Piran, Slovenia. The country has had the most successful democratic transition of the former Yugoslav states. Wikimedia. CC.The wave of democratisation in Eastern Europe during the late 1980s and 1990s also affected former Yugoslavia, where the political space opened up after Tito’s death in 1980. Yugoslavia consisted of six federal Republics: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, and two autonomous regions: Kosovo and Vojvodina. First multi-party democratic elections were held in the Republics in 1990, followed by the referenda of independence and a slow disintegration of the state.
In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared formal independence and a referendum was held in March 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Macedonia seceded peacefully in 1991, Montenegro in 2006, and Kosovo declared its independence in 2008. Although the initial period of independence saw the rise of elected, but semi-authoritarian regimes, including Milosevic in Serbia and Tudjman in Croatia, all states are now, at least theoretically, on the path of institutional and economic reforms and accession to the European Union. Slovenia joined the Union in 2004, and Croatia in 2013.
Twenty five years after Yugoslav disintegration, all the states are formally democratic countries: there are regular multi-party elections, apparent separation of powers, established democratic institutions and democratic language. However, there is a need to distinguish between the institutions and formal procedures of democracy and actual implementation.
