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The author discusses the crucial question of whether Serbia truly pursues the path of modernization and European integration, or just a simulation of these processes. The author proposes the thesis that there are numerous obstacles on Serbia's transitional path toward the (post)modern European society. Therefore, he tries to discover the essential reasons for the citizens' reluctance and resistance, the reasons which are related to the modernization of the Serbian society. Serbia is today at the crossroads of the traditional and modern understanding of life. It contains some elements of (post)modernization, but still with a strong influence of its traditional (conservative) heritage. The processes of re-traditionalization (re-mythologization and pseudo-mythologization) represent a major obstacle to the liberation of the society from the grip of the past and to its orientation towards European values. According to the author, the main creators of retrograde flows can be found in the political establishment of contemporary Serbia. He labels them, ironically and derogatorily, the 'guardians' of tradition, who use demagogic statements, populist paroles, and media information control (for their personal and party interests) to slow down Serbia on its European path.

The term politics, from its origin until nowadays, has been closely related to coercion and effects of coercion. The first rulers were finding support in a belief in the divine nature of power, but since, in time, this belief faded, the solution was found in physical superiority of rulers. The development of politics as an activity by which a community can be governed instrumentally, conditioned its closer linkage to force. Politics was sometimes identified with force, and sometimes politics was using force as an instrument for taming the bullying by others. Undoubtedly, the man is a rational and instinctive being. Monopolization of bullying within political activity made it possible to place the force, depending on the circumstances, into the service of one or the other attribute of human nature. Integration processes in political, economic, military and other areas, significantly contributed to changing the role of a national state in its formerly inviolable spheres, even in those elements that are considered classic attributes of the state as an institution (sovereignty, independence, monetary policy, defense, state power legitimacy, etc). Does this power, which is 'taken away' from the national state, go away, through integrative processes with other international subjects, to some distant power and alienated centers, or does it, on the contrary, enter the corpus of political activity that strengthens its overall position? Without immersing into more profound analysis about what is closer to the truth, it is a fact that through integrative processes a number of 'state' activities is transferred to joint institutions. In the spirit of this paper, the most important institutions are those which decide about organization, preparing, functioning, and using of the state (interstate) power. Strategic solutions concerning these matters, are a part of domestic and intergovernmental policy. They are products of a great number of internal and external factors, starting from economic and institutional, to social and cultural-traditional, and to international.

In this paper, we tried to analyze the consequences of the transitional process in the societies of the South-West Balkan, primarily on the example of Serbia. The indicators that we have found by the research clearly speak in favor of the fact that the transition is the cause of peripheralization of these societies. Citizens who entered the transitional processes with hope - imagining them as the accomplishment of the best European values - soon were convinced that the transition is only another manner to place these countries in the position to be exploited by multinational capital and developed, 'old' member of the EU, as well as to serve for squaring accounts in geopolitical games of the creators of the 'new world order'. In the case of the countries of the Western Balkan, the transition had the characteristic that, among other things, it was performed in conditions of political violence: destruction of the joint state of Yugoslavia, civil and religious war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, aggression of NATO to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, destabilization of Serbia through the attempt of Kosovo secession, etc., therefore, in the conditions that were extremely antihistorical. While the Europe was uniting, the Balkan was disintegrating. At least two out of the three 'ideas that conquered the world' (Mandelbaum) have been violated: the peace and the democracy. Free market in the conditions when there was no peace and regarding democratically insufficiently consolidated societies could not bring their progress, but on the contrary, as we established, only regression. That is the reason why the destroyed and collided South-Balkan societies, contrary to the European vow of their political elites, are today de facto much further from the European aspirations than they were quarter of the century ago. With their policy, the countries of the West have contributed to De- Europeanization of the South-West Balkan and strengthening of the Euroscepticism with citizens of those countries that still have not joined the EU, like Serbia. In fact, the citizens of Serbia can hardly recognize in the policy of the EU those values that have been usually considered European and which we mentioned at the beginning of this paper.

The war in Kosovo and Metohia was the result of a decade long tensions between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. It was led from the air in order to avoid more potential victims in case of land invasion. The end of war was the result of mutual concessions: from NATO side and the Serbian one. The sovereignty of FRY was not put into question, but a great autonomy of Kosovo was predicted including the possibility of independence acquisition (secession). The Resolution 1244 was not abolished, but it was being derogated in order to prepare the fundament of Kosovo independence. Serbian military-security forces were withdrawn from the territory of Kosovo and Metohia. NATO intervention was not legal from the point of view of international law, but it subordinated sovereignty to human rights. Intervention was justified in cases of humanitarian need. Event though humanitarian need (catastrophe) is taken as the basis for the intervention, the example of such kind could not be found in the past. So, Kosovo cases were qualified as sui generis one. Thus, the war in Kosovo became an example to be followed in the future, and an unresolved situation may become the threat to the peace and security in the surrounding countries. Democratic countries give themselves the right to interfere and intervene into internal affairs of others differently from the autocratic ones, which was supposed to be neither correct nor consistent. Kosovo conflict and war rattled global power structure, especially with China and Russia as new challengers of the USA power. Both countries are trying hard to reach USA, but they are still in transition with unstable financial systems, migrations and unresolved system of social protection. Regarding Kosovo conflict and war, they engaged themselves rather indirectly than directly. As Security Council permanent members they were voting against the independence of Kosovo, but did not involve themselves into the war directly. Kosovo war showed how China is backward regarding war technique, and Russia regarding financial engagement. In addition, China expected membership in WTO, and Russia a great financial assistance. Russia engaged in negotiations via the Contact Group. With the arrival of Putin, Russia could not engage in Balkan more militarily but only commercially due to the fact most Balkan countries entered NATO or Partnership for Peace Programme. Internal cohesion of Russia with centralistic governance was reinforced, and ethnic tensions were calmed down. The perspective of Russia is United Nations and commerce through pipeline.

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.