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Prospects for Stability in Post-Tito Yugoslavia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

James H. Seroka
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Extract

In the past, newspaper accounts and many scholarly articles have made dire and sweeping predictions about the imminence of civil war or the collapse of the Yugoslav federal state following the death of President Tito. The substance for these apocalyptic visions generally stems from Yugoslavia's nationality tensions, regional inequalities, and external pressure from both the Eastern and Western blocs. The widely accepted forecast is that the three factors will reinforce each other and exacerbate existing societal cleavages, leading to chaos or strict military rule. But most of the “dismal school” analyses of post-Tito Yugoslavia ignore the profound changes that have occurred in the country since 1945 and assume that the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) is unwilling or unable to take steps toward increasing the probability of political stability after Tito's death. In this article I shall critically evaluate the societal changes that have occurred and the LCY's response to them.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 268 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1978

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References

1. “Plan razvitka Jugoslavije do 1978,” Borba, July 22, 197S.

2. Fund, International Monetary, Balance of Payments Yearbook 1964-1976 (Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 1977)Google Scholar, s.v. “Yugoslavia.“

3. Srdić-Đaković, Ljubica, “Employment 1971-1975,” Yugoslav Survey, 17, no. 3 (August 1976) : 60.Google Scholar

4. See, for example, New York Times, March 22, 1974, pp. 76-77. Recently both nations agreed formally to accept the current boundary as permanent.

5. See, for example, “Slovenes Accuse Austrians of Bias,” New York Times, September 27, 1976.

6. The Bulgarian-Yugoslav exchanges on the Macedonian question are a good measure of the relations between the Warsaw Treaty Organization and Yugoslavia. Recently the exchanges have been quite sharp (see, for example, “Povodom popis stanovnistva u Bugarskoj, “ Komunist, December 15, 1975, p. 24).

7. See Gary K. Bertsch and M. George Zaninovich, “A Factor-Analytic Method of Identifying Different Political Cultures,” Comparative Politics, 6, no. 2 (January 1974) : 219-44, for some empirical evidence supporting this point.

8. Borba, December 20, 1971, p. 1.

9. Borba, November 23, 1971, p. 5.

10. See William, Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (New York : The Free Press, 1959 Google Scholar for a general theoretical discussion of this point; and Arend, Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1968 Google Scholar, for an application of the problem in a comparative setting.

11. Ustav Socijalističke Republike Jugoslavije (Belgrade : Prosveta, 1974), article 116.

12. In the formal report on the work of the League of Communists and the presidency given at the Tenth Party Congress, the role of the commune was strongly articulated in these words : “In the preparation of the constitutional changes the League of Communists came to the conclusion that the development of the entire political system and the stability of democratic relations in the entire society are fundamentally based on the more rapid development of self-managed social relationships in the commune as a self-managed sociopolitical community” (see Deseti Kongres Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije : Dokumenti [Belgrade : Komunist, 1974], p. 480).

13. This is the same point made by Madison, James in the Federalist Papers, no. 10 (New York : New American Library, 1971, pp. 77–84 Google Scholar; Tocqueville, Alexis de in Democracy in America, vol. 1 (New York : Random House, 1945, pp. 116–79 Google Scholar; and arx, KarlM and Engels, Frederick in On the Paris Commune (Moscow : Progress Publishers, 1971 Google Scholar.

14. For a more detailed explanation of the relevance of this point to Yugoslavia, see Pašić, Najdan, Nacionalno pitanje u savremenoj epohi (Belgrade : Radnička Štampa, 1973)Google Scholar.

15. Pavičević, Radovan (Država kao konfederacija komuna [Belgrade : Institut za Međunarodni Pokret, 1969])Google Scholar makes this same point.

16. The platform of the League of Communists makes this connection very strongly (see Platform za pripremu stavova i odluka Desetog Kongresa SKJ [Belgrade : Komunist, 1973], p. 38).

17. It is evident from the public statements of President Tito on the subject that the Yugoslav government views nonalignment in this active sense (see, for example, Josip Broz Tito's speech at the First Conference of Heads of State or Government of Nonaligned Countries, held in Belgrade, September 1, 1961; reprinted in Yugoslav Survey, 16 [1975] : 107-46).

18. Deseti Kongres Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije, p. 10.

19. This conclusion is supported in Branislav Mirić, “Yugoslavia's Search for the Optimum Size of Commune,” Studies in Comparative Local Government, 1 (Summer 1967) : 49

20. Jugoslavije, Stalna Konferencija Gradova, “Teritorijalno organizovanje samoupravljanja,” Bilten, 75 (September 1967) : 4-13.Google Scholar

21. Đurovski, Lazar, Mesto i uloga opštine u društveno-političkom sistemu Jugoslavije (Belgrade : Politička Škola JNA, 1972), pp. 28–29 Google Scholar

22. Veća, Odbor Društveno-Političkog, Aktuelna pitanja komunalnog sistema (Belgrade : Draga Srnić, 1972), p. 20.Google Scholar

23. Lazar, Durovski, “Stvarni položaj opštinskih skupstina u sferi normativne delatnosti,” Socijalizam, 1 (1971) : 42.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., p. 50.

