ICS Working Papers Nº2/2016

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2016
parliament and the political parties were dissolved with the proposal to institute corporatist
representation through the creation of seven corporations (estates) that were to provide the
basis for the election of three-quarters of the members of the new parliament, the Assembly
(Subranie) In 1935, the Union of Bulgarian Workers was created as a voluntary syndical
union. Also established was the ‘Social Renewal Directorate’, an educational and political
leadership organization. Plans for a single party were nevertheless blocked by the king.
Feeling his position threatened, King Boris assumed full power, inaugurating a period of royal
dictatorship the following year, with controlled parliaments and electoral laws that were
carefully constructed to ensure government control of the chamber
In Yugoslavia, King Alexander opened a period of ‘royal dictatorship’ in 1929 that was to last
until his assassination in France in 1934 Alexander imposed a new constitution in 1931,
concentrating executive power in his person, limiting the powers of the bicameral legislature
while maintaining a quasi-universal public suffrage and creating a more centralized political
system. In December 1931, the dominant party was created. Initially named the Yugoslav
Radical Peasant Democracy (JRSD), based on the names of its main parties, in 1933 it was
renamed the Yugoslav National Party (JNS).
This was the context in which the king received a constitutional proposal that consecrated
corporatism from the Serbian radical-right politician Dimitrije Ljotics (1891-1945). Appointed
minister of justice in 1931, he was the author of a constitutional project following a
corporatist model that was rejected by King Alexander. In his own words, ‘an organic
constitutional hereditary monarchy, undemocratic and non-parliamentary, based on the
mobilization of popular forces, gathered around economic, professional, cultural and charity
organizations, that would be politically accountable to the king’
Ljotić resigned after the king rejected his proposed constitution, theoretically because the
project was too authoritarian. However, as Stefano Petrungaro notes, bearing in mind
subsequent political developments that resulted in a mild, but nonetheless authoritarian style
of government, one can wonder whether the problem with Ljotić’s constitution proposal was
not that it was too authoritarian, but rather because it was too ‘corporatist’ for the king,
representing a threat to his dictatorial powers Nevertheless, with the second federal
constitution (October 1931) and law (March 1932), the institutional framework – although
not fully corporatist – became clearer: ‘an autonomous consulting body constituted by
experts on economic and social issues’ was created and its members, proposed by the
ministers and appointed by the king, were selected from among professional organizations.
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