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In Montenegro, the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), the legal successor to the Montenegrin branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, has uninterruptedly remained in power since the break-up of Yugoslavia. By looking at citizenship policies in Montenegro since the disintegration of Yugoslavia as an ‘image of the nation’ and an ‘image of politics’, this paper maintains that citizenship legislation has been one of the key mechanisms that has enabled the perpetuation of DPS rule. By embedding the ‘image of the nation’ in citizenship legislation, the ruling Montenegrin elite reinforced their political agenda. By entrenching the ‘image of politics’ in citizenship laws, they managed to produce conditions favouring their electoral victories, thus enabling the party’s institutional dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]