Eric D. Gordy Livres

How does the regime of Slobodan Milosevic and his Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) remain in power? Since legitimizing its power in 1990, the SPS has never received a majority of votes in an election. Furthermore, it has been defeated in three military conflicts, produced hundreds of thousands of refugees, presided over the most extreme hyperinflation in modern times, and failed in its original defining promise to see "all Serbs in one state." In The Culture of Power in Serbia, Eric Gordy explains how the Milosevic government prolongs its tenure despite failures and setbacks that would have brought down most other regimes.

This book contains collection of articles which provide policy implications related to the problem of achieving substantive reform on the basis of harmonising legislation in Western Balkan (WB) countries with the standards of the European Union (EU). While WB states have generally been successful in adopting legal reforms that make up a part of EU conditionality, many laws remain unenforced, amounting to „empty shells.“ In the space between law, as it is written, and practices as they are engaged in everyday life, exists a gap, characterized by informality, clientelism, and exchange often based on strong tie relationships. Some instances of informality undermine the goal of establishing rule law and contribute to corruption. Others offer valuable solutions to persistent social problems or represent traditional vehicles of social cohesion that should be promoted. The recommendations in this book seek to address both constructive and damaging instances of informality, and to identify policy measures that can help to harmonise not only legislation, but existing informal practices on the ground.