The Ethnopolitical Motivation behind the Formation of New Municipalities in Montenegro

Abstract

In this article, we deal with the problematics of the creation of new municipalities in Montenegro. We put the ongoing legal and political dynamics regarding local government organization in Montenegro in their historical and regional context before analyzing the political developments that led to movements for the formation of new municipalities. We explore specific cases in order to examine the ethnic/national background of such movements and to study the causes and consequences of such a way of creating local organizational units. As the central issue is the influence of ethnopolitics on the formation of local administration units in Montenegro, particular emphasis is placed on how the dynamics of Montenegrin party politics influence the country’s legislative framework of local administration and its implementation. The article analyzes the role of the parties representing national minorities in the decentralization process, and the developments of minority–majority relations in regard to local ethnopolitics. It also investigates the effects of decentralization in Montenegro on ethnic tensions and strengthening of local ethnic identities over national identity. As there was no existing literature dealing with ethnic decentralization in Montenegro, this article attempts to fill a gap in this research area. Through our analysis of the case of Montenegro, we try to emphasize and compare wider tendencies in the post-Yugoslav Western Balkans, using a combination of legal, political, and historical sciences perspectives. Population censuses and legal sources are used, showing the volatility and diversity of the ethnonational map of Montenegro; besides, a number of legal documents are extensively analyzed.