Cutting the mists of the Black Mountain: Cleavages in Montenegro's divide over statehood and identity

Abstract

The two decades of Montenegro's transition that followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia were marked by the transformation of the ambitions of the ruling political elites, which pushed the republic that once sought to be a member in a federal state towards independence. The shift in the agendas of the political elites also changed the meaning of the notions of “Montenegrin” and “Serb”. Hence, this paper looks at the cleavages that emerged during Montenegro's divide over statehood and identity. It asserts that elite competition in unconsolidated states prompts the emergence of ethno-cultural cleavages, which are necessary for establishing the identities of political elites and of their followers. The study first identifies the critical junctures for the emergence of functional and structural cleavages in Montenegro and associates these cleavages with the changing political context. It proceeds with an analysis of ethno-cultural cleavages, arguing that these emerged from the politicization of historical narratives. The study concludes by arguing that different types of cleavages supported the division over statehood and identity, and that as a result of the changes in identity in Montenegro, the political reinforcement of overlapping cleavages was essential in order to cement the ethno-cultural identities of the two camps.

Keywords:

• Montenegrin
• Serb
• identity
• cleavage
• ethno-cultural

Acknowledgements

This paper was originally presented at the 41st Annual UACES conference in Cambridge, in September 2011. It was written during my research fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (CITSEE project) and revised during my stay at the European University Institute in Florence. I am grateful to Prof. Bernhard Stahl and to Dr. Soeren Keil for their useful comments on an earlier draft. I am also thankful to Prof. Jo Shaw and Dr. Igor Štiks from the University of Edinburgh (CITSEE project) for their academic and professional guidance.

Notes

All factions are rounded to the first decimal.

Negative transition: stability to instability.

See section 2.2.

The 1999 Kosovo war did not feature as a critical juncture in Montenegro, because it did not cause any major political shifts. Rather, the handling of the Kosovo war by Đukanović's camp was a part of the policy of “creeping independence”. For the pro-Milošević camp, the conflict reaffirmed the existing political beliefs based on close links with Serbia.

Identity in Slovenia articulated itself through both linguistic and religious particularities; in the case of Croatia, religion was a clear marker of identity from the identities with which it shared the same language; in Macedonia language was a marker of difference from identities with which it shared the same religion; and the case of the three conflicting identities in Bosnia and Herzegovina proved the importance of religious cleavages in the process of identity reconstruction after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

The party political cleavages that existed in Montenegro's history did not reproduce themselves during the divide (see Morrison). Rather, the narrative of the divide between Greens and Whites, opposing and supporting the unconditional unification of Montenegro with Serbia in 1918, became entrenched in the narratives that helped to establish the identities of the pro-independence and unionist camps.