Value Orientations and Systemic Changes in Montenegro, 1989-2015

Value Orientations of the Population

In an ideal-typical framework the value system of the socialist social order is oriented towards the sustaining of a redistributive economy with the command-planned activities of the nomenklatura (‘state’) at its centre. By contrast, in the typical western capitalist order ‘liberal values’ represent the basis for both the legitimization of private ownership and the free market dynamics which have the main regulatory role in the economy. As said, however, since the beginning of the 1950s Yugoslav society, Montenegro included, featured its own idiosyncratic command-planned but self-managed regulation in which normative and institutional frameworks were developed, with economic decisions at enterprise level taken—ideal-typically—by employees through their representatives in workers’ councils. However, as surveys in the late 1960s and during the1970s indicated, in fact managerial relations in enterprises did not change substantially from how they had been before self-management. Operational decisions were made by the enterprise management, some in formal and some in informal ways, while key strategic decisions continued to be controlled by the nomenklatura. However, there is no doubt that there was a certain degree of employee influence in specific spheres of decision-making, such as earnings and working conditions. In addition, there was reasonably widespread ideological awareness of employees’ decision-taking rights.^[10]

As a consequence of that certain degree of decentralization of decision-making, the self-management normative-institutional structure implied yet another important specific feature of Yugoslav socialism as it applied to the economic sphere. That was the fact that by definition institutionalized self-management assumed that decisions were taken by individual enterprises rather than by the state. In fact, the economic ‘disempowerment’ of the nomenklatura largely represented an ideological screen for actual social relations, because the key decisions were taken at different hierarchical levels within the nomenklatura, in other words at federal, republican, or local levels. For the most part decisions were taken informally through personnel control of enterprises managements and of the financial system, i. e. of the personnel in banks, federal and republic funds, etc.^[11] Still, in certain periods, especially in the second half of the 1960s and during the 1980s, enterprises did enjoy substantial independence from the state when it came to autonomous business decisions. Indeed, their relative independence was represented as a ‘socialist market’. All the same, it was emphatically one more ideological construct characteristic of Yugoslav socialism, although it was accompanied by the important practical and value consequences previously mentioned. It is hardly necessary to point out that the specifics gained increased importance as the crisis of socialism deepened, as well as at its final breakdown before the capitalist social order was introduced.

Previous research has shown that towards the end of the 1980s, when the first survey to be presented in this text was carried out, a pronounced normative-value dissonance had developed in Montenegro and Yugoslav society as a whole. It was a time marked by a long-lasting economic crisis accompanied by a fall in living standards. Attempts were made at radical market reform of the socialist economy which included privatisation programmes, and the economic-political and ideological influence of the ‘West’ suddenly strengthened, coinciding with growth of nationalism. While most of those factors encouraged liberal values, certain of them acted in the opposite direction. The worsening economic position of the employed encouraged them to support state interventionism, which was perceived as the only way an impoverished population could be protected in an economic sense. In addition, a certain traditionalism underpinned a rather authoritarian and collectivistic orientation which tended to inflame ethnic conflict.

Fifteen years further down the line things had changed substantially. The main characteristics of the western-type capitalist social order had been established, with the achievement of basic separation of economic and political subsystems, at least to the extent that they were now subject to different forms of regulation. The political system was based on the liberal principle of multi-party competition, while the economy was now based on market competition and private ownership. The end of war in the region and the inclusion of Montenegro into the international economic and political order were both important to the process by which capitalism was embedded. While it is true that the republic was still formally part of a joint state with Serbia, even before all this Montenegro had been pursuing a largely independent international policy. By contrast, the systemic transformation proceeded following a highly specific pattern. Despite regular multiparty elections the ruling party (DPS) continued to hold power, which meant that members of the former nomenklatura continued to control the political sphere, even though, naturally, new individuals appeared on the scene and in time took up influential positions within the state apparatuses. That, among other things, implied that the nomenklatura retained oversight of the economic transformation, and thereby clearly defined the extent of the new regulation by market principles.

