Paradoxes and Principles of Functioning of the Contemporary Political Democracies: Democracies in Transition in the Balkans

The theoretical debate on democracy for a longer period is one of the most dynamic debates within the political sciences, associated with plenty of controversies and paradoxes in terms of lack of consistent principles of functions of contemporary democracies. Various authors continue to disagree regarding the exact foundations of democratic systems, their ideal principles and optimal outcomes for these systems as a result of functioning and failures of the democracy. The situation then is not a source of paradoxes, but rather it brings in visible the paradoxes of functioning of the contemporary political democracies often associated with camouflages under the flag of democracy and abuses under the umbrella of democratic rhetoric in many political processes around the world. The paradoxes of the frontier line what is allowed and what not in a democracy often serves as a starting point for justification of the abuses and misinterpretation of democratic values by the authorities?! The paper is interested in exploring how closely these various conceptualizations of democracy are related to our intuitive sense of what democracy means, or should mean?! In the second part of the paper, using the methods of case study and functional analyses the paradoxes are considered on the practices of the contemporary democracies for the countries in transition of the Balkans, especially discussing the manifestations of the illiberal democratic tendencies.