Through an analysis of the institution building process in Macedonia, it is attempted to assess the impact of the various political actors involved in it and of the formal models of constitution in the design and the shaping the of actual Macedonian State framework. The theoretic opposition between rational-choice models (the actors involved in the institution-building process try to force the adoption of a the formal model most suitable for their interests) and lawyer models (the actors involved in the institution-building process set forward proposals which “imitate” the formal models already existing and “circulating” in the world) is dealt with and evidence is drawn from the case under consideration.

The genesis of nationalism as an ideology and as a representation of the political community is deeply affected by the overall power structure and by the degree of power-sharing among the political elites. Former Yugoslavia was characterized by a federal form of State which guaranteed some level of accountability and power to local political elites and party organizations. In turn, after Tito’s death and with the gradual decline of the Serbian hegemony over the other Yugoslavian federal units (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia), these relative positions of power were used by the local political elites to claim for independence. The former Yugoslavia federal state organization attributed power to locals elites and created local political institutions which generated a new sense of community (the Slovenian, the Croatian, etc.) to be used against the supra-national Yugoslavian identity and national ideology. The Yugoslavia federalism and the power-sharing settings among the federate units were the trigger factors in the breakdown of the Yugoslavian State and in the affirmation of nationalism.

In developed west European democracies the existence of different kinds of political parties is intrinsically linked to the historical cleavages identified by Lipset and Rokkan (1967) and subsequent authors. Adopting Bartolini and Mair (1990) definition of cleavage, this paper states that historical long-standing cleavages are missing in the post-communist political context, characterized by the presence of unfrozen party systems. The ratio underlying this statement is that the mechanisms which allowed the freezing process of west European party systems never had the chance to be activated in Central-Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, we cannot deny the influence of historical political, cultural and organizational legacies in shaping the identity of political parties which emerged in this area at the time of the fall of communism. In particular, referring to the traditional distinction between left and right parties, we consider the identity of major political actors of both sides of the political spectrum as deeply influenced by pre-communist and communist legacies either from the ideological or the organizational point of view. In fact, recognizing that their different electoral fortunes are more strictly connected to the transition dynamics and to the critical junctures of early post-communist political life, this paper identify the origins of the organizational skills and cultural baggage of major post-communist left and right parties in the type of former communist regime and in the national political experience of the interwar period. Specifically, selecting Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia as case-studies, we propose a theoretical framework which links the kind of leftist successor parties and of centre-right parties emerged during the transition period to the late type of communist regime and to the interwar political dynamics, in particular to the at that time top-agenda issue of state- and nation building process.