The survival of elements of blocked transformation in Montenegro was helped by the fact that the matter of state independence was portrayed as paramount even after the end of Slobodan Milošević’s regime in October 2000,^[12] so that behind the scenes there was mostly no hindrance to the politically dominant group’s ability to develop the process of privatization for their own benefit. In other words, the controversial course of gradual economic recovery, with its sustained political and ensuing economic domination by parts of the former nomenklatura, evidently had an ambivalent influence on the dominant value orientations. The conditions for the persistence of normative-value dissonance continued to be reproduced, even if now in the reverse sense. Any more substantial breakthrough of liberal values that might have been prompted either by internal changes or external influences was limited by the political emphasis placed on the state and on matters of ethnic identity. The ensuing overemphasis of the regulatory role of the state led to a powerful recurrence of authoritarian and collectivist value orientations.

The last decade then brought about a number of important, even if not crucial, changes from the previous period. Montenegro’s independence in 2006 removed from the priority list the matter of the country’s status and with it the role of the state as the central actor both socially and economically. However, independence did not bring many changes to the control of the state apparatus, as the group which had started the systemic transformation and had been dominated by the former nomenklatura still occupied the top institutional positions. That fact of itself throws doubt on the application of the liberal principle that a government may be removed by the electorate, and it is a doubt which remains, whatever the actual reasons for the continuous electoral success of only one political party. It is not important whether such a party maintains power because of its political skill (or because of the opposition’s corresponding lack of skill) or simply because it has shrewdly abused the state apparatus in the electoral process, which would effectively mean the absence of free and fair elections. Regardless, such uninterrupted exercise of political power in Montenegro has created prolonged and extensive control of economic resources, which has, inevitably obstructed the establishment of market principles as the dominant mode of regulation. On the other hand, any advancement of privatization involving foreign firms has necessarily strengthened precisely those modes of market regulation. In its postsocialist transformation Montenegro therefore went from the blocked systemic transformation of the 1990s to the political capitalism of the past fifteen or so years which has had controversial consequences. Large firms collapsed and unemployment increased substantially, while private-entrepreneurial initiatives took off. Economic growth came but was occasionally slowed by intermittent crises that were in principle imported, until the economic crisis of 2008 effectively ‘stimulated’ the state to resume its active economic role. In the value sphere then, a continuation of normative-value dissonances was only to be expected. There would be prevailing support for liberal principles, especially in politics, and a pronounced renewal of former collectivist and authoritarian orientations. In any case, in Montenegro just as in wider Southeastern Europe, collectivism and authoritarianism have historical roots reaching much deeper than state socialist social regulations.

These hypotheses may be verified using the survey data, even though some of the statements operationalizing the two opposed value orientations, ‘redistributive statism’ and ‘economic liberalism’, were not identical in all surveys. In spite of somewhat reducing their analytical reliability, the explorative factor analysis showed that all statements could in fact be reduced to one latent dimension, meaning that they express essentially the same value orientation. Table 1 reviews the above-mentioned value orientations for the three periods under study for the entire surveyed population, and then I will show the degree of their presence in each of the basic social groups.

Predictably, the data for 1989 show highly pronounced normative-value dissonance. The dominance of private ownership as the fundamental basis for the capitalist mode of social production became the value orientation accepted by the majority (first statement). Its opposite orientation, as the basis of the reproduction of dominant relations in socialism and the one which emphasizes the central role of collective ownership—called social ownership in Yugoslavia—was supported by 21% of respondents. However, in the current profound economic crisis the population turned to the state as the only actor capable of guaranteeing their economic existence in their endangered condition. To be sure, that variant of ‘turning to the state’ was now ideologically supported by the elites too, who were seeking to bring the crisis under control. Therefore the second statement, about the increased role of the state in the economy in present day circumstances, directly refers to the link between state and economy. There, the opposite orientation is dominant, namely a majority acceptance of the redistributive value orientation that state socialism had established. The third and final statement presents the relationship between the state and the economy as a lasting one. A significant majority of respondents supported the market principle of enterprise autonomy, which seems to refer to liberal capitalism but in reality reflects too the fact that the same principle was supported by the Yugoslav ideology of self-management, or a socialist market economy.

