Slobodan Antonić Filozofski fakultet Novi Sad

Izvorni naučni članak UDK: 329 Primljeno: 31.01.1999.

Social and Party Cleavages in Montenegro

ABSTRACT In this paper I continue to examine usefulness of the Lipset’s and Rokkan’s conception of party cleavages, applied to the case of Montenegro in the 1920s and 1990s this time. Electoral behaviour of the electorate in the 1920s suggests that two cleavages (out of four main types of the Lipset-Rokkan’s cleavages) used to dominate. The first cleavage used to be the one between the authoritarian-etatistic (represented by the Radical Party) and libertarian-democratic blocs (represented by the Democratic Party). The second one used to be the one between the pro-autonomy bloc (the Montenegrian Federalistic Party, e.i. Montenegrian Party, and since 1926 the Communist Party) and pro-integration bloc (Radicals, Democrats, Republicans, Peasants). In Montenegro of the 1990s, these two cleavages dominate again. Gradually the cleavage between the authoritarian-etatistic and libertarian-democratic blocs has been deepening. At the end of 1990s one finds the political forces of the first bloc gathered around Milo Đukanović (the Democratic Party of Socialists, People’s Party, Socialdemocratic Party, etc.), while the forces of the second bloc are gathered around Momir Bulatović (the Socialist People’s Party). This cleavage is overcoming, step by step, the other important cleavage – the one between the pro-autonomy bloc (Liberal Alliance, SDP, etc.) and pro-integration bloc (the DPS, PP, SPP, etc.). Why do nowadays party cleavages in Montenegro resemble the ones in the 1920s? Similarly to the case of Serbia, I seek for an explanation within the thesis that similar social structures produce similar party and social cleavages whenever they get an institutional opportunity for doing so. Given the same political context in the 1920s and 1990s (namely the common state[s] Montenegro has been a part of) and similar power structures then and today, no wonder that the strategies of political elites are similar, and therefore the basic political cleavages as well.

KEY WORDS party cleavages, authoritarianism, democracy, Montenegro.