Milan Jovanovic
POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS OF ELECTORAL LEGISLATION

Summary: The author analyses electoral systems as a rule of decision-making and representation and points to the problems in classifying different kinds of majority and proportional electoral systems. The author emphasises the electoral unit, the threshold, the manner of voting and the formula for transposing votes into mandates as the elements of the electoral system which have the greatest political influence on the political consequences of the electoral system, party system, parliament, government, etc. Interpreting Duverge's, Rea's, Lijphart's, Sartori's and Nolen's electoral determinism, the author points to the theoretical and empirical argumentation of the consequences of different electoral systems, their advantages and shortcomings. Simplicity, participation, aggregation, effectiveness and legitimacy - are the criteria in evaluating the expected and real consequences of the electoral system that the author uses to compare different electoral models, emphasising that electoral reforms are partial, party-motivated, lacking clear aims, all of which results in a combination of contradictory elements that produce effects opposite to those desired.
Key words: electoral systems, electoral unit, threshold, transposing votes into mandates, political ramifications of electoral legislation, electoral reforms

Aleksandra Sajc Antonic
NON-VOTERS ARE AGAINST FAÇADE-DEMOCRACY
Contributions to understanding the elections in Serbia

Summary: Searching for a more realistic conceptual and methodical framework for exploring voting behaviour in the post-communist countries, in this paper I speak primarily about voters in Serbia, and the nineteen nineties. The observed continuity in conceptualization of vote, and in pushing the non-voters into the background of surveys and analyses, might lead to a distorted picture of the electorate as a whole, as well as to misjudgements on its capacity for democracy. Therefore it is important to broaden consistently the concept of vote (to include other meanings besides support for the best party), and to include non-voters more often into analyses (even when they are not directly the research subject). That would enable us to explore more realistically and accurately the past, and, which is perhaps even more important, the future voting behaviour in Serbia, namely to found deeper understanding of the electoral results at the end of 2003. Actually, consistence of democracy depends not on the voters only, but on the parties as well.
Key words: non-voters, electorate as a whole, democracy, parties.

Milan Jovanovic
ELECTORAL REFORMS - THE CASE OF SERBIA

Summary: In one decade Serbia applied almost all of the most widely spread types of electoral systems. Only two electoral cycles for the central representative body were held on the same electoral model. The consequences of electoral legislation on the party system, on the functioning of the parliament and government, were not in line with the parties' expectations, while conflicts between parties in the past decade centred around the electoral system reform. Not one electoral system managed to achieve more than two of the functions that it is expected to: simplicity, participation, aggregation and effectiveness, representation and legitimacy. All electoral reforms were under the strong influence of party self-interests. The attention is now focused on the need for a thorough reform of all elements of electoral legislation, and, along with that, only on the registering of voters, the threshold and on testing the public to establish whether it would accept some of the different kinds of combined majority-proportional model. The author presents his proposals on how to make voter rolls, points to the problems that lowering the threshold could have on the fragmentation of the party system and presents his proposals on how to minimize the potential of the small parties for blackmail; he warns of the potential consequences of introducing a trench electoral model.
Key words: electoral system, political consequences of electoral legislation, electoral reform, registering of voters, threshold

Mario Brudar
ELECTIONS IN KOSOVO 1990 - 2000

Summary: The author is of the opinion that elections held in Kosovo and Metohija during this period of time are characterised by four things: the Albanians' boycott, the Serb population's support for Milosevic and the Socialists, political parties' lack of organisation and interest in Kosovo and the Socialists' electoral fraud. All of these characteristics made it possible for the Socialists to use Kosovo and Metohija, for a period of ten years, as a reservoir of votes that they would reach for whenever the need arose and so manage to stay in power. In a brief outline the author explains the reasons for each of these characteristics, while he uses short descriptions and analyses of elections held between 1990 and 2000 to point to the examples of electoral fraud in Kosovo which, having in mind their scope, threw into question the regularity of all elections held in Milosevic's Serbia.
Key words: elections, Socialists, fraud, manipulation, Milosevic, Serbs, opposition