Briefly, it may be said that in Montenegro the view that private ownership was the most desirable form was the one that prevailed in the period before the end of the state socialist order. That view was joined by quasi-market orientation in the self-managed independence of enterprises, where the state was left with the role of main problem-solver. On the one hand, that means that the normative-value dissonance was manifest in the prevailing support by substantial parts of the population for a capitalist form of ownership that was to be accompanied by the rejection of the redistributive role of the state, and it helps explain why there was no major resistance to the removal of the socialist order. However, on the other hand, a marked value confusion went along with the dissonance in that simultaneously, conflicting value orientations were accepted which in fact mirrored the winding course of Montenegro’s systemic transformation.^[13]

Interestingly, some fifteen years later, with the capitalist mode of production of society now dominant, no change has occurred to the overall characteristics of value orientations as they are related to Montenegro’s economic subsystem. Still present are both the normative-value dissonance, in the form of mass acceptance of values that run contrary to the new dominant normative and institutional system, and value confusion in the form of a simultaneous acceptance of conflicting orientations. What has changed, however, is the degree of acceptance or rejection in individual statements, as shown in the latest survey. First, private ownership as the vital core of capitalism is no longer an unquestionable tenet for the majority of the population, although support for it is still more widespread than rejection. Clearly, that change has effectively undermined the basis for the legitimacy of the new order. Increased scepticism of private ownership has spread to the sphere of the market economy itself, so that respondents who accept the right of the state to intervene within private firms are somewhat more numerous than those who contest it. In the same vein, speaking of the general principle of a market economy as it implies the limitation of state intervention, most respondents do not show a liberal orientation. Overall, that means that the normative-value dissonance has not diminished at all; the value orientations referring to the new normative-institutional order still lack majority support.

That new form of dissonance in relation to the new social order, and the continuation of value confusion, may be well explained by reference to the idiosyncrasies of Montenegro’s systemic transformation. I mean of course Montenegro’s dramatic economic difficulties during the 1990s, and the privatizations carried out for the benefit of those of the nomenklatura who remained in power during the period of the ‘blocked transformation’. Those circumstances have effectively undermined the legitimacy of the transformed order, in spite of the systemically promoted new value orientations.^[14]

So in fact, more than two and a half decades after the introduction of systemic changes in Montenegro, the value orientations of the population within the economic subsystem have not radically changed. On the contrary, the most prevalent views today seem to concern precisely the dilemmas about supporting the legitimizing principles of the capitalist social order. Indeed, for each individual statement the most common answer was ‘undecided’. Moreover, the primacy of private ownership is supported and contested by an equal number of respondents, while in the case of state interventionism (the next two statements) the number of respondents supporting the liberal orientation is only slightly greater than that of those who would favour redistributive orientation.

There are, therefore, grounds to state that because the redistributive orientation is no longer dominant in relation to a single statement, the degree of normative-value dissonance has somewhat diminished in comparison to the previous period. However, it is still strongly manifested and especially so in the case of the most important systemic mainstay, namely the attitude to ownership. A remarkable value confusion has persisted too, as a large number of respondents simultaneously accept opposing value orientations.^[15]

Value Orientations of the Basic Social Groups

When value orientations are discussed, society appears as an abstraction, wherein structural divisions into ‘dominant’ and ‘subordinated’ groups are obscured. Similarly, there is no transparency of the interests of the dominant strata. The systemically established value orientations express such interests on a general level, as seeking to direct the actions of members of subordinated groups in a way befitting the interests of the dominant strata. A differentiation of value orientations according to basic social groups is particularly important in situations of systemic change, as it is then possible to notice which strata manifest a more pronounced normative-value dissonance. Social groups might accept the value orientations that claim to legitimize the new social order; they might doubt them; or they might perceive possible resistance strategies to the social changes.

