MEĐUNARODNI PROBLEMI

THE INFLUENCE OF TRANSITIONAL AND STRUCTURAL REFORMS ON INTERNAL LEGITIMACY AND THE STRUCTURE OF VALUES

FATIĆ Aleksandar (Prof. dr Aleksandar Fatić, naučni savetnik u Institutu za međunarodnu politiku i privredu, Beograd), afatic@bitsyu.net

The paper explores the view of political transitions from the standpoint of capacity for collective action, and seeks to use a causal analysis of the motivation for collective action and its public articulation as a method of interpreting modern political systems that would be a feasible alternative to the traditional quantitative and comparative method that focuses on the specific aspects of transitions. The author argues that the capacity for collective action within a political system correlates directly to the degree of internal legitimacy of public policy. Such legitimacy is necessarily based on the dominant value system within the transitional process. In addition, the author stipulates that this capacity is reversely proportional to the degree of structural violence in society.

Keywords: legitimacy, authority, public support, collective action, social structure, centralised networks, cliques, “small world” networks, hierarchical networks, structural violence, social control