CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY FOR YUGOSLAVIA: BETWEEN REFORM AND REVOLUTION
CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY FOR YUGOSLAVIA: BETWEEN REFORM AND REVOLUTION

Author(s): Nenad Dimitrijević
Subject(s): History, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: constitutional democracy; Yugoslavia; constitutionalism; statehood; legitimacy; constitutional continuity; post-socialist transition
Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the possibilities for establishing constitutional de­mocracy in Yugoslavia. Pointing in the direction of constitutional democracy, I am expressing preference for a condition which we have not (yet) been faced with. This implies at least three different issues. Firstly, how to determine the political and constitutional reality of the present Yugoslavia? Secondly, consi­dering the fact that Yugoslavia has never been organized as a constitutional democracy, what justifies the claim that this political arrangement should be favoured over the alternatives? This is the question of the legitimizing capacities of constitutionalism in the given context. Thirdly, how to conceptualize consti­tutional democracy for Yugoslavia, i.e. how to understand the relationship between the universal core of constitutionalism and the contextually detennined (societal, cultural, historic) specificities of Yugoslavia?

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