By Aleksandar Ivanov
How did we reach a point where institutions appear weakest precisely when they are needed the most?
The answer is complex in its consequences, but clear in its essence: years of erosion of professional standards, institutional memory, and public accountability.
One of the most profound problems within the system in North Macedonia—and, increasingly, in many fragile democracies—is a model in which political and personal loyalty too often outweigh knowledge, experience, and integrity. When employment, promotion, and the allocation of responsibilities are not based on competence, the state gradually loses its ability to learn, to plan, and to respond.
A system begins to fail the moment influence, obedience, and party affiliation become more important than expertise. In such an environment, every capable candidate who is sidelined is not merely a personal injustice—it is a loss for the institution and for the state itself.
When competence is pushed aside and mediocrity rewarded, the consequences extend far beyond staffing issues. They become developmental, security-related, and societal.
Crises do not create new weaknesses—they reveal existing ones. What has long been masked by bureaucratic inertia and administrative excuses emerges in moments of crisis as institutional failure. When a system lacks a clear chain of accountability and loses its institutional memory through politically motivated purges, it becomes incapable of responding effectively.
We are not merely facing external threats—we are confronting internally generated risks. The system itself has become a factory of crises, designed to survive political turnover rather than real-world challenges.
This is why the problem is not only organizational—it is about the capacity to decide, to act, and to assume responsibility. Without that, coordination turns into delay, and delay into systemic weakness with real consequences.
The production of risk by the state’s own institutional mechanisms must never become the norm.
The greatest danger for any society is the moment it becomes accustomed to its own institutional vulnerability. When failures are perceived as “normal,” and crises as inevitable and without lessons or reform, the next tragedy is no longer an exception—it becomes a predictable outcome.
A state does not weaken only when it lacks resources.
It weakens far more rapidly when it lacks standards.
It is time for a change in the public code!
The way forward does not lie in another wave of declarative commitments, but in restoring the fundamental principles of public service:
Knowledge instead of obedience.
Work instead of privilege.
Integrity instead of party comfort.
Without such a shift, every reform will remain superficial, and every future crisis will find us facing the same weaknesses—only in a different form.
This article reflects the personal views of the author.
Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Ivanov is a full professor at the Faculty of Security in Skopje, specializing in environmental security, international relations, and the transformation of security studies into operational practice.