Between Authoritarianism and Democracy : Vol. 3, Serbia at the Political Crossroads
Between Authoritarianism and Democracy : Vol. 3, Serbia at the Political Crossroads
Author(s): Dragica Vujadinović, Vladimir Goati
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, History, Social Sciences
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: National identity; Serbia; Internal policy; Transition; modernization; anti-modern tendencies; ethnonationalism; transition; democracy; rationality; national interest; state interest
Summary/Abstract: The introductory text of the Collection analyzes the gap between the process of modernization and anti-modern tendencies, in which Serbia currently finds itself. At the center of the discussion is an attempt to determine the difference between the rational and irrational concepts of national and state interest. Particular attention is paid to the destructive consequences of Milosevic's regime, then to the current growing extreme-right processes and anti-modern tendencies, as well as to the perpetuation of the military concept of 'greater Serbia'. There is an understanding that the rational state interest of modern Serbia must be brought into direct connection with the normative task of establishing constitutional democracy, building in the full and true meaning of civil/republican order. In this sense, the rational national interest can be realized if, on the foundations of constitutional democracy, one goes - with the rejection of self-isolation and xenophobia - in the direction of openness for cooperation, for interaction, communication, tolerance, enrichment through economic, cultural and social mutual influences, taking over in an authentic way the positive achievements of others, while accepting the highest standards of civilization as one's own.
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-86-83767-27-4
- Page Count: 308
- Publication Year: 2009
- Language: English
The Concept of National Interest and the International Position of Serbia
The Concept of National Interest and the International Position of Serbia
(The Concept of National Interest and the International Position of Serbia)
- Author(s):Vojin Dimitrijević
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Sociology, International relations/trade, Nationalism Studies, Inter-Ethnic Relations
- Page Range:31-47
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:realism; idealism; Serbia; Načertanije; Garašanin; nationalism; self-determination; territorial integrity; Aland Islands; League of Nations; Russia; Austria; Serbia; Montenegro; Croatia; Macedonia
- Summary/Abstract:National interest is one of the key concepts in “realist” theorizing about politics: “political realism” has been a method of interpreting political relations for a very long time. Until recently, the realist school dominated the study of international relations, starting from the premise that the basic motive of the actors In these relations is to serve their national interest, transformed into power. For a very long time the perception in Serbia has been that of a nation rather than a state; that Serbia does not exist beyond “Serbdom” and that history appointed it to represent overall Serbian interests. The debate on the state interest was to become possible only after Serbia unambiguously achieved full independence as a sovereign state, something that has happened only recently. However, the question remains whether “national interest" in today’s Serbia has actually become a useful analytical concept.
State and National Interest: The Economic Side
State and National Interest: The Economic Side
(State and National Interest: The Economic Side)
- Author(s):Vladimir Gligorov
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Economy, National Economy, Governance, Public Administration
- Page Range:49-56
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:nationalism; Lord Acton; mercantilism; populism; oligarchic economy regime; unsustainable economic policy
- Summary/Abstract:Lord Acton’s idea that nationalism is irrational, because it aspires towards unattainable goals, is of special significance in economic nationalism, as it holds no means to secure economic efficiency in international economic relations. In addition to inefficiency in a small state and economy, economic nationalism leads to the formation of an oligarchic economy regime. Traditionally, economic nationalism is mercantile, striving for a surplus in foreign trade. In Serbia, as a consequence of political instability, it is populist. Thus, Serbian economic nationalism counts on foreign financing. In the medium run, this is unsustainable, thus a significant change in economic policy will be needed: either towards liberalization, or towards further isolation.
The Serbian Socialist Left and National Interest between “Sacred Goals” of the Serbian People and their Modern State
The Serbian Socialist Left and National Interest between “Sacred Goals” of the Serbian People and their Modern State
(The Serbian Socialist Left and National Interest between “Sacred Goals” of the Serbian People and their Modern State)
- Author(s):Latinka Perović
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Civil Society, Governance, Government/Political systems, Electoral systems
- Page Range:57-69
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:left; socialism; radicalism; liberalism
- Summary/Abstract:This essay is a summarized review of the standpoints the Serbian socialist left has taken during different phases of history regarding the unification of the Serbian people, which is the pivotal idea in modern Serbian history. Though they rejected the ideology of a “greater state” that strived towards the revival of the medieval Serbian state and the revendication of Kosovo, the Serbian socialist left nevertheless failed to find an alternative in a state focused on the individual. At the foundation of its program is the idea of a composite state, a federation of Balkan and South-Slavic nations, but also a collectivity (nation or class), not the individual. The main points of this review, initially voiced in a public lecture held in Belgrade during the nineties, have been reviewed and supplemented by results from research carried out over the subsequent years and shaped in the author’s monographs listed below.
