DOS between revolution and reform

The aim of the paper is to explore some of the main reasons for the slow pace of legal and political institutional reform in Serbia and Yugoslavia following the change of political regime on October 5, 2000. The analysis is carried out in two ways. First, an investigation of the semiotic/narrative or discursive constructions offered formally or informally by the new government is conducted. Second, an analysis of the institutional structure of the new political system is undertaken. One result of the analysis is a demonstration that the new system is profoundly structurally analogous to the prior communist regime. The execution of the original promises of reform is fettered by the extra-institutional position DOS occupies as the key agent of all political and economic changes. Hence, the prospects are grim. This is further argued through the semiotic analysis (semantics, syntax and pragmatics) of the DOS' discourse and its constant deployment of words such as "democracy", "freedom", and "reform" with messianic political zeal. The article concludes that in order for any serious reform to take place the process of institutionalizing political power must be completed first. However, this is unlikely to happen for it would require a self-elimination of DOS as the supreme ruler operating over and above the parliament. © 2002 Kluwer Law International.