OTTOMAN MILLET SYSTEM AND THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF BOTH YUGOSLAVIAS AS PRE-CONSOCIATIONAL EXPERIENCE FOR THE MACEDONIAN AND THE BOSNIAN MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

Abstract

In the theory of consociation it is said that countries that adopt this model for building
a sustainable democracy in deeply divided societies would be far more successful in its
application if those particular societies have previously experienced some type of political
culture or tradition of peaceful coexistence, tolerance. The common denominator for Bosnia
and Herzegovina and Macedonia is the long period of history where they were a part of such
historical creation as the Ottoman Empire and both Yugoslavias, the Socialist and Royal one.
The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how the political systems of these
historic creations contained elements that could be characterized as a pre-consociational
experience encountered by these two countries, if we take into consideration that some
authors, well versed in the matter of consensus democracy, argue that the Ottoman Empire,
and both Yugoslavias regarding the manner in which they managed their multicultural
diversity of the territory, took certain measures that can qualify as typically consociational.