Nationalism of an Impossible State: A Framework for Understanding the Unsuccessful Transition to Legitimacy in Serbia
Nationalism of an Impossible State: A Framework for Understanding the Unsuccessful Transition to Legitimacy in Serbia
(Nationalism of an Impossible State: A Framework for Understanding the Unsuccessful Transition to Legitimacy in Serbia)
- Author(s):Vesna Pešić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Sociology, Nationalism Studies, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
- Page Range:71-86
- No. of Pages:16
- Keywords:legitimacy; Serbian nationalism; pluralism; resistance to change; modernization; democracy
- Summary/Abstract:In this article, attempts to change nationalism as the basis of legitimacy in Serbia after October 5, 2000 are examined, and a possible explanation is suggested as to why Serbia failed to replace the nationalistic matrix with a rationallegal basis of legitimacy. After an analysis of the attempts after October 5 to change the paradigm of legitimacy in Serbia, and the resistance to change that led to the assassination of the first Serbian democratic Prime Minister, a perception of Serbian nationalism is outlined, providing an explanation for Serbia’s lack of success in becoming a stable modern and democratic state.
Political Representation as an Expression of the Relationship between Majority and Minority
Political Representation as an Expression of the Relationship between Majority and Minority
(Political Representation as an Expression of the Relationship between Majority and Minority)
- Author(s):Alpar Lošonc
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Governance, Political behavior, Politics and society
- Page Range:87-107
- No. of Pages:21
- Keywords:political community; ethno-cultural diversity; diffusion of power; political representation; national minority councils
- Summary/Abstract:Political relations between the majority and the minority in Serbia are marked by elements of deficit regarding basic consensus, namely, shaping of the basic norms of the political community. These are the expression of differences related to the policy of regulating a complex/heterogeneous community. This paper starts from the premise that relations between majority and minority are linked to the constitutional self-understanding of society. Tendencies drawn from experiences discussed in this paper are only an expression of a corresponding self-understanding. In addition to highlighting disagreement regarding the foundations of the political community, weaknesses in the regulation of the normative framework should also be discussed, as well as shortcomings in the structure of institutional provisions on the position and rights of minorities. The regulation of both minority policy and the various relations between majority and minority is subject to processes of power diffusion in Serbia. The rational state interest of Serbia implies a consequential political and legal discussion of relations between majority and minority within the framework of a well organized society, which entails not only the legal, but also a transformed political perspective, based on universal principles.
Can there be a Transition from Social Chaos
Can there be a Transition from Social Chaos
(Can there be a Transition from Social Chaos)
- Author(s):Srećko Mihailović
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Political behavior, Politics and society, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
- Page Range:109-156
- No. of Pages:48
- Keywords:nationalism; democracy; anti-European orientation; modernity; passivity; political culture
- Summary/Abstract:Political parties in Serbia generate, integrate and channel, to a great extent, the value and ideological potentials of the subjects/citizens of Serbia. Political parties colonize the political culture. The weak civil society is unable to confront such colonization. The limits of this kind of engagement of political parties are only the deepest layers of the value habitus. Nationalism and ideological orientations such as non-democratic, traditionalistic and anti-European views, are the key dimensions of an amorphous, and in reality social-national ideological syndrome, where nationalism and state socialism are the energizing potential. In politics, the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), primarily generate, carry forward and strive to fulfill this syndrome. National openness, democratic orientation, European orientation, political and social activity and directed activism, are the key dimensions of the syndrome of modernity, which gathers, integrates and directs values and actions with such a background. In politics, the Democratic Party (DS), the G17 Plus political party and the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP), with occasional participation from the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), support, carry and strive to realize this ideological concept, sometimes cooperating. Political players from both options lure their supporters and satisfy them: the former by promising a socio-national state, and the latter with the charms of Europe and the omnipotent market. The common feature of both sides is the tendency towards creating and maintaining passive supporters - subjects - active only when their vote is required. In this context, parties promote their ideological baits as global (national, state) interests. However, the question is whether it is at all possible to perceive global interests in a different way, if citizens and the public exist (more or less) only at the level of a theoretical construct.