Dragana Antonijevic
SOME SYMBOLIC ELEMENTS IN VOJISLAV KOSTUNICA'S ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Summary: In this paper six aspects of Mr Kostunica's election campaign were considered: first of all, the psychological profile of Kostunica as perceived in public; second, the symbolic key in which Kostunica was presented; third, the ceremonial character of the election campaign; next, the emotional reactions of people in direct contact with Kostunica; then, the important element which is the political discourse used by Kostunica in his public speeches, which contained symbols of historical and national tradition, as well as sacral dimension; and finally the intriguing occult dimension of the campaign.
Analysis relied on texts published in independent daily and weekly papers; on public opinion polls; on television commercials and video footage of Mr Kostunica's campaign whose motto was "Face to Face with Voters". The campaign was treated as a kind of political ritual. In this campaign symbols were drawn from at least two spheres: the chosen corpus of Serbian society's historical, national and democratic tradition, which referes to the period 1804-1918; and, on the other hand, the transcedental (sacral and occult) dimension as a support in etablishing the legitimacy of a government.
Key words: Election Campaign, Symbolic Elements, Tradition, Sacral and Occult dimension in the campaign

Jeb E. Adams
SERBIAN TRANSITION THROUGH THE LENS OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2002-2003

Summary: The aim of this paper is to look into the reasons why Serbia cannot elect a president and attempt to assess if this inability (as viewed in the West) has led to democratic stagnation. The first part of this paper determines if Serbia possesses democratic tradition and decide whether the existence (or lack-there-of) such a tradition can help explain why Serbia is unable at this moment to elect a president. The second aspect of this paper addresses Serbian political culture. This section determines if current Serbian political culture is prone to historically determined authoritarian conformity; or if it is rational in its forming of choices. As in the first part of this paper, this section attemptes to uncover the reason why Serbia is unable to elect a president by way of analyzing Serbian political culture. The final section of this paper focuses on what many transitologists refer to as a period of disenchantment. The notion of disenchantment can best be described as the societal low felt after the initial euphoria of (in this case) the ousting of former President Slobodan Milosevic and the installment of a new pro-democratic government. This section addresses the idea of disenchantment in today's Serbia, thereby concluding if it is in fact a valid reason why the Serbian electorate has failed to elect a president.
Key words: elections, transition, political culture, disenchantment.

Djordje Vukadinovic
DECEMBER 2003 -
ONE ALTERNATIVE SPRING OF SERBIAN DEMOCRACY

Summary

Author analyses the results of parlamentarian elections held in December 2003 and the circumstances that led to forming Kostunica's Government. He argues that the outcome of these elections were supstantially determined by series of unsuccesful presidential elections, including Novembar elections that brought victory to SRS candidate Tomislav Nikolic against DOS candidate Dragoljub Micunovic. Mentioned parlamentarian elections were the first really free, democratic and fair elections in Serbia and author contents that aspect - along with overthrowing of DOS Cabinet - is too often neglected. Finally, he concludes that Vojislav Kostunica, in spite of relatively poor results, and widespread disbelief in his capabilities as a lider, has very succesfully resolved political crisis in Serbia and thus provided a good ground for regeration of his political persona and his party.
Key words: Serbia, elections, Parliament, Government, democratic block, DOS, SRS, DSS, Kostunica.