For an insight into the value orientations of the basic social groups in Montenegro, a division into five social classes or strata seemed useful. For our purposes here they are; a: higher strata—the political and economic elites; b: middle strata—professionals, lower managers, medium entrepreneurs, small entrepreneurs, self-employed people with a higher education; c: intermediate strata—clerks, technicians, small entrepreneurs and the self-employed with intermediate and lower education; d: manual workers—skilled and non-skilled workers; and e:—farmers.^[16] The analysis of the survey data indicates first that in 1989 there was a significant difference among the social groups in the acceptance of value orientations for most of the examined items (save one; see Table 1). Conversely, at the time of the systemic transformation such clear inter-group differences vanish. That finding, at first sight, seems to suggest that the change in the social order brought about a reduction in normative-value dissonance, as the new normative order seemed to be accepted by an overwhelming majority. However, in view of the previous insights it becomes clear that instead, confusion in value orientations in the sphere of the economic reproduction of society has increased. That too is logical, as it derives from the fact that the systemic change unfolded in a remarkably specific way under conditions of prolonged blocked transformation during the first decade of the transformation with an accompanying dramatic deterioration of the economic position of the majority of the population.

A more detailed review of the findings of each individual survey indicates that on the eve of the dismantling of socialism a positive view of private ownership prevailed in all basic social groups and that the socialist form of ownership was on the whole delegitimized. What is surprising, and differs from the results for Serbia, is that the lower the social stratum the stronger was the acceptance of private ownership as a lasting basis for economic progress. Namely, in Montenegro not only did many of the nomenklatura support redistributive values in the economy, but so too did a good many professionals — although it is true that in both groups they were an overall minority.^[17]

On the other hand, members of most social strata gave substantial support to the redistributive, socialist value orientation, which was in fact the majority orientation of members of the three lower social groups (intermediate, manual workers, and farmers). A liberal orientation prevailed significantly only among members of the ruling group and, marginally, among members of the middle strata (professionals, lower managers, and so on.). By contrast, members of the middle strata were strongest in their support of enterprise independence which, as already mentioned, was rooted in the self-management ideology which had ruled until then. In that respect members of the higher strata were closer in spirit to those of other groups, although there was no statistically significant difference between members of different social groups.

The effect of the decade of ‘blocked transformation’ was that most social groups in the majority of the surveyed statements displayed prevailing support for liberal value orientations, with no statistically significant difference. As was to be expected, the largest support for private ownership as the fundamental ownership relation under capitalism, came from members of the ruling group. They were not only the ones who controlled how the new capitalist type of social reproduction would be established but were also among the main winners in the process of property privatization. On the other hand, the group whom the ruling strata might reasonably have expected to be their main supporters, namely the middle strata, showed the greatest restraint in their enthusiasm for the primacy of private ownership. The middle rankers showed only marginal support for liberal orientation, which lack of enthusiasm was in all likelihood the result of unfulfilled expectations in their own economic and overall social position which did not improve either in absolute or relative terms. Further, in reference to the survey statement about the role of the state in the economy, members of all groups other than manual workers displayed a liberal orientation. That too is easy to understand in view of the fact that manual workers, who had faced a growing risk of unemployment and falling incomes for those in work, were the absolute losers in the process of transferring the economy to market regulation. The middle strata figure here again, on the margin between support for redistributive or liberal value orientations, which confirms once more their relative uncertainty about the systemic transformation. Finally, a liberal orientation prevailed too among the majority of people in various social groups in the matter of the statement on the independence of enterprise from the state.

There were, however, two exceptions. For the above mentioned reasons, the majority of manual workers supported a redistributive orientation, and rather surprisingly that is true for members of the ruling group too. However if ones takes into account that members of the socialist nomenklatura had continued to manage the still incomplete process of economic transformation—including the privatization processes still under way—and that they controlled the largest part of economic resources, it becomes clear how their value orientation was in fact in agreement with their own interests.

Finally, the latest survey, carried out 25 years after the systemic changes in Montenegro, reveals that there have still been no radical value changes, at least within the economic subsystem. That implies the persistence of a substantial normative—value dissonance, and the powerful presence of value confusion. Although on the whole liberal value orientations towards the economic sphere prevail among members of most social groups, such prevalence continues to be slight and unsystematic. Given that the questionnaire of 2015 included a some-what larger number of statements on the topic, the results may be presented using somewhat more complex indicators (synthetic indices obtained on the basis of the statements). But even if we look only at the statements present in the previous two surveys, it becomes obvious that in all three surveys liberal orientations are prevalent for the sample as a whole. The most widely accepted orientation of that kind is registered (just as before) with the statement on government non-interference into private firms. The outcome is somewhat weaker in relation to overall state interventionism, and is the weakest for the statement on private ownership, for which it in fact verges on overall preference for redistributive orientation (arithmetic mean = 3.0041).

