In the wake of a horrific war fought largely along ethnic lines, significant numbers of Bosnian minorities -- Serbs, Croats, and ethnically mixed persons -- continue to reside only in the region of Bosnia under the control of the Sarajevo government. They do so in direct defiance of unrelenting pressure for ethnic partition. I propose to explore why these minorities stayed, how they conceive of their place in this political system, and which strategies they use to secure their space in it. I investigate minorities in this Muslim-majority area since the future of diversity in the Bosnian region, as well as the stability of the pluralist political system, will depend partly on minorities' acceptance of that system. Within a two-case design, I shall use interviewing, ethnographic, statistical, and documentary techniques to investigate thoroughly minorities' motivations for staying, conceptualizations of their role in politics, and strategies for negotiating their relationship with the state. I move beyond ethnic conflict literature that focuses on the role of elites and majority ethnic groups by concentrating on non-elite minorities and their interaction with different types of institutions. Thus, this approach will contribute to literature on ethnopolitics and inform policy debates on assistance to minorities in post-war regions, such as Moldova, Abkhazia, and Armenia, and Azerbaijan.