished it on the Krivaja.org portal – because it remains relevant, and Krivaja is still under threat for the same reasons stated in the article.
Saskia Sassen conceptualises this process through the logic of exclusion, emphasising that contemporary capitalism does not integrate the population into productive flows. Space, public goods and the inhabitants themselves are obstacles to the needs of global capital.
Cities, regions and entire states thus become zones of operational reorganisation. This means that infrastructure, natural resources and legal frameworks are adapted to the needs of capital, while the social interest becomes a secondary category. In post-socialist peripheries, this is evident in the conversion of industrial areas into mining or logistics zones, as well as in demographic depopulation, which paradoxically facilitates the transformation, since fewer inhabitants mean less political resistance.
Complementarily, David Harvey explains the process of accumulation by dispossession — a process in which wealth is not created primarily through production, but through the transfer of already existing public or common goods into private hands. Land privatisation, concessions over natural resources, deregulation of environmental protection, and the monetisation of public infrastructure represent different manifestations of the same mechanism: risks and costs remain collective, while profit is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of actors. In the context of mining projects in the Krivaja river basin, this pattern becomes empirically visible through a combination of intensive deforestation, interventions in hydrologically sensitive zones, potential contamination of surface and groundwater, and a model in which the local community bears the health and environmental consequences without a proportional economic benefit.
We spoke with activists, and one conversation in particular stands out: with a man who devoted decades of his life to the rivers of his hometown and their conservation, but who no longer lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was worn down by a system that serves capitalists, and without a strong supportive network—which still doesn’t exist in Zavidovići, his hometown—the struggle got too tough.
Therefore, we are reproducing Ibrahim Klis’s comment in full length:
“While we watch horrifying news, every day, about people being poisoned by lead, the silence of political traders and tycoons echoes in return. It was the same when the dams1Mini-hydroelectric power stations, editorial note. were built in the Gostović river basin for the benefit of party members and tycoon profiteers. No, they are not investors, because an investment is something from which both the locals and the investors benefit and derive satisfaction. THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS HERE IS ABOUT.
I remember as if it were yesterday, when the information about the construction of the dams2Klis refers to mini-hydroelectric power stations, similar to those built at the nearby Gostović river, which were planned between 2009-2012, yet finally not realized. Editorial note3 on the Krivaja leaked out, how much it shook me. Above all because I know the Krivaja from its source to its mouth; I was born and raised on the murmur of its waves. I learnt to swim, to fish, in its rapids…
And so, aware of all its potential, as well as its importance to the local population, I began to ask questions. Who wants to build, who gave their consent? And I came across some truly ugly information about some of the leading figures in the local communities. I also found out how much money individuals took to grant consent on behalf of the local population, without any public debate. Yes, all of this is running through my mind, as I listen to the news about lead in people’s blood, and I am particularly irritated by the fact that quarries and mines are planned in the valley of the Tribija river, which lies at the crossroads of three municipalities: Olovo, Vareš and Zavidovići. This is a tributary of the Krivaja River and Magnesium Mines are planned4actually Chrome, editorial note.
Anyone who isn’t too lazy and isn’t in cahoots with, let’s call them, “investors”, can find all the information on the harmful effects of such a mine, both on biodiversity, and on the lives of people in the wider area. And it all happens in the same old way. Local bigwigs give their consent without public debate, without proper permits, without independent environmental impact assessments. Simply because someone has filled someone else’s bank account. Ministers and those in charge are selling it to us as an economic boom — while we know it is nothing but the squandering and sale of our lives and our property.
It is shameful how often we are lectured about tourism development in the canton and the municipality, while the lifeblood of that very tourism is being destroyed. It’s shameful how much is said about a joint struggle for Zavidovići, yet not a word is heard from those in charge about the destruction of the Krivaja river. We have adopted a plan for another industrial zone, yet no one has offered us a solution for the wastewater from that industrial zone in Vozuća.
And I wonder: Will the Krivaja, which is meant to be a municipal attraction, become one big industrial sewer?
Analyses of local testimonies and civil society documents further suggest the existence of procedural anomalies (insufficiently transparent permits, limited public participation and fragmented responsibilities), which corresponds to a broader pattern of institutional weakness characteristic of peripheral economies. Such weakness is not merely the result of incompetence, but often a functional element of the system: flexible institutions allow for the faster implementation of projects that would be significantly slower or unfeasible under regulatory regimes. Flexible institutions, therefore, require officials who are cooperative. To date, we have not been given access to the complete range of documents of the ministers implicated in this case. You may draw your own conclusions.
