Is the hydropower boom actually taking place? A case study of a South East European country, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Over the last two decades, the world has experienced a boom in the number of hydropower projects. Considered an important part of sustainable development, particularly in post-socialist transition and developing countries, it is claimed that hydropower plants will make substantial contributions to environmentally friendly economic growth and poverty eradication. However, the so-called ‘hydropower boom’ has not resulted in a global mass construction of plants. In general, over-ambitious planning, a lack of funding opportunities and corruption are often put forward as explanations for the discrepancy between the number of plans and actual construction of hydropower plants. In this paper, it is added to these three reasons, illustrating with a case study from Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the planning of hydropower projects very rarely results in their construction. The results are based on secondary data and primary data, i.e. semi-structured interviews and informal talks, collected during fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The data was analyzed using the analytical induction method. The results highlight how administrative complexity, over-estimations of exploitable capacity, an unattractive sociopolitical and socioeconomic situation and how these factors in combination create the conditions for various practices of corruption hinder the construction of plants. Comparing the results with other findings from around the world, the paper suggests approaching the so-called global hydropower boom with caution.