The larger number of statements used in the 2015 survey allows for a more reliable assessment. In both sets of questions on state interventionism and private ownership (and privatization) differences are visible among the social strata with respect to value orientations, but the differences are neither significant nor systematically manifested. Therefore Table 2 shows only the findings on private ownership and privatisation.^[18]

Although it turns out that the members of the different social groups reveal no statistically significant differences in attitudes to private ownership, among the lowest social groups there is in fact a negative attitude to what is a fundamental category of the capitalist social order. Doubtless that is a consequence of a significant deterioration in the lowest groups’ socio-economic position during the systemic transformation, a deterioration that was both relative and absolute during the first postsocialist decade although it later became mostly relative.

Among the more salient reasons for that the most prominent were the growth of social inequalities and the remarkable increase in economic insecurity. Significant too were the collapses of many firms and the perpetual underdevelopment of social security.^[19] A still greater problem might be the finding that among the middle strata (who, let us recall, included small entrepreneurs) the number supporting an economic system based on private ownership barely exceeds the number who are unfavourable to it. In the end, only the ruling economic and political elite clearly accept the basis of the new economic order while all other strata display ambivalence. In effect therefore, the number who broadly support the newly established fundamental social relations approximately match those who reject them, so that the capitalist order in Montenegro has been established on what is proving to be persistently shaky ground.

In summary therefore, the normative-value dissonance in the realm of economic value orientations in Montenegro was highly pronounced during the final phase of the socialist order when the majority of the population had already rejected a good part of that order’s fundamental values. It was assumed that the socio-economic insecurity to be expected alongside the systemic changes would be kept under control through state intervention. People expected the state to act as a ‘safety net’ which would be incorporated into the new system, carrying over from the previous order. As its negative consequences became increasingly obvious during the systemic transformation, primarily to the lower strata, scepticism about the changes spread and normative-value dissonance increased. However, the dissonance now faced the opposite direction as acceptance of the new procapitalist values subsided. That in turn gave rise to increased value confusion.

Simultaneously, value orientations characterizing confronted forms of social reproduction, namely liberalism and redistributive statism, were accepted not only as support of state intervention in the economy but even as challenging private ownership as a desirable fundamental production relation. In the long run, according to the survey findings, perhaps the biggest problem facing attempts to stabilize capitalist relations in Montenegro might be that dissonance and value confusion figure prominently among the members of the middle strata, in other words among the professionals who should actually have been the main actors in the spreading of new and consistent value orientations among the population.

Authoritarian Collectivism or Political Liberalism?

The dismantling of the socialist order and gradual formation of a capitalist order brought about essential changes in the political subsystem too. In the first place its relative independence meant the formation of specific principles for its reproduction. Instead of a unique hierarchically organised nomenklatura that reproduced itself through appointments of holders of lower positions by higher instances (composed as a rule of collective bodies),^[20] now elite political positions (in their ideal-typical form) were distributed on the basis of the liberal principle of political competition, with interest-based, freely formed political parties participating under equal and fair conditions.^[21] Those conditions should ideally ensure reasonably frequent changes of the holders of power, which allows the interests of different subgroups of the dominant social class to be represented.

The legitimizing basis of the political subsystem changed along with the type of its regulation. In socialism, the nomenklatura had legitimized itself on an ideological pattern, according to which it championed overall social interests. It had acquired the right to do so because of its special abilities to recognize those collective interests and put them into practice; what is called the ‘leading role of the Communist Party’. That self-legitimization implied too the right to enforce the implementation of decisions and is why value orientations supportive of that type of management of social reproduction may be termed ‘authoritarian-collectivist’.^[22] By contrast, the liberal ideology assumes that the general interest of a society is derived from an aggregation of the interests of its individuals, for that represents the highest social value. Those interests are then looked after by the freely elected representatives of such aggregated interests as are organised as political parties, while fair political competition enables balanced observance of all interests.

