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In the last twenty years the world has undergone serious changes, unfortunately not in positive direction. The collapse of the bipolar system and the establishment of one bloc hegemony - NATO headed by the USA, has not only failed to establish more stable and secure international relations, but, on the contrary, it has corresponded with the greatest insecurity and uncertainty of the mankind ever since World War II till the present day. After the 'counter-balance' disappeared, there has been open political, economic, even direct military, interference by the Alliance states in the sovereignty of many countries. Consequently, the world's conflicting potential has largely increased. Apart from the threats present from earlier, the contemporary world is faced with a series of new, formerly unknown or marginal, ones. The most notable among them are: uncontrolled escalation of armed conflicts; international terrorism; proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; expansion of drugs trafficking; illegal cross-border migrations; human trafficking and trafficking in human organs; piracy; criminalization of different areas of living; etc. The economic and financial crises have additionally warned the world of the limitedness of natural resources and, in the most serious form, posed the issue of the fight for preservation, or conquest of areas rich in raw minerals. Apart from the current courses of action in the fight for control over the natural resources, both new methods of action and new areas of contest are emerging (Arctic, Antarctic .; above and under the Earth's surface; on the sea, and under the sea bottom), over which the interests of great powers will be increasingly conflicting. Michael Klare, the author of well-known books 'Blood and Oil' and 'Resource Wars', convincingly evokes a growing hunger for resources by the picturesque title of his latest book 'Race for What's Left: Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources'. For success in this new competition in strength and skills, new strategic concepts are required. Some have already been created and preliminarily tested; others are being prepared for implementation and corrected 'on the go' based on the performance of already proved solutions; still others are being hurriedly shaped. Understandably, along with this, what actual and potential rivals do related to this, or what their activities suggest, is watched closely.

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.

Summary: Establishing of the New institutional economics as dominant institutional theoretical perspective, has contributed to the theoretical affirmation of the institution and to the recognition that institutions and institutional changes are an important part of the overall dynamics of economic reality. Therefore, the importance of defining the "new" institutional paradigm is reflected not only in the "endogenization" of the institutions as the relevant economic variables, but also in the possibilities of a broader consideration of the potential contribution of institutions to the overall macroeconomic performances. However, despite to the significant theoretical achievements in the economic recognition of the multiple institutional importances, in the observation of institutional change as a determinant of economic development, many questions remain open. For instance, it is still not known which institutions, in which specific forms required, or rather useful for economic development, or in which context. Although it is known the role that specific institutions can play in the process of the economic development, the problem is how to build such institutions. If developmental effects generally depend on the quantity and quality of institutional changes, than how to explain the fact that the establishment of the same institutional forms in the countries with approximate developmental preconditions, usually in practice does not led to the equal developmental results? This study, in form of a doctoral dissertation, is exactly driven by such issues. Therefore, as its primary goal assumes the theoretical development of the concept of institutional contributions to the development and identification of institutional criteria and mechanisms for improving economic performance. The basic assumption on which this dissertation is based implies that institutions and institutional changes are necessary, but not sufficient condition for good macroeconomic performance of the country. This additional requirement is contained precisely in the implementation of "good governance", namely the establishment of the basic principles of this concept. The research is based on an analytical basis of the theoretical framework of the New institutional economics. Starting of the known information about the nature of institutions and institutional change, as well as on the basic assumptions of institutional sustainability and efficiency, there are theoretical elaborated concept of the institutional contributions to the development. Special attention was given to comparative institutional analysis. By combining information from different comparative economics, there are studied the relationship between institutional quality and economic efficiency. An attempt was made in order to identify main channels through which institutional quality determined economic performance, and therefore which is a possible causes of institutional inefficiency. Through the analysis of several representative cases in practice, the empirical validity of the findings is further checked. Since development issues become topical, especially during the crisis, it is clear incentives to explore the institutions and mechanisms of institutional change and use this knowledge in achieving, in a greater degree, controlled development.

Since one of the most effective ways of strengthening the implementation the green infrastructure principle is through spatial planning, the paper aims at presenting the overview of the contemporary policies in the domain of environment and planning. After a brief overview of European and regional (i.e. Western Balkan) documents in the field, the central part of the paper elucidates the extent to which the concept of green infrastructure is elaborated in Serbian legislative framework.

Social reforms had an important position in the process of transition changes in Serbia in the previous decade. Their strategic framework and aims have been defined in the first years after the 'democratic changes' of 2000 and their realization followed by a series of problems. The transition from the 'socialist welfare state' to the concept of 'active social policy' has been in compliance with the accepted model of (liberal) reforms and changes in the institutional sphere. Analysis of effects and achievements have pointed to an inadeaqucy of the accepted model and deficiencies in the practice. From the point of view of the current situation and expected changes in the future, there is an obvious need for a comprehensive evaluation of cause of (un)success of social reforms. The reason for that lies in the elimination of insufficiencies and creation of a basis for the construction of a system in compliance with the national objectives, the European standards and global challenges.

Post-cold war concept of security is based on realistic postulates and emphasises a concept of state, forces,power and national interests. Military and political concept of security was dominant while the relations between the superpowers was based on the so called bipolar balance of power. Identity of states was realised by membership in military, political and economic organisations. The strategy of returning to the era of nuclear weapons reaches its full flowering. The crucial point of security after the end of Cold war consists of searching for giving answers to the threats coming from the outside and abilities of states to maintain their independent integrity against changed relations among the powers, which potentially may become enemies. Under such circumstances powers should not be ignored in any interpretation of any aspect of security, for realistic theories of international relations are still of great influence in the field of security. They will be modified in different conditions and will act in the sense of enlarged concept of security - instead of dominant concepts of political and military security typical for the Cold War era, economic, social and environmental factors will appear. Basic weakness of the realistic theories of security is in the lack of recognising the importance of cooperation between main factors in international community. This failure will be replaced neo realistic and liberal and institutional theories of security which emphasises the concept of cooperation in the first place. Concepts of power, forces and integral processes will be observed within the context of changes in the international relations.