Makedonski demokratski (dis)kontinuitet (postjugoslovenski pregled)
Macedonian Democratic (Dis)Continuity (Post-Yugoslav Review)

Author(s): Ana Čupeska
Subject(s): History, Recent History (1900 till today), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Macedonian democracy; democratic (dis)continuity
Summary/Abstract: No democracy can be consolidated for eternity. Democratic trajectories of states worldwide do not show linear progression – on the contrary: both old and new democracies may encounter the shadow of totalitarianism, or so-called democratic regression, authoritarian populism, illiberalism, democratic discontinuity, and other manifestations of tensions, deformities, or even contradictions within the democracy itself. This type of socio- political (and phenomenological) dynamics in relation to democracy indicates that “democratisation of the very democracy“ may be one of the preconditions for its real progress and require that we think of democracy as of Derrida’s democracy to come (a venire). In this spirit, the Republic of Macedonia (today North Macedonia), as but one of the six successors of the SFR Yugoslavia, acquired its independence peacefully, without being involved in the armed conflicts of the time, but it also had its own, specific kind of development. Even though to avoid war in this situation full of tensions that was dominant in the region throughout 1990s, may legitimately be deemed a major political achievement, the state’s transition to democracy was by no means smooth, and the state’s democratic trajectory had a certain (dis)continuity. Deeply politically and culturally divided Macedonian society often made democratic processes complicated, enduring serious political turmoil, while simultaneously trying to keep political continuity, at least superficially. The key years for the Macedonian democratic statehood, though problematic, bearing in mind the discontinuity episodes (the most problematic of which concerns the authoritarian populism of Gruevski’s regime), are related to four democratically constitutive periods and certain historical events: I. ASNOM in 1945 (with the establishing of the first republic as the Socialist Republic of Macedonia); II. 1991 Independence Referendum and the adoption of the Constitution of the independent Republic of Macedonia (The Second Republic); III. Signing the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001 and constituting multiculturally accommodative political system (The Third Republic); IV. The Prespa Agreement and final resolution of the name dispute with Greece, followed by the consequent NATO membership of North Macedonia.

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