Slobodan Antonic
SERBIA - AWASH WITH ELECTIONS:
FROM THE 2003 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS TO THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Summary: The text explains the political course of events in Serbia between the 2003 parliamentary elections and presidential elections held in 2004. The two major events in which one recognises the behaviour of the main political players in Serbia are: 1. the formation of a coalition government following the 2003 parliamentary elections, and 2. the formation of political coalitions prior to the 2004 presidential elections. The behaviour of political players and voters is explained by the fact that there are three main lines of rifts in Serbia's politics. The two deeper are known as "the Djindjic line" (on the Left) and "the Milosevic line" (on the Right) while the shallower (in the centre) is called "the axis of Kostunica". The general conclusion is that these rifts will probably continue to determine the behaviour of political players in Serbia.
Key words: electoral coalitions, post-electoral coalitions, rifts

Branko Radun
2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
How Serbia got its first "post-political" president

Summary: The text focuses on Boris Tadic's political rise and victory in the presidential election. It analyses various aspects of his "formula of success": winning the support of the powerful and influential, effective election campaign strategy and a positive media picture in the public. It analyses Boris Tadic's appearance as a new trend on the local political scene, as a victory of political marketing, but also as a breakthrough of post-politics and post-modern politics in Serbia. The analysis also focuses on the relationship between Tadic's campaign and those of his political rivals, and on the "historic" televised debate with Tomislav Nikolic.
Key words: Boris Tadic, Democratic Party, strategy, marketing, post-politics

Aleksandra Kostic
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN SERBIA IN 2004: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL REVIEW

Summary: In the first part of the text the author analyses some of the aspects of the main presidential candidates' public appearances in the election campaign prior to the first round of elections. In the second part of the text the socio-political situation in Serbia is analysed through a parallel review of the way in which presidential candidates grasped and presented some of the key political issues (Europe, history, the function of the president) in the 2004 election campaign.
Key words: candidates, Tadic, Nikolic, Marsicanin, Karic, president, history, Europe

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Zoran Stokic
STATUS OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS FROM KOSOVO AND METOHIA IN SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO

Summary: The end of the socialistic regime and the old social security system, in Serbia and Montenegro, together with a long-term economical crises and huge unemployment rate led vast majority of population into some kind of survival strategy. After the Milosevic's regime change in 2000 hopes in better standard were betrayed and this had as a consequence massive turn of the election body to the right hand side parties, which election programs were based on demagogy and social parole. It is clear that adequate social politic makes ground for successful social reform. This thesis was elaborate in this paper on the example of social position and status of internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija (as a most vulnerable part of population). It was shown that misrepresentation of their position was not a good basis for planning and implementing of a adequate social politics.
Keywords: internally displaced persons, poverty limit, survival strategy, right to return, solidarity

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Bojan Dimitrijevic
SERBIA BETWEEN A EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY AND THE BALKAN SYNDROME

Summary: Three years after the ouster of Milosevic Serbia faces the danger of coming down with the "Balkan syndrome". It is characterised by a weak democracy and unsuccessful economic reforms. Explained in the text is the current situation in Serbia's society and economy. Serbia is on the verge of getting caught in a vicious circle in which weak institutions lead to unsuccessful reforms which, in turn, lead to the wakening of institutions. The author emphasises the need to break the vicious circle, which is possible to achieve only by calling early elections and reaching a national consensus on strategic political and economic aims. This consensus would lead to the formation of strong institutions of democracy, further economic reforms and full membership with the European Union.
Key words: transition, reforms, macro-economy

Mile Savic
THE INTELLECTUAL AND GLOBAL POLITICS
The reality of Giddens' cosmopolitan utopia in the light of Blair's "sober pragmatism"

Summary: The text focuses on the intellectuals' engagement in politics, which the author analyses using the example of Giddens' role as T. Blair's advisor. The author reconstructs the relationship between the social theory (Giddens) and real politics (Blair) mainly by analysing the problem of globalisation. The author is of the opinion that the intellectuals' engagement in politics is no different than anyone else's political engagement, so the policy of the intellectual discourse always boils down to real politics. Therefore, Giddens' example of an intellectual-advisor fails to show to what extent politics are subordinated to autonomous cognitive and moral imperatives but rather indicates the extent to which cognitive competence and moral beliefs are subordinated to the imperatives of real politics.
Key words: intellectual-advisor, real politics, real utopia, "sober pragmatism", cosmopolitan democracy