La place et le rôle des communes dans le système de satisfaction des besoins collectifs et sociaux généraux dans la société yougoslave contemporaine

Abstract

The system of satisfaction of general collective and social needs in contemporary Yugoslav society: the place and role of the communes. The process of decentralization of the functions of the State, and the transfer of responsibilities from the Federation to the socialist republics, autonomous provinces and communes, which was set in train by the new Constitution of 1974, has not in fact brought any very great change either in the role or the finances of the commune in the satisfaction of "general" social needs (which are assumed by the State or by socio-political units of a more restricted kind). The communes continue to play a very minor part in this respect, since the funds, drawn from various sources, which should serve the purpose are spent, essentially, on the running of communal administration. As for "collective" social needs, the responsibility for satisfying these falls to the self-managing community of interests, whose territorial framework is either the commune, the socialist republic of the autonomous province. The commune mainly plays a co-ordinating role among the various social agents, rather than a financial one, since its responsibilities have been handed over to the self- managing communities.