Local Self-Government as the Basis for the Agricultural Development and the Agrarian Policy Implementation in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

The development of modern democratic states implies respect for the principle of subsidiarity, which means bringing down decisions and their execution to the local level. The decisions regarding the use of agrarian potential in the Republic of Serbia are still under the jurisdiction of the central government authorities, which contributes inadequately to the overall stability and development of agriculture in modern geopolitical correlations. The goal of this paper is to point out to the necessity of understanding the need to enable as much as possible the authorities at the local self-government level of the Republic of Serbia to implement the strategic goals of agrarian policy while improving permanently their agricultural capacities. Based on the research on the opinions of relevant state and local authorities and on empirical and theoretical arguments, the authors support this claim and provide a new perspective for the content of agrarian policy, as well as the development of the rich agricultural potential that the Republic of Serbia has at its disposal.