FAVORABLE CONDITIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSOCIATIONAL DEMOCRACY IN NORTH MACEDONIA AND BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA IN ONE COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The Republic of North Macedonia in 2021 marks not only 30 years since the Declaration of Independence and the peaceful separation from the former SFRY but also 20 years since the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA). Next year Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will also mark the 30th anniversary of the Independence Referendum, which in turn was an introduction to the three-and-a-half-year civil war (1992-1995), which ended with the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DMD). With both agreements, in the Republic of N. Macedonia and BiH, elements of consociational democracy were introduced in their constitutional order and political system. The two countries in science are categorized in the group of consociational democracies of the new wave, even though BiH is a “complex” and the Republic of N. Macedonia is a “minimalist” consociational model. The theoretical literature dealing with the consociational model of democracy has long focused on several issues. One of them is the question about the needs of certain favorable conditions for its application. The following can be pointed out as favorable factors for the application of this model of democracy: relative equilibrium among the segments; the existence of moderate multi-party and representative party system; small country size; crosscutting cleavages; overarching loyalties; segmental isolation and federalism; traditions of elite accommodation. Some authors rightly note that the assumed favorable conditions for consociation should be further explored by analyzing some successful and unsuccessful examples of consociation. The purpose of this paper is to make such an analysis, which will be done by comparing the favorable conditions for the application of the consociational model in countries such as BiH and the Republic of N. Macedonia. It is necessary to emphasize that certain consociational elements were present in the political system of BiH while it was part of the SFRY and in the Republic of N. Macedonia the same were nurtured in the first decade of Macedonian independence (until the signing of the OFA in 2001), but more through political pragmatism than through systematically guaranteed solutions. Keywords: favorable conditions, consociational democracy, BiH, R. N. Macedonia, power-sharing