That ideal-typical confrontation between two legitimizing principles took on specific features in the social environment under scrutiny here. As mentioned, no strict authoritarian centralism ever existed in socialist Yugoslavia, and what there was became in time ever more ‘diluted’ as territorial decentralization proceeded. The autonomy of the nomenklaturas in the Yugoslav republics grew in relation to that of the central, federal nomenklatura. Furthermore, Yugoslav society’s openness to the West facilitated the implementation of liberal political ideas, the more so as the socialist system sank deeper into its socio-economic crisis. During the 1980s the dominant ideology emphasized an essential link between state socialism and a one-party political system, while the population saw the increasing presence of liberal ideas. According to those liberal ideas a free society, which is what socialism claimed to pursue, could never be developed without political pluralism. Therefore, just before the collapse of socialism in Yugoslavia/Montenegro, in the political sphere too conditions had developed favouring pronounced normative-value dissonance.

In the early 1990s, Montenegro as well as Serbia, which remained in a joint state, saw the introduction into the political subsystem of a new normative order which was accompanied by the break-up of the larger federal state. That brought increasing ethnic conflict, and war, with external pressures following and leading to processes of internal homogenization. Members of the existing nomenklatura managed to win the first multiparty elections^[23] although to achieve their victory they made full use of the means of repression and ideological control they had retained over both the state apparatus and economic resources. Ever since, the pluralist normative form of the political subsystem has existed in that form, as at least some of the same group have continued to hold power. That was both a real and long-term derogation of the liberal principle of pluralist elections, which by definition ensure that power is temporary; coupled with the authoritarian values traditionally widespread in those regions.^[24] In combination with the long-lasting economic deprivation of many in the lower social strata who were oriented towards the state and its redistributive politics, that created the conditions for a new form of normative-value dissonance. Along with the dominant liberal orientations systemically imposed by the newly established normative order, authoritarian-collectivist value orientations continue to survive to this day. Since in contrast to the case in Serbia, the breaking of the political dominance of one group in Montenegro did not occur even after the collapse of Milošević’s regime in 2000, nor after the establishment of state independence, it may be assumed that similar social-political and economic conditions continued to support the survival of that dissonance not only until the beginning of the new millennium but to date.

Political Value Orientations of the Population

To verify my hypotheses I have used the results from the 1989, 2003, and 2015 surveys, including a summary comparison with corresponding findings from Serbia. The survey undertaken at the end of the socialist period used a small number of statements operationalizing two value orientations of the political sphere, ‘authoritarian collectivism’ and ‘liberalism’. That is why the comparison with the latter periods will be done on the basis of individual statements (Table 3).

At first glance the data show that immediately before the collapse of the socialist order in Montenegro (Yugoslavia) normative-value dissonance and value confusion prevailed in value orientations about the political subsystem just as they did about the economic system. The one-party political order, a fundamental principle of socialism, was almost entirely abandoned in favour of party pluralism which until then had been unacceptable. In fact as many as two thirds of respondents supported the liberal principle. The situation was similar, although somewhat less prominent, for the question about the second pillar of socialist legitimacy, concerning the limits posed by the ruling party on freedom of expression. Freedom of speech was supported by about 50% of respondents, but although a conspicuous deviation from the ideal-typical normative order it was ‘compensated for’, so to speak, by support for certain very firm authoritarian-collectivist principles. Subordination of the judiciary to the executive was accepted by about half the respondents, while the supremacy of the collective over the individual—a remarkably illiberal orientation—obtained as much as two thirds support.^[25]

We can note a certain strengthening of liberal value orientations in 2003 at the time of the initial consolidation of the pluralist political order. Political pluralism was almost generally accepted, opposed only by marginal groups. To a lesser extent resistance to freedom of speech too declined so that an important liberal principle had garnered majority support. Still more noticeably, almost four fifths of respondents now favoured an independent judiciary as a necessary condition for both a liberal-democratic and pluralist order and a market economy. That then amounted to support for the capitalist social order as a whole.^[26] Finally, elements of authoritarian-collectivist orientations survived, for example in predominantly illiberal statements on the necessity that the collective take precedence over the individual. The explanation for that particular value orientation’s departure from the newly established normative order is simple. On the one hand, it is an orientation with deep historical roots in Montenegro, forming part of traditional patriarchal attitudes. On the other hand, the survey was done at a time of overheated ethno-national identification, incited by the wars of the 1990s and then channelled by the ruling political elite in its efforts to make a clear separation of Montenegrin identity from Serbian, which was done to secure independence. Under such circumstances support for the individual as opposed to the collective principle could hardly have made much headway even in a less traditional society than that in Montenego.

