Democratic Institutions and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Europe [Paperback]

The unique contribution of this book is in providing empirical evidence for the argument that post-socialist transformation proceeded in a double movement.Recipient of the 2013 National Science Award in the Field of Social Sciences, conferred by the Parliament of Croatia. Josip Broz Tito's saying that 'one should not hold on to the law like a drunken man holds on to a fence' remains a valid piece of popular wisdom today, encapsulating the problem of weak rule of law in Southeast European societies. This book poses the question of why democratisation in Southeast Europe disappointed initial expectations, and claims that it is caused by the dominance of authoritarian parties over regime change. Their rule established nondemocratic governance practices that continue to subvert rule of law principles, more than twenty years after the collapse of communism. The unique contribution of this book is in providing empirical evidence for the argument that post-socialist transformation proceeded in a double movement, whereby advances to formal democratic institutions were subverted through nondemocratic rule. This misfit helps explain why improvements to formal democratic institutions did not result in expected democratisation advances.contentsList of Figures and Tables viiAcknowledgements ixIntroduction 1Rule of Law as the Weakest Link 9Chapter Two: Explaining Democratisation 27Chapter Three: Exploring Structural Preconditions for Post-CommunistDemocratisation 57Chapter Four: The Impact of Political Choice 77Chapter Five: Applying fuzzy-set QCA to Explain Divergent DemocratisationTrajectories 107Chapter Six: Croatia 131Chapter Seven: Serbia 161Chapter Eight: Conclusion 189Appendices 197Bibliography 211Index 231Danijela Dolenec works at the University of Zagreb, teaching comparative politics and social science methodology. She is a critical scholar advocating democratisation, sustainability and resistance to commodification processes. She received her master's degree from LSE (l“-