Suchergebnisse

In recent years, the violation of the principles that guarantee the respect of democratic norms and institutions has placed Serbia into the category of deficient democracies, and more recently in hybrid regimes. Since the beginning of the transition, the implementation of political and economic reforms in Serbia has been characterized by frequent shifts of periods with modest progress in the field of political and economic transformation with periods of stagnation and even backsliding in regards to the important reform segments. The indicators of political and economic reforms point to the strengthening of extractive institutions. Extractive institutions protect the economic and political interests of privileged groups to the detriment of the rest of society. This leaves fewer resources available to stimulate economic growth and job creation, with negative countereffects on the regime legitimacy and trust, which are crucial for the implementation of economic reforms. Serbia's failure to provide stronger economic growth is largely caused by extractive institutions that determine the business environment. The development of extractive institutions is indicated by the absence of a more even distribution of political power, weaknesses in the mechanisms of checks and balances, deficiencies in the sphere of the rule of law, widespread corruption, problems in the sphere of protection of property rights. The transitional developments in Serbia can be regarded as a historical heritage that adapts to the current social environment and has a great impact on institutional performance and democratic consolidation. Prolonged exposure to extractive institutions creates a cumulative effect of institutional learning, where individuals become vulnerable to political abuse, dependent on the state and unwilling to use political mechanisms of government accountability, contributing to a vicious circle of extractive political and economic institutions. Identifying the mechanisms of such accumulation, which include prolonged exposure to extractive institutions, as well as the transmission of cultural patterns from older generations who have long experience with extractive institutions, is a complex research task.

When in 2007, after the rejection of the Constitution for Europe in France and the Netherlands, European politicians defined their mandate to work on the Reform Treaty, they explicitly promised that 'the constitutional concept is . abandoned' and that 'the Treaty of European Union and Treaty on Functioning of the Union will not have a constitutional character.' In its Maastricht and Lisbon decisions, the German Federal Constitutional Court concluded that the European Union did not have a constitution since it did not have demos. The main purpose of this article is to prove the opposite. Accepting Weiler's argumentation that the EU is a political messianic venture par excellence, the author claims that, in addition to pursuing messianic goals, Europe's political elite has for a long time been streaming to root Political Messianism into democracy and position the EU in the global world. The main vehicle to transform the Community/Union from an international to a constitutional legal order has been constitutionalism. Starting from the French revolutionary Declaration, which declared civil rights and in Article 16 proclaimed 'a society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all,' the author has showed that the Union has an antirevolutionary, uncodified and evolutive constitution, whose elements are to be found in the Lisbon Treaty and its related documents, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, and to some extent in the constitutional orders of the Member States. The European constitution does not mirror a national constitution in the sense that it is attributable to the people, nor it is a revolutionary product aimed at limiting the government in the name of individual freedom. It is a rule of law-oriented type of constitution, born in the process of constitutionalization and aimed at submitting public power to law on the Union level. From the perspective of modern constitutionalism, the quality of this constitution is a matter of concern, since it has managed to connect the rule of law with the protection of human rights, but has failed to do the same with regard to democracy. Despite some efforts to entrench the democratic principle in the Lisbon Treaty, the present crisis in the Union is to a great extent the result of this failure. The fact that democratic defects at the Union level appear less visible when pitted against the state of affairs in national constitutional systems cannot mitigate this failure. Yet, assuming that the EU will survive the present crisis and having in mind that the Union is 'work in progress', the issue which still remains open is whether the future efforts to eliminate the defects of the European Constitution should be tied to traditional ways of thinking about democratic accountability within nation states, or one should stop thinking in terms of a Westphalian nation-state, and accept that transnational systems can provide a cure for democratic failings in ways that differ from traditional postulates of democracy.

This article analyses the weaknesses of contemporary democratic orders which stem from the use of modern manipulation techniques employed by those who manage to win the trust for making the government in democratic elections. Contemporary democracies are under the threat of populist promises which are most often unrealistic. The combination of populism and democracy is usually a product of the powerlessness of political elites, i.e. political parties, in states to solve citizenry's most important problems – to increase the growth and development of the economic system, to introduce the rule of law, and to rehabilitate political institutions so they could rationally and efficiently function within the political system. Contemporary democracies are not equally developed, nor do they have equal chances for developing. The facts demonstrate how in many societies and states – formally oriented towards establishing a democratic governance and towards starting the democratisation of societal and political life – democracy gets misused and diminished to democratic phraseology with the help of populism, while in the institutional aspect being diminished to creating a façade of democratic institutions. It has been demonstrated that the patterns of dominance follow and are characteristic for democratic governances to a larger or smaller degree. The essence of democratic governance are politically responsible decisions, rather than mass participation in making political decisions which are not realistic, while being dangerous in terms of their consequences. Democracy means making good decisions for the benefit and good of all citizens, while hierarchy must not be challenged when it is necessary that institutions function in a rational and efficient way. Introducing equality where professionalism, competence and accountability are needed is devastating for the functioning of institutions, therefore for the functioning of democracy as well. Democracy can be tricked with the help of authorities'populism, as was the case with Nazi Germany. After Nazis took power, not all institutions of the Weimar Republic were dismantled nor challenged, nor was the Weimar Constitution changed. However – parallel to state authorities, Constitution and laws – dozens of new orders and laws were enacted, creating an illusion that nothing is changed in German state. What Nazis did was developing a new mechanism, party mechanism, parallel to the state mechanism. The two functioned next to each other. Such patterns lead to the parallelism of power and democracy, which usually led to the totalitarianisation of democracy. In contemporary states – especially those in the process of democratic transition – such parallelism shows how party leaders do not forfeit party leadership once they get elected to state offices. In that way democracies become submissive and captured by political parties, especially their leaderships and leaders. The relation of freedom and democracy has also been analysed. Experiences show that democracy is founded more successfully in places where people managed to gain their liberties, rather than in those places where democracy is yet to provide liberties to citizens. Dangers for democracy tied with the abuse of democratic conditions are being discusses in the last part of the article. Each condition necessary for the functioning of a democratic order can be simulated through manipulative ways. A special danger for contemporary democracies comes from circumstances in which those who come to power do everything so that society and state are riled by anti-political principles: indifference, fear and trepidation, and powerlessness. Anti-political principles jeopardise democratic order, and those who use them demolish democracy. Democracy is facing constant challenges and temptations for scraping democracy in the name of democracy.