The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in the Western Balkans

231 Pages·2019·2.309 MB·English

by  Gianluca Passarelli

EDITED BY
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties
in the Western Balkans
Gianluca Passarelli
Editor
The Presidentialisation
of Political Parties
in the Western Balkans
Editor
Gianluca Passarelli
Department of Political Sciences
Sapienza University of Rome
Rome, Italy
ISBN 978-3-319-97351-7 ISBN 978-3-319-97352-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97352-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950055
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
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Cover credit: Andrej Safaric/Alamy Stock Photo
Cover design by Fatima Jamadar
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company
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This book is dedicated to the Western Balkan countries,
to their people, for a prosperous and peaceful future.
Hopefully in a unified Europe.
P a
reface and cknowledgements
This book was conceived during the 2nd Balkan comparative electoral
study conference, held in Budva (Montenegro) in 17–18th February
2016. On that occasion, I had the chance to organise my ideas bet-
ter about the comparison of presidentialisation in the Western Balkan
region, as well as to discuss with different colleagues. The conference
gave me the possibility to meet most of the potential future authors of
single chapters that I am presenting in this book. During those two days,
I have learned a lot not only about the Balkans but also about the differ-
ent approaches to the study of presidentialisation.
Since then I have re-elaborated my ideas, I have revised the project
and I have planned to write and edit a new book testing the validity of
presidentialisation by considering both the institutional approach and the
party’s genetic features, as well as the contextual factors of political sys-
tems different from the so-called “West European” ones. The latter have
for too long been considered as paradigmatic, and then this approach has
generated not only indubitable progresses but also some optical distor-
tion in terms of the general interpretations of the political phenomena.
After all, among the risks and the weaknesses of political sciences studies,
Almond and Verba have indicated, about half a century ago, the paro-
chialism and provincialism. The political science must be compared, or it
will not be, as mentioned by Giovanni Sartori. Therefore, I have tried to
put a small contribution in the direction of a wider comparison.
This book has been possible thanks to the support and advice
of different people. First, I am grateful to Zlatko Vujovic for his kind
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viii PREFACE AND ACkNOWLEDGEMENTS
invitation to collaborate, for his constant support and his kind friendship.
Thanks to the Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI), as well as to
Dubravka Popovic and all the staff for their helpful and professional sup-
port, and for their patience.
I owe a big thanks to George Lutz for his kind help, the comments,
and the friendly discussions we had over the topic. His nice suggestions
have improved the whole project. Moreover, I am grateful to the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for its generous con-
tributions that made possible to launch the whole research.
Mark Franklin and Michael Marsh have been two generous mentors
and discussants of the first draft of the project, and they have offered
their skilful comments to the early version of a few chapters.
I would like to thank Palgrave for being supportive of the project. So,
thanks to Ambra Finotello, Imogen Gordon Clark and John Stegner.
Moreover, I would like to thank all the authors who patiently man-
aged to revise their text, and to discuss with me changes, and improve-
ments. The usual caveat applies. To all those people, I would express
my sincere gratitude for all the work they have done with passion and
competence. Hvala!
Bologna/Rome, Italy Gianluca Passarelli
May 2018
c
ontents
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in the Western
Balkans 1
Gianluca Passarelli
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Croatia:
Institutional Change Matters 23
Dario Nikić Čakar
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Serbia:
Influence of Direct Elected President 49
Spasojević Dušan and Stojiljković Zoran
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Bosnia
and Herzegovina: A Mitigated Presidentialism 73
Suad Arnautović
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Macedonia:
The Role of Ethnics 97
Dane Taleski, Viktor Dimovski and Lura Pollozhani
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Montenegro:
A Limited Semi-presidentialism 119
Zlatko Vujović and Nikoleta Tomović
ix
x CONTENTS
The Presidentialisation of Parties in Slovenia: Leaders
and Parties 145
Danica Fink-Hafner and Alenka krašovec
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Albania:
Parliamentary Constraints 169
Afrim krasniqi
The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Kosovo:
Institutional Limits 193
Albert krasniqi
Index 215
n c
otes on ontributors
Suad Arnautović is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the
University of Sarajevo. He is the author of kontroverze o izborima i
izbornom sistemu u Bosni i Hercegovini (2017), Političko predstavljanje
i izborni sistemi u XX stoljeću (2009) and Izbori u BiH ’90. Analiza
izbornog procesa (1996). His main research interests include electoral
systems, elections, political parties, political representations and public
policy.
Dario Nikić Čakar is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political
Science, University of Zagreb. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics
from the same university. He works in the area of comparative politics
and his research interests include political parties and party systems, elec-
tions, political leadership, intra-party democracy and executive politics
with a focus on the European politics. He is currently involved in var-
ious research projects on prime-ministerial performance in Central and
Eastern Europe, agenda setting in Croatia and organisational develop-
ments of political parties within the Political Party Database Project.
Viktor Dimovski Ph.D. is an Adjunct Professor at the University
American College Skopje—School of Political Science, where he teaches
Practice in Electoral Systems. His research interests include comparative
party research (focus on pre-electoral coalition formation), international
relations, regional cooperation, intelligence and national security. In
addition to the position of Ambassador to the Macedonian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs his other working engagements include the participation
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