Democratic Institutions and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Europe

Josip Broz Tito's saying that "one should not hold on to the law like a drunken man holds on to a fence" remains a valid piece of popular wisdom today, encapsulating the problem of weak rule of law in Southeast European societies. This book poses the question of why democratization in Southeast Europe disappointed initial expectations and claims that this is due to the dominance of authoritarian parties over regime change. Their rule established nondemocratic governance practices that continue to subvert rule of law principles twenty years later.

The unique contribution of this book is in providing empirical evidence for the argument that post-socialist transformation proceeded in a double movement, whereby advances to formal democratic institutions were subverted through nondemocratic rule. This misfit helps explain why improvements to formal democratic institutions did not result in expected democratisation advances.