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In the research traditions of social and political science two central answers are being sought. The first is, what is the relationship between the specific con-figurations of the proponents of social changes and the particular outcomes of their activity? The other is, which changes in the configuration of the proponents lead to better results than the existing ones relative to th value criteria such as peace, feasible development, or social justice? This makes the reference frame-work of contemporary discussions on institutional shaping of the relations between the state and the society. In this work, the author first mentions three dominant dimensions of social change to which all of us are exposed. Second, by changing perspective, he goes over from a passive to an active approach in order to observe the actors (citizens) and the forms of their activity (civilness) that might challenge th forces of change and transform them into tolerable or even desirable outcomes. And third, he contributes to the discussion about civilness and depicts in bigger detail six fallacies that must be avoided if one wants to attain a competent configuration of activity. (SOI : SOEU: S. 37)

Croatia is the only postcommunist country in which the process of democratic transition coincided with the process of creating the state by means of a war. These three processes are in a special interaction: the transition enabled the realization of the state-building programme, which triggered off the war which, in turn, jeopardized the completion of both projects. The author illustrates the dynamics of the political changes in Croatia since the eighties, which started with the liberalization of political life and continued with two stages of democratic transition, before and after gaining independence. The Serbian insurgence and later an open aggression have somewhat hampered the transition and brought about the "ethnification" of politics. At the end the author analyses the pattern of the creation of democratic institutions which has been, in both stages (before and after the 1990 elections) under the control of the ruling political party. (SOI : PM: S. 99)