Name and Surname
Mladen Ostojić
Affiliation
n/a
Contact email
ostojicmladen@gmail.com
Short Biography
Mladen Ostojić received his PhD at the Queen Mary University in London on the topic of transitional justice and democratization in Serbia during the 2000s. After his doctorate, he was a scholar at the Central European University in Budapest and the New Europe College in Bucharest, and in 2017 he taught at Goldsmiths College in London. In addition to scientific work, he has nine years of work experience as a consultant in the field of public administration for state institutions, non-governmental organizations and donors in the Balkans and Niger. For the last seven years, he has been dealing with decentralization and local self-government with a particular interest in the development of direct forms of governance in municipalities and cities. From October 2021 to April 2022, he was a guest scholar at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory as a scholarship holder of the Open Society Foundation with the project entitled “Yugoslav Self-Management as a Model for Direct Management of Urban Settlements? Local Communities in Belgrade from 1974–1991.”
Research abstract
During self-governing socialism, Yugoslavia made a radical step towards the decentralization of power. In this regard, the experiences of Socialist Yugoslavia can be extremely instructive for modern initiatives aimed at establishing direct forms of governance in municipalities and cities. This research studies the work of local communities, institutions that aimed to enable direct decision-making by citizens in solving common problems in their places of residence in the area of Belgrade during the 1980s. Through the analysis of theoretical assumptions and practical solutions in the implementation of decentralization, this research offers a detailed overview of the functions and ways of working of local communities within the communal system established by the 1974 Constitution. Special attention is given to the influence of socio-political organizations in the work of local communities as well as the relations between the local community, the municipality and the city which were critically considered through the analysis of the introduction of self-contribution in Belgrade in 1982. The research is based on interviews with participants in the then system of city administration and local self-government, documentation that includes legal acts and reports, minutes from presentations by state leaders on the topic of decentralization and local communities, and scientific literature.