The Procrustean Bed of the State Building in the Republic of Macedonia (1991-2011)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the process of state-building in the Republic of Macedonia in the period of two decades (1991-2011). The basic premise is that there has been wavering between the wishful thinking of the domestic and international protagonists and the objective impediments typical for a weak state in a divided society. Political architecture has been an outcome of “top to the bottom” interventions. While in the first decade, i.e. prior to the violent conflict, the copy/paste methodology (from the Western democracies) was widely used in order to import the parliamentary model, during the next decade the system shifted more toward a power-sharing model. If liberal democracy was supposed to be the ultimate end in the first period of political development, the second one has focused on the constitutional and extra-constitutional mechanisms for conflict resolution. For the sake of peace and stability, some of the basic principles and values of liberal democracy are sacrificed, while the process of politicization has moved toward permanent politics of fear and securitization. In sum, arbitrary (political) standards of evaluation of success and failure of democracy-building are still in place which makes the scholarly analysis more than necessary.