Ground Zero of Politics - Blockade, Stagnation and Regression
Ground Zero of Politics - Blockade, Stagnation and Regression
(Ground Zero of Politics - Blockade, Stagnation and Regression)
- Author(s):Ratko Božović
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Media studies, Governance, Communication studies, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
- Page Range:157-177
- No. of Pages:21
- Keywords:change; transition; culture; tradition; mentality; elite; intellectuals; journalists; media; truth; moral; crime; hatred; lustration; brain drain; fear
- Summary/Abstract:Within thematic diversity, and even thematic “incompatibility”, in this text we detect not only a state of social stagnation but a state of regression, as well. Serbian society faced the period of transition unprepared and immature, in a state of total disarray. The moral crisis is the deepest and hardest to overcome. It appears that societies where human existence is of no value are the most difficult when democratic changes and civil society have to be created. Refuge in self-isolation is recognized as an anti-civilizational process, as well as a collapse of historical-epochal tendencies. This is why bringing fundamental changes to life is so drastically uncertain.
Facing the Past - The Prerequisite for Creating a Modern Serbian State
Facing the Past - The Prerequisite for Creating a Modern Serbian State
(Facing the Past - The Prerequisite for Creating a Modern Serbian State)
- Author(s):Vesna Pešić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Political behavior, Politics and society, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation, Sociology of Politics
- Page Range:179-195
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:facing the past; mass crimes; constitutional democracy; responsibility; political community; integration; identity; moral responsibility
- Summary/Abstract:This paper discusses the role that the process of facing the past plays in the creation of a modern and rational Serbia within the context of transition, since the overthrowing of the authoritarian regime on October 5, 2000. Analyses of three types of responsibility in severe violation of human rights - criminal, political and moral - prove that modern Serbia has not severed its ties with that past because the authoritarian-nationalistic identity of the community has been preserved, precluding any critical attitude towards the past. Particular attention is devoted to analyzing the question of collective moral responsibility and its importance in the creation of a new identity of the state union, based on universal values of individual freedom and the rule of law. Breaking from tribal irrationality (nationalism) and moral-legal irresponsibility, which led Serbia into conflict with the international community and its own environment, and caused internal polarization regarding its future, is a precondition for establishing rational national interests of Serbia as an independent state.
Remembering Crimes - Proposal and Reactions
Remembering Crimes - Proposal and Reactions
(Remembering Crimes - Proposal and Reactions)
- Author(s):Todor Kuljić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Wars in Jugoslavia
- Page Range:197-212
- No. of Pages:16
- Keywords:crime; trauma; the critical culture of remembering
- Summary/Abstract:This paper is an attempt to point towards a synchronized and mutually related, rather than separate process of facing crimes committed by Serbs, Croats and Bosnians in the 1991-95 war. Mass crimes committed in ex-Yugoslavia are interconnected in many ways, facilitated and justified in a similar manner by more or less artificially constructed blazing historical memory. As the crimes and their memory are entangled beyond disentanglement, we should overcome the onesidedness of the existing processes of facing the past: first of all, the exclusive hegemonous official conservative-nationalistic emphasis on the authentic and incomparable crimes committed by other nations and the sacrosanct victims of one’s own nation, followed by another, albeit not so widespread, but also one-sided emphasis on crimes of one’s own nation only, apparent in the work of some nongovernmental organizations.
Should War Crimes Denial be incriminated in Serbia?
Should War Crimes Denial be incriminated in Serbia?
(Should War Crimes Denial be incriminated in Serbia?)
- Author(s):Vesna Rakić Vodinelić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Criminal Law, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Wars in Jugoslavia
- Page Range:213-238
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:negation; war crimes; genocide; incrimination of war crimes denial
- Summary/Abstract:The mainstream of historical and legal thought in Europe confirms the need to have societies with an authoritarian past face that past, to achieve socially desirable and justified goals; the process of facing the evil past is necessary for democratic future. The past a society never faced remains incontrovertible, and an incontrovertible past rules the present. Oblivion, without any social consensus means the social justification of past evil. In Serbia and other post-Yugoslav societies, not only is oblivion encouraged, but there are even attempts to legitimize the evils of an authoritarian and wartime past, most cruelly represented by war crimes committed, though exactly the opposite is happening on a global and European level, where there is a movement towards legal measures prohibiting war crimes denial. To understand whether the incrimination of war crimes denial is also needed in Serbia, a parallel presentation of legislations and international documents has been carried out, and generally accepted arguments for and against incrimination have been offered. The conclusion is that a decision about such an incrimination cannot be made only on the basis of doctrinaire argumentation, but also on the basis of the evaluation of practical needs inherent to the specific context of political and social life in Serbia. Decisive arguments should be sought in the predominant opinion of the public on crimes committed in the name of Serbia and by Serbs during the 1991-1999 wars, in state policy regarding prosecution and punishment of the crime of spreading racial, national and religious hatred and intolerance, as well as in Serbia’s international obligations in its advancement (?) towards the European Union.
