Volume 66, Issue 2

The author reviews the basic facts necessary to understand the specific process of Montenegro’s capitalist transformation in the past thirty years or so, a process particularly influenced by certain characteristics of the political system. The survival in power of one political party throughout the period of systemic changes, as well as the more than twenty-year personal rule of Milo Đukanović which continued despite the introduction of liberal-pluralist principles, are primarily explained by the control of the state apparatus by the ruling elite. Alongside that was a low level of economic development. In addition, ambivalent attitudes of the populace to Montenegro’s independence from Serbia and the interethnic relations of Serbs and Montenegrins have played their own role. In the second part, the text displays the leitmotif underlying the contributions to the thematic section on Montenegro in this issue.

Montenegro has passed through more than two decades of flux to reach its current status as a NATO member and European Union (EU) candidate. The smallest republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Montenegro’s modern history has been characterised by both significant change (in statehood) and relative continuity (in leadership). The author focuses on the period between the republic’s first multiparty elections in 1990, through the 1997 split within the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the May 2006 independence referendum to the parliamentary elections of 2016 and the country’s ongoing political crisis, assessing the most significant political developments throughout the aforementioned period.

The author analyses the everyday life and lifestyles of social classes in Montenegro based on a survey conducted on a randomized, proportional, and stratified sample of 805 respondents. The survey covers the topics: consumption; family and professional life; citizens’ attitudes towards society and the state; leisure time; cultural practices; value orientations; time management; and general satisfaction with various aspects of life. The theoretical approach accords with Pierre Bourdieu’s. The everyday life of the Montenegrins emerges as having the following characteristics: restriction to necessities only in purchases; high deprivation; family conflicts brought about by poor financial circumstances; stereotypical leisuretime activities; a low opinion of governmental and social institutions fuelled by perceptions of nepotism and job allocation based on political party membership; differentiation of cultural practices from the dominant mass culture; value confusion; and a focus on everyday routines. The basic line of differentiation turns out to be social class, as all the listed characteristics are much more pronounced in the lower social strata.

The author analyses economic inequalities among the main social groups in Montenegro at the end of the socialist system and during the postsocialist transformation. Economic inequalities are analysed based on an economic status index, which is a composite index made up of multiple indicators: income, consumption, and asset ownership. The empirical basis for the analysis are survey results from 1989, 2003, and 2015. The findings show that there were economic inequalities during the entire period. In the late 1980s, the economic differentiation of social classes was very pronounced, despite the principle of equality with which the socialist system had legitimized itself. The period of postsocialist transformation raised the economic status of all social groups. Notwithstanding such improvement, the differences between the higher and lower social classes persisted.

The author analyses changes in value orientations in Montenegro between 1989 and 2015, examining on the basis of survey data the changes in the values that regulated the economic and political subsystems. He looks first at the period immediately preceding the breakdown of state socialism, in order to identify the spread of values relevant to the regulation of an economic subsystem which may be labelled ‘redistributive statism’, and ‘authoritarian collectivism’ within the political subsystem. He then shows how far Montenegrin society was penetrated by values pertinent to the competitive capitalist order, as well as to economic and political liberalism. He examines the changes in the modes of social reproduction and demonstrates how liberal values in fact replaced the previously dominant redistributive and authoritarian-collectivist ones. Not least, the author establishes that value changes occurred on many levels rather than simply following a linear trajectory from one system to the other.

Over recent years, a number of legal decisions have been taken that represent real novelties in the field. They address state liability towards foreigners in a realm where immunity has long prevailed. Dutch courts have condemned the Dutch state for failure to protect Bosniacs after the fall of the enclave of Srebrenica in 1995. The novelty of these court decisions is most apparent when they are compared to the previous investigations and reports on the fall of the Srebrenica enclave, which had the intended or de facto effect of leaving aside state liability. This article focuses on this comparison. The decisions of the Dutch court represent a change with regard to a trend in which collective responsibility was reduced to a scarecrow argument, where state liability for genocide was limited to the obligation to address criminal responsibility, and where co-agency was a shield preventing the attribution of state responsibility. Not only do these court decisions sanction state liability, they also address the victims and even grant them reparations.

Kosovo celebrated ten years of fraught independence in February. While there were some good reasons to celebrate, Kosovo still hovers between a failed and a functioning state. Its main economic indicators are extremely bad with no signs of improving. Unemployment, particularly among its youth, is feeding an ongoing brain drain. The legacy of the United Nations Mission (UNMIK) and now the European Union Mission (EULEX) is mixed, but neither was successful in creating the conditions for Kosovo to function as a normal state. Agreements between Belgrade and Prishtina to provide more rights to the Serb communities especially in the north have undermined Kosovo’s sovereignty. Now, the buzz in Prishtina speaks of a territorial swap between Serbia and Kosovo that would pave the way for mutual recognition. The domestic elite have proven more interested in short term survival and profit than in making historic progress. A stale consensus prevails that maybe this is the best that can be hoped for.