Macedonia: A New Beginning?

Beginning in 2015, Macedonia has suffered great instability and political intrigue due to a wiretapping scandal that exposed staggering state capture and authoritarian practices by the then-ruling VMRO-DPMNE party. This article puts current events in the broader historical context of Macedonia’s postcommunist experience. It argues that Macedonia’s political life has revolved around two basic questions: Who are the Macedonians, and to whom does Macedonia belong? Both within and beyond the country’s borders, these questions are deeply contested, and this has led to a dominance of identity politics at the expense of good governance and democratic consolidation.