Title: Prospects for Democracy in Serbia and Croatia
Abstract: Across Central and Eastern Europe, democratic institutions are developing out of the ruins of failed state socialist systems. Political parties, competitive elections, the secret ballot, and other aspects of representative government have developed rapidly since 1989 in most countries of the region. Serbia and Croatia have participated in this regional trend toward democracy, but under conditions of civil war extremely unfavorable to the development of institutions and attitudes important for democracy. As a result, some of the forms of democracy (most notably, multi-party elections) have been established while other essential elements of democracy such as respect for the rights of minorities and protection of civil liberties have been only partially developed. Indeed, Serbian and Croatian leaders have chosen policies entailing numerous violations of such rights and liberties. The resulting hybrid political systems might be categorized as electoral authoritarianism.(1) Predicting the direction regime changes will take is highly problematic. Recent scholarship on the subject emphasizes the uncertainty involved in political transitions.(2) Social structures and political institutions are in flux in Central and Eastern Europe today. Many people are losing jobs, some are amassing fortunes; the rules of politics and economics are being redefined. Determining what is in one's interest, who are one's allies, and who are one's opponents or enemies can be difficult in such circumstances. This produces a high level of uncertainty concerning political outcomes. If, in addition to all this, the boundaries of the political community are called into question, then social and political institutions are subjected to more stress, more variables are introduced into political calculations, and uncertainty is further increased. When war produces economic collapse, increased lawlessness and social dislocation (as is currently the case in Serbia and to a lesser extent in Croatia as well), then coup d'etat, revolution, and other dramatic political developments may make the most reasoned predictions appear foolish. What is clear is that violent disputes over the boundaries of the political community tend to decrease the likelihood of democratization at least in the short run.(3) I. Democracy and the Search for its Preconditions Since modern democracy involves regular procedures and uncertainty of outcomes for individuals in political contests, it is understandable that institutions have received considerable attention by scholars searching for the determinants of democracy. Robert Dahl set forth a list of institutional guarantees required for a modern democracy, which consists of the following eight items: freedom to form and join organizations, freedom of expression, right to vote, eligibility for public office, right of political leaders to compete for support and for votes, alternative sources of information, free and fair elections, and institutions for making government policies depend on votes and other expressions of preference.(4) Most of these guarantees formally exist in the countries in question, but many of them are violated in practice. This article will analyze the prospects for realizing such guarantees in practice in Serbia and Croatia. It will be argued that the policy choices of political leaders are crucial in determining these prospects. To determine the prospects for democracy in a country it seems logical to look at how countries have developed out of non-democratic regimes in the past. This should give us some indicators of the probability of movement toward democracy. However, many supposed preconditions for democracy have turned out not to be useful predictors of democratization, and some (such as tolerance of diversity and willingness to compromise) may be outcomes of long-standing democratic practice rather than preconditions for democracy. What factors, then, should be examined to determine the prospects for democracy in Serbia, Croatia, or any other country? …
Publication Year: 1995
Publication Date: 1995-12-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 7
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