Partijske borbe u Srbiji u postoktobarskom razdoblju
Party struggles in Serbia in the post-October period

Author(s): Vladimir Goati
Subject(s): Civil Society, Governance, Government/Political systems, Electoral systems, EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Serbia; political life; Political parties
Summary/Abstract: Parties represent an almost universal institution without which it is difficult to imagine political life. In countries with stable democracies, parties completely "permeate" other important political institutions; they determine the content of the parliament's decisions, the activity of the government, the personal composition of the election participants and the outcome of the election depend on them. Parties in another, essential way make it possible to hold elections, which Richard Katz describes as follows: "without parties that structure (election-VG) campaigns, that ensure continuity from one election to another, provide connections between candidates in various local areas and for various positions, it is unlikely that elections would be meaningful even if they were technically free" (1980, 1). In addition, a large percentage of citizens are emotionally attached to parties ("party identification", party loyalty), which is not the case with other political institutions, which is why it can be argued that parties even have a certain priority in relation to those institutions. It is not by chance that parties are understood as active elements, "main protagonists" of the democratic order, "driving force" of modern politics (Neumann 1963, 15), and metaphorically also as "everyday hieb of liberal democracy" (Seiler 1982, 3). Political parties played a decisive role in the process of transition from an authoritarian to a democratic order, which Huntington (1991) labeled the "third wave" of democratization. How far are individual countries of Central and Southeastern Europe after the "biblical changes" of 1989/1990. advanced in the process of democratization and approached the countries of stable democracy, to the extent that the problems of parties and party systems became more and more similar to the problems in countries of stable democracy.

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