INTERVIEW WITH PANAYOTE DIMITRAS
Panyote Elias Dimitras is the founder and president of the Greek Helsinki Watch since 1992, and since 1998 he has been the Director of the Documenting and Information Center for Minorities in Southeastern Europe. He is a PhD of political and legal sciences at Harvard University, one of the few intellectuals who openly speak about the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece...
POWER SHARING NEW CONCEPT OF DECISION MAKING PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL MUNICIPALITIES
Power Sharing is a term that is used to signify a democratic political system, which differs from majoritarian/Westminister/ model of democracy. Majoritarian model is mainly applied in more ethnically homogeneous societies. Unlike the democratic majority - which is commonly known for the basic election principle of “winner takes it all” - power sharing, as the name itself implies, is a political system that functions on the basis of a documented agreement to share power among the political elite of ethnic communities within the country. It may be regarded as a synonym for consensus or consociational democracy. In a sense, these concepts are being used by Arend Lijphart.
Macedonia Will Not Be the Same Again
The international and domestic scenes are permanently changing. Those who are not capable of adjusting to the new situation will be ruined. This is the message that springs from the historical depths of political thought. Macedonia adjusted successfully to the changes in 1991; whether or not it will make the necessary adjustments now remains to be seen.
NATO or EU?
There are at least two significant reasons why it is of interest to Macedonia to resolve the dilemma whether it should be NATO or European forces in favour of NATO. The first one reason is because of contradictions inside the European Union, while the second is because of those in the relations between the EU and the United States, which could, in moments of possible future crisis, reflect negatively on the security of our country.
Historical Politics and Historical “Masterpieces” in Macedonia before and after 1991
The disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation placed the historians apart from the successor states before approaching the task of reconsidering the national composition and tendencies of the, until then, dominant common Yugoslav historical “masterpiece”