Emir Brčić, a resident of Zavidovići working in the health sector and a long-standing defender of the Krivaja River, states that mining with heavy metals is highly detrimental to the environment and the local population in terms of health and ecology:
“That is why it is predominantly seen in poor and underdeveloped countries. In this respect, mining in the Vareš area creates two major problems: the first is the poisoning of the population, and the second is pollution, and consequently, the destruction of the Krivaja River. The public is not aware of the severity of the poisoning problem, the solution to which, according to established standards, would mean relocating all residents away from the source of the contamination and their long-term treatment with expensive antidotes, which in this situation means the humane relocation of the entire local population and enormous costs for the state. The medicines alone would cost the state far more than all the revenue it collects in concession fees from this mining.
Secondly, the Krivaja is the last remaining clean river in the entire north-east of Bosnia. Its importance to this region is immeasurable. From the Krivaja Valley all the way to the River Sava to the north, there are no longer any clean rivers. The Oskova, Spreča, Jala, Tinja, Brka and Janja are all practically dead rivers. The pollution of the Krivaja would remain a historic disgrace for our generation”,
warns Brčić, who is also actively working to raise awareness of the rivers in BiH.
Radical economic changes are most easily implemented in societies burdened by crises, the aftermath of war, economic insecurity or political instability. Such circumstances reduce the capacity for organised resistance and increase tolerance towards risky decisions, often presented as necessary for survival. The cumulative effect of the transition, the traumas of privatisation and prolonged unemployment, have created precisely the kind of situation in which announced development projects — regardless of their long-term consequences — are perceived as a rare “opportunity” that must not be missed. It should come as no surprise, then, that the people of Vareš were initially enthusiastic; nor should we be misguided, shift the blame and direct our frustrations at those who never fully understood what was being prepared for them. To put it differently: Never did they consent to being poisoned.
Esad Zgodić (1950-2024), who was a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo, had often warned us about oligarchic structures, whose legitimacy derives from the control of resources, rather than from social consensus. We now feel on our own skin the transformation of participatory political structures into an order of domination by a narrow network of actors who control the key political, economic and administrative resources.
Picture: Thomas Schad, July 2026. License: CC BY 4.0
However, it should be understood that local oligarchies are not exclusively a product of domestic political weaknesses, but also the result of global economic relations. Capital requires a stable framework for on-the-ground negotiations, while local elites need capital as a source of legitimacy and resources. Caught between them is the community, which bears the greatest share of the risks yet has the least influence over decisions.
In this sense, the local oligarchy in a democratic context is not merely a political phenomenon, but a broader social architecture of relationships between territory, economy and power that shapes the destinies of people and places. Formal institutions and their functions often amount to little more than administrative mediation between private interests and the public sphere. In such an order, political accountability becomes diffuse, and strategic decisions are made beyond public scrutiny or are legitimised procedurally without genuine deliberation.
The result of the convergence of these processes is what political economy defines as corporocracy: a system in which the boundaries between political authority and economic centres of power become porous, and public policies are shaped by the logic of capital accumulation rather than by long-term social needs. In weak states, this model takes on a specific form, where corporations, through a network of transnational investors, local political elites and intermediary structures, manage resources with minimal or no public oversight. It is particularly indicative that such a development pattern often coexists with the rhetoric of modernisation and European integration. Investments are presented as a civilisational advance, job creation and integration into global flows, although empirical data show limited multiplier effects on the local economy. Mining projects, for example, employ a relatively small number of workers, while simultaneously destabilising traditional sectors such as agriculture, forestry or tourism, making the overall development balance ambivalent or negative.
Mining operations in the Krivaja catchment are not isolated from global flows; they are a source of cheap raw materials for the needs of the world’s elites and symptoms of the wider transformation of peripheral societies in global capitalism. The absence of an autonomous development strategy that would utilise local resources as a public good, rather than exclusively according to market logic, is costing us dearly.
In a broader sociological sense, such a transformation produces profound changes in the social structure: rising inequality, uncontrolled migration of the young population, erosion of the middle class, insecurity and irreversibly compromised health. Environmental risks further intensify this process by threatening the basic conditions of life: water, air and soil, thereby turning development from a matter of economic progress into one of survival.
Picture: Thomas Schad, July 2026. License: CC BY 4.0
References
- Harvey, David: The new imperialism, , 1. issued as paperback, Oxford 2005.
- Ikenberry, G. John/Sassen, Saskia: Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. In: Foreign Affairs 85 (2006), H. 5, S. 159.
- Mehinović, Merima K.: Geografija nepravde u slivu Krivaje – resursi, moć i sudbina malih zajednica. In: Urban Magazin (2026).
- Sassen, Saskia: Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, , Online-Ausg, Princeton, N.J. 2008.
- Coverbild: Krivaja as seen from Popovica, Thomas Schad, July 2026, License: CC BY 4.0