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on National and State Interests: The Academy over a Slow Fire of (un)bearable Weariness
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on National and State Interests: The Academy over a Slow Fire of (un)bearable Weariness
(The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on National and State Interests: The Academy over a Slow Fire of (un)bearable Weariness)
- Author(s):Božidar Jakšić
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Politics and society, Nationalism Studies, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
- Page Range:239-266
- No. of Pages:28
- Keywords:Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Serbian national interest; state interest of Serbia; status of Kosovo and Metohija
- Summary/Abstract:The basis of this paper is an attempt to find an answer to the question whether it is possible to anticipate - and if so, in what manner - a way out of isolation, self-isolation and stigmatization of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti - SANU) under the insufficiently strong democratic potential of Serbian society. From a methodological point of view, the Academy is examined through the prism of its own documentation. Various attempts at restoring the Academy’s respectability are analyzed. These are, considering the general state of affairs after the political changes of 2000, overcoming difficulties in renewing international cooperation, admitting new, younger members, The SANU Dictionary - the traditional and oldest SANU project (dating back to 1893) - and, finally, the attitude of the SANU to the most important contemporary state issue in Serbia: the status of Kosovo and Metohija. Analysis of these points is important in explaining the endeavors of the SANU to clear its name of the stigma that, with or without good reason, has followed the Academy during the last decade of the 20th century. Analysis of the SANU after 2000 revealed that its potential for critical thought was very modest. Until the SANU attains a higher level and becomes capable of rationally articulating material, and even human cultural misery and frustrations into demands of free living, it will linger in a futile representational state fueled by a slow fire of (un)bearable weariness.
The Serbian Orthodox Church in the Kosovo Drama Cycle
The Serbian Orthodox Church in the Kosovo Drama Cycle
(The Serbian Orthodox Church in the Kosovo Drama Cycle)
- Author(s):Mirko Đorđević
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Politics and religion, Inter-Ethnic Relations
- Page Range:267-281
- No. of Pages:15
- Keywords:Serbian Orthodox Church - SOC; official documentation; statements of the Holy Synod and the Holy Assembly; differences between the official position and statements made by bishops; Kosovo
- Summary/Abstract:This paper deals with the development of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s (SOC) position on the status Kosovo from 2000 until today. This position was indeed harmonized before, and reiterated in a Memorandum on Kosovo and Metohija of The Holy Synod of Bishops of the SOC, but it was subsequently updated, and even changed during this period, though never in its salient features. More light is cast on the position in the official documentation of the Holy Synod and Holy Assembly of the SOC. This standpoint is also compared with earlier statements by certain bishops. Although a difference between the documentation and the statements is noted, an assumption is made on the change of position, which will occur with the final act of the “Kosovo drama". A necessary distinction is made between strictly ecclesiastical positions and positions that are distinctively political and adjusted to those voiced by the current ruling coalition. These are present in the reports of the government negotiating team, which is, at present, a state-Church negotiating team. Indicated sources and literature confirm this.
State Interest through the Prism of the Commitments of Ruling Parties
State Interest through the Prism of the Commitments of Ruling Parties
(State Interest through the Prism of the Commitments of Ruling Parties)
- Author(s):Vladimir Goati
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Politics, Governance, Government/Political systems, Political behavior, Politics and communication, Politics and society
- Page Range:283-302
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:ruling coalition; pivotal party; coalition arrangement; elections
- Summary/Abstract:Parties, as the most powerful actors in a democratic political system, strive towards achieving the best possible results in the elections and creating a government independently or in a coalition with other parties. The change of parties in power most often has a substantial impact on state policy. If the government is formed by a coalition of parties - as has been the case in Serbia from 2000 until today - the pivotal parties have the greatest influence. In this period, pivotal parties in the three coalition governments in Serbia were the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia. During this period these three coalition governments, under the crucial influence of pivotal parties, defined the priority state interests of Serbia in different ways.
