MULTI-ETHNIC COALITION GOVERNMENTS AS PRECONDITION FOR MAINTENANCE OF POLITICAL STABILITY, THE EXAMPLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA Shikova, Natalija multiculturalism power sharing coalition governments legal framework integration The Republic of Macedonia is constantly facing the challenge to reach democratic standards; establish rule of law; keep peace and stability; lower interethnic tensions; to increase its economic growth and eventually become an EU member state. Macedonian society is multi-ethnic and multicultural. The main pillar of multi-ethnic Macedonia is the Ohrid Framework Agreement. The established political model is based on power-sharing and redistribution of public resources and political power. The system is not a typical consociationalism model but shares many of its characteristics. Ever since Macedonia has become an independent country, multi-ethnic coalitions are a regular occurrence on the Macedonian political stage. They are generally accepted as a factor that provides political stability of the society, although this practice is not legally based. In this paper the case of a shared form of governments in the Republic of Macedonia will be presented. It will be shown that although traditional multi-ethnic coalition governments are not considered to be stable, they are an important part and a necessity in multi-ethnic societies. The conclusions can serve as a ground for maintenance of peace and political stability especially in countries with less developed democratic traditions where more than one community coexist in one state. Balkan University Press 2018-12-30 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Research Article application/pdf https://jlp.ibupress.com/articles/multi-ethnic-coalition-governments-as-precondition-for-maintenance-of-political-stability-the-example-of-the-republic-of-macedonia Journal of Law And Politics; Vol. 1 No. 0 (2018); 50-60 2671-342X 2671-3438 en https://jlp.ibupress.com/file/361/6-pdf.pdf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess