Rationalized decentralization and its influence to the position of citizens and national minorities in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

The rational decentralization represents a group of legal, political and sociological elements that usually appear in constitutional praxis and political theory, but are not classified in a special category. Having in mind the historical and constitutional experience of the Republic of Serbia, the intention of the authors is to determine the possible elements that would bring the decentralization to the rational and functional level of action. One of the goals of the paper is to show the faults of the incomplete decentralization and to discuss the certain solutions that have been creating deficit in the state structure, dysfunctional disorders in competency and political consequences in the Republic of Serbia, all because of the unequalized and unfinished vertical organization. In the introductory part of the paper the short review of the problem is given. The part is dedicated to the various theoretical views on decentralization, as well as to the chosen examples of decentralization in some European states that has as their goal the protection of national minorities and ethnic communities. After that, some theoretical indecision about decentralization is analyzed, as well as the classifications of regions that could be found in theory. At the end of the paper there is a discussion about an attempt to define as many elements that a constitution (above all the constitution of the Republic of Serbia) should contain in order to establish the rationalized decentralization in its vertical organization of governance.

Keywords

• constitution of Serbia
• political decentralization
• rationalized decentralization
• regionalization
• vertical organization of governanc