The Balkans: Democracy Without Choices

Abstract

The Balkans today stillappear to be an explosive mixture of weak states, nonstates, and present or future protectorates. In reports to policy makers, the region is described as a place where borders (when defined) are soft, identities are hard, reform policies have failed, and the future is cloudy. While we do not know just how many of Southeastern Europe's de facto states are functioning, and to what extent, we do know that today they are all democracies: The parliamentary elections that took place on 17 November 2001 in the former Serbian region of Kosovo mean that each country or entity in the region now has a representative assembly. A decade ago, the region's biggest problem was the prevalence of nondemocratic states. Today the problem is that there are more democracies than sovereign states in the region, and yet there has been less political change than supporters of democracy had expected.