This book argues that the unresolved stateness in the republics of the former Yugoslavia played a key role in determining the course and dynamics of their turbulent democratic transition. To support this claim, the authors develop a series of causal mechanisms. Subsequently, they analyze to what extent these causal mechanisms could be applied to other cases, like the one of Ukraines democratization.
The book presents a theoretical framework, as well as conclusions and arguments that are instrumental for the better understanding of the democratization process in general, which could be useful for other countries to avoid the mistakes that were made in the cases of former Yugoslav republics. It, therefore, is a must-read for researchers and scholars of political science, as well as practitioners and policy-makers, interested in a better understanding of democratization, transformation processes, nation-building, and stateness.
Introduction.- 1. Democracy: Theoretical and conceptional
challenges.- 2. Stateness and democracy.- 3. Tracing the process.- 4. Former
Yugoslav republics: Diverging trajectories.- 5. The group of less successful
cases.- 6. The group of more successful cases.- 7. Generalizability of the
theoretical framework.- Conclusion.
Filip Milai obtained his Ph.D. at Humboldt University, Berlin (Germany). He is currently a senior researcher in the Vienna based Office Democracy of the Future of Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and a research affiliate at Democracy Institute of the Central European University (CEU). Previously, he worked for the Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as well as at the University of Rijeka, University of Montenegro and in German Bundestag. He was also a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna. He is an author of the book Nationalstaatsbildung, Krieg und Konsolidierung der Demokratie: Kroatien, Serbien und Montenegro, Springer: Wiesbaden, 2017. His work was published in many prominent academic journals. He also regularly comments burning issues for various media outlets.
