Political Dynamics of the Post-communist Montenegro: One-Party Show

Marked by the turbulent collapse of the former Yugoslavia, the democratic transition of Western Balkan countries was, as a whole, considerably different from the post-1989 political experiences of other former communist states in Europe. At the same time, within this particular group of countries, one represents an exception in terms of dynamics of the transition process. Montenegro, the smallest ex-Yugoslav republic, is the only state in the region governed by the same party – the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) – since the introduction of multipartism. The DPS’s continuous political dominance over the last 22 years appears even more puzzling in light of the radical transformation it underwent during this period. On the one hand, once the pillar of the Montenegrin competitive authoritarian regime (Levitsky and Way, 2010), the party played the key role in the country’s democratization, subsequent to the 1997 split within its leadership. On the other hand, being the most vocal advocate of state federation with Serbia for more than a decade, it became the main political force behind the renewal of the Montenegrin independence that took place in the 2006 referendum. My paper seeks to contribute to better understanding of this unique post-communist political phenomenon. It thereby argues that the longevity in power of the Democratic Party of Socialists has been determined by two key factors. In the earlier, non-democratic phase of its governance, it was a considerably high level of the DPS’s institutionalization (Panebianco, 1988) that brought about its political supremacy. In the following period, the party managed to monopolize the idea of Montenegrin sovereignty, thus acquiring significant amount of political legitimacy. The paper uses explaining outcome process tracing method that attempts to craft minimally sufficient explanation of an outcome by combining theoretical and case-specific mechanisms (Beach and Pedersen, 2011).