If the initial reinforcement of capitalist relations in Montenegro was paralleled by the strengthening of a corresponding liberal value order conducive to the weakening of normative-value dissonance, one might have expected subsequent further normative strengthening of the new social order, including additional value entrenchment. However, the most recent data from 2015 do not support that logic. First, in relation to all statements used (Table 3) the increase of undecided respondents is quite noticeable and works mostly to the detriment of liberal orientations. Thus, support for the multiparty system managed to remain at just about half, while as many as a third of respondents remained undecided. And while growing scepticism of political pluralism might logically be explained by specific experience of the practical irreplaceability of power holders in the Republic, the fact that almost equal numbers of respondents supported and rejected the necessity of free speech indicates a more comprehensive crisis for liberal orientation and, contrary to what might have been expected, an increasing normative-value dissonance. That view is only confirmed by the noticeable fall in support for an independent judiciary. However, a certain amount of caution is warranted in forming conclusions here, if only because the traditionalist statement on the prevalence of the collective over the individual gained somewhat weaker support in 2015 than before.^[27] Briefly then, according to the survey findings the fact that the process of constitution and reproduction of the pluralist political system in Montenegro failed to bring about the usual changing of parties in power has in the long-run undermined the very value basis it relies on, and thereby potentially its normative form itself. To put it simply, if over a number of decades the party in power does not change, then the very principle of the competitive electoral process is brought into doubt.

The changes to the mode of social production in Montenegro therefore brought ambivalent results in the value sphere within the political subsystem. The normative-value dissonance that was manifest through a significant presence of liberal value orientations in the final years of state socialism facilitated socialism’s dismantling. The construction of the pluralist political system incited the spread of liberal orientations, which led to decreasing dissonance. Not a single change of ruling party has been recorded during the course of the reproduction of the new political system, and probably because of that, scepticism increased about the principles of the new normative order itself. That scepticism was then expressed as a powerful growth of ambivalence to certain of the basic value orientations upon which that social order rested, such as political pluralism, freedom of speech, and an independent judiciary.

Value Orientations of Basic Social Groups

In order to verify at least partly these general conclusions on the wavering acceptance of liberal value orientations during the past twenty years in Montenegro I shall now analyse briefly their distribution in the basic social groups during the observed period. Immediately before the ending of socialism the abandonment of dominant authoritarian-collectivist value patterns was characteristic of all social groups, although not to the same degree. As a rule the differences were statistically significant, so that the liberal orientation towards the acceptability of a multiparty system was confirmed by members of all basic social groups, while that towards freedom of speech gained the support only of farmers. On the other hand, an authoritarian-collectivist orientation towards the statement that the collective should be given priority over the individual was confirmed by the majority of all basic groups equally, although the middle strata supported it less. As for the statement that the judiciary should be subordinate to the executive, again the middle strata positioned themselves significantly apart from the rest in their liberal orientation. The ruling group aligned themselves similarly, while the other groups gave majority support to authoritarian-collectivist orientation statements. In short then, along with a pronounced normative-value dissonance visible in each of the basic social groups, there was widespread value confusion too, to which the middle strata, especially professionals and small entrepreneurs, were less susceptible. They were in fact the people who had provided the main impulse for the introduction of liberal principles into the regulation of the political subsystem.

The normative strengthening of a multiparty political system during the next fifteen years brought about growth of the liberal orientation and a decline in normative-value dissonance. A more detailed assessment shows that the growth largely touched all basic social groups. Referring to the statements about the acceptability of a multiparty system and on the right to freedom of speech, members of all groups gave majority support to the liberal orientation. On the other hand, just as in the previous period, primacy of the collective over the individual remained generally accepted, with the middle strata again supporting it least.

