Republika Severna Makedonija između etničke demokratije i koncepta ’jedno društvo’
REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA BETWEEN THE ETHNIC DEMOCRACY AND A CONCEPT OF “ONE SOCIETY“

Author(s): Rubin Zemon
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Governance, Public Administration, Sociology, Electoral systems, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Divided society; One Society; multiculturalism; Interculturalism
Summary/Abstract: Republic of North Macedonia as a divided society has been for two and a half decades. A main pillar for the implementation of minority rights is the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) from 2001, which brought a peace after a war conflict in a country. Whilst the Agreement has brought peace and calm down the war tensions in a country, it has not contributed to solving issues regarding the integration and cohesion of the society. One of the unintended consequences following the implementation of the OFA, is that North Macedonia has slowly transformed from a multicultural to a bi-cultural state and society. This is largely because political and public attention has overwhelmingly focused on Macedonian-Albanian inter-ethnic relations and confrontations. There are nevertheless been some improvements when it comes to equitable representation of Albanians and the other communities mentioned in Preamble of the Constitution in Macedonian society, as the percentage of participation and representation in both cases have increased. While there certain laws for protection of minorities have been created and introduced, in general attempts to implement these in practice have been met by considerable obstacles, and tendency to postpone their implementation as a “non-urgent issue”. Ethnic and cultural differences became a factor of confrontations, politics of recognitions didn’t contribute on development of integrated multicultural society and processes of ethno-cultural mobilization became a factor of divisions. To overcome or to soft the ethnic tensions, a Government lead by Zoran Zaev started to promote a new concept and to implement a National Strategy for “One Society and Interculturalism”.

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