Original scientific paper
THE NATIONAL PHENOMENON AND INTEREST ACCOMMODATION: THE PREREQUISITES OF POSTCOMMUNIST TRANSITION (PART I)
Branko Caratan
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author’s starting point is the claim that, despite integrative tendencies, the number of national states in the world is on the increase. The opposing national interests and conflicts may be mitigated or avoided if the central concepts and issues, the ways of the accommodation of interests and the features of the post-communist transitions are known. The author explains the concepts and issues such as nation, ethnic group, national state, nationalism, protection of minorities, the right to self-determination, decentralisation, autonomy, federalism, consociational democracy, non-territorial autonomy. He focuses on the issues that reflect the current controversies of the global and the national policies. He concludes that, among other things, the national issues are central to the process of transition and that they cannot be ignored (since nations are a reality which must be coped with), that there are principles and mechanisms of the regulation of the conflicting national interests, that democracy and nation-building are not incompatible but contradictory notions, that democratic societies are nationally tolerant, that the resolution of the national question is a prerequisite for democratic transition.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
33432
URI
Publication date:
3.6.1998.
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