25. Sixty-five communes in the republic of Serbia were selected. All laws passed and registered with the various intercommunal organizations were examined and coded by type and form of passage.

26. The period used is the five months preceding the implementation of the various communal charters and the five months following it.

27. For statistics on the 1970 assembly, see Opaćić, Nine, ed., Društveno-političke zajednice, vols. 3-4 (Belgrade : Međunarodna Štampa, 1969)Google Scholar, and Republika Srbija, Socijalistička, Republički Zavod za Statistiku, Statisticki podaci o opštinama 1969-1970 (Belgrade, 1971)Google Scholar; for the 1974 assembly, see Savezni Zavod za Statistiku, “Delegacije osnovnih samoupravnih organizacija i zajednica i skupštine drustveno-političkih zajednica u 1974, “ Statistički Bilten, vol. 888 (Belgrade : Savezni Zavod za Statistiku, 1974); and for population statistics, see Statistiku, Savezni Zavod za, Popis stanovnistva i stanova 1971 (Belgrade : Delatnost, 1974 Google Scholar

28. Dr. Miličević, Dragisa (Bkonomski položaj regiona Jugoslavije [Belgrade : Institut Društvenih Nauka, 1971])Google Scholar endorses the concept of economic equality across regions. He contends that regions should not be compared across similar criteria but that the criteria should be balanced according to the economic structure of the regions. While there is some merit to Professor Miličević's suggestion in terms of economic planning, it should not be employed when examining policy decisions.

29. The coefficient of variation is simply the standard deviation divided by its mean. It has been used earlier for examination of similar problems by Williamson, J. G. in “Regional Inequality and the Process of National Development,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 13 (1965) : 3-45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; by Koropeckyj, I. S. in “Equalization of Regional Development in Socialist Countries,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 21 (1972) : 68-86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and by Silver, Brian in “Levels of Socio-Cultural Development Among Soviet Nationalities : A Partial Test of the Equalization Hypothesis,” American Political Science Review, 68 (1974) : 1618–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. This study does not use the weighted coefficient of variation since a weighted coefficient would stress the position of Croatia and Serbia too heavily for political purposes.

31. Calculated from data provided by the Savezni Zavod za Statistku in Statistički godišnjak SFRJ 1968-1976 (Belgrade : Savezni Zavod za Statistiku, 1968-76), tables 203-1, 204-212.

32. I do not assume that variation is minimal or unimportant within republics. From an economic perspective, disproportionate investment in one city of a republic is significant; from the viewpoint of overall national stability, however, the republic is the only relevant unit of analysis.

33. See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), World Armaments and Disarmament : SIPRI Yearbook 1976 (Cambridge, Mass. : The MIT Press, 1976), p.260 Google Scholar

34. Ibid., p. 210; and Dupuy, Trevor N., Hayes, Grace, and Andrews, John, The Almanac of World Military Power, 3rd ed. (New York : R. R. Boulton, 1974, p. 165–66.Google Scholar

35. See “Belgrade Asked to Clarify Aides’ Charges that Nixon Backed Croatian Dissent, “ New York Times, December 14, 1976, p. 10; and “Brezhnev in Belgrade,” New York Times, November 16, 1976, p. 3.

36. Tito, Josip Broz, “Pismo Predsednika SKJ i Izvršnog Biroa Predsedništva SKJ,” in Dokwnenti SKJ (Belgrade : Komunist, 1973, pp. 3–11.Google Scholar

37. Josip Broz Tito, “Govor Druga Tita političkom aktivu SR Srbije,” in Dokumenti SKJ, pp. 13-25.

38. The extent of the Ranković purge in some republics is apparent from the incumbency rate of the Party Central Committee of Montenegro in 1968.

39. Komunist, December 22, 1975, p. 3.

40. For 1960, 1962, and 1964-66, see Svetozar Tempo, “Statistički pregled razvoja KPJ-SKJ u periodu 1946-1966 i struktura članstva,” in SKJ u uslovima samoupravljanja, ed. Miloš Nikolić (Belgrade : Kultura, 1967), p. 755; for 1968-72, see Boris Vušković, “Givanje u socijalnoj strukturi članstva SKJ,” Socijalisam, 17 (1974) : 679-702; for 1973, see Borba, March 30, 1974, p. 5; for 1974, see “Sednica Centralnog Komiteta Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije, “ Borba, July 10, 1975, p. 6; and for 1976; see Komunist, November 15, 1976, pp. 4 and13

41. More recent data are not available