State Ownership and “State-Sharing”: The Role of Collective Identities and the Sociopolitical Cleavage between Ethnic Macedonians and Ethnic Albanians in the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

AbstractThe article analyzes, from a historical and institutional perspective, the sociopolitical cleavages existing between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians in the Republic of North Macedonia. Although primarily ethnic, the division between the two groups is deeply connected to state ownership and the official status each group occupies and wishes to occupy in it. By scrutinizing both groups’ claims, standpoints, and dissatisfactions, the article asserts that the implementation of consociationalism in 2001, through the de facto institutionalization of ethnicity, has partly soothed both groups’ frustrations, using the pragmatic exploitation of the existing ethnic divide as a proxy for “state sharing” in addition to power sharing.