The problem for the democratic transformation of Montenegro is therefore the fact that over the past decade further reinforcement of the liberal normative order has not been accompanied by any significant advancement in acceptance of the relevant value orientations. Thus, as indicated (Table 3) the basic liberal principle of the primacy of the individual over the collective is still rejected by almost two thirds of respondents. Not only does the authoritarian-collectivist view prevail within all social groups, but it is most frequently championed by precisely those of the highest stratum who would ideally have become the main structural pillars of liberalism. It is true enough that the majority of respondents from all social groups—with the largest number of liberally oriented individuals found among the highest and middle strata—showed a liberal orientation towards the second key statement in this sphere, about multiparty competition as the principle of regulation of the political subsystem. All the same, perhaps the most characteristic evidence for the current value confusion about the regulation of the political subsystem is the fact that members of different basic groups show no statistically significant difference in answers to any of the statements examining orientations towards liberalism or authoritarian collectivism. Therefore neither the ruling group as the structural proponent of systemically established value orientations, nor members of the middle strata and professionals above all, as the main disseminators of those orientations, represent a focus for the propagation of value orientations that accord with the currently dominant form of social reproduction. In other words, there are powerful preconditions for normative—value dissonance to remain a long-lasting characteristic of the capitalist order in Montenegro, which might represent a serious obstacle to its firmer consolidation. That is confirmed in the summary review of the current attitude of members of basic social groups to ‘liberalism’ and ‘authoritarian collectivism’ in the most recent survey of 2015, on the basis of the average factor scores for the statements used as indicators of orientation.^[28]

The summary data show that the middle strata, and the intermediate stratum such as technicians as well as clerks and small entrepreneurs with intermediate education, are predominantly liberally oriented while all others (including, it is true, a few members of the dominant group in the sample) show a predominantly authoritarian-collectivist outlook. However, the differences between the members of various social groups are not statistically significant. Only the middle strata stand a little apart from the others for their somewhat more emphatically liberal attitude, as do farmers (also insufficiently represented in the sample) who are remarkable for their authoritarian-collectivist position. All others gravitate towards an attitude that would tend to unite opposing orientations. Clearly, particularly exceptional here is the fact that somewhat more members of the ruling groups support an authoritarian-collectivist orientation which in ideal-typical terms would be consistent with the previous socialist type of society.

This analysis of value orientations within the political subsystem indicates that over the past twenty or so years the development of capitalist social relations has failed to bring more significant advancement in the acceptance of value orientations that would support the reproduction of this new type of relation. The normative-value dissonance which was characteristic of the critical period of socialism, although in decline during the initial period of systemic changes in consequence of the increasing and conforming acceptance of liberal values, has lately begun to grow again. As the evidence suggests, widespread doubt has developed about the values of the newly established system. In the same vein, along with value dissonance there survives widespread value confusion resulting from acceptance of mutually opposed liberal and authoritarian-collectivist value orientations. That is revealed by the data to be characteristic of very many people from all social groups.

The wavering in the spread of liberal value orientations in the political realm during the past twenty years seems to be clearly explicable by the circumstance that the party in power has proven immoveable over the entire duration of the postsocialist political order. In that sense it could be determined as temporary, conditionally speaking. However, what should alert us to more substantial problems in Montenegro’s capitalist system is the fact that no single social group appears to be a straightforward and convinced promoter of the new value system. Even among the middle strata whose inclination towards liberal values is most pronounced, such support is only somewhat stronger than among their authoritarian-collectivist opposite numbers. That supportive group too may then be expected to transmit both value systems in spite of their mutual exclusivity, and thus rather to continue the dissonance and value confusion than contribute to their own elimination.

The problems of adjusting the social order and dominant value orientations in Montenegro are all the more serious since the same trend appears in both spheres, political and economic. The relative sparseness of the data assessed here both in the number of statements used to examine the orientations and the sample sizes of certain of the groups does not allow firmer conclusions to be drawn on the changes of value orientations in Montenegro, and their potential influence on the further course of Montenegrin society. Still, their mutual consistency and the fact that a significant majority of the data supports the above conclusions, give fair warning that the capitalist social order will continue to face significant resistance from wider social groups. As a result, its further course is remarkably uncertain as, in the end, will be the type of society constructed in Montenegro in the future.