|
Yugoslavia Local Government and the Communes
Local government in Yugoslavia was based on the unique
institution of the commune, officially defined as "a selfmanaging sociopolitical community based on the power of and selfmanagement by working-class and all working people." In 1988
Yugoslav local government consisted of about 500 communes.
Beginning in the 1950s, the communes held all political authority
not specifically delegated to government at the federal or
republic level; they were the source of Yugoslavia's claim that,
unlike the centralized Soviet system, Yugoslav socialism truly
gave power to the workers. Because they generated pockets of
political power controlled by local party officials, the communes
also contributed to the fractious, unfocused nature of political
power throughout the country after the death of Tito. The
district, next-highest political level above the commune,
controlled law enforcement and elections, but functions such as
economic planning, management of utilities, and supervision of
economic enterprises were the responsibility of the commune.
Workers' councils of industrial enterprises were obliged to
submit financial records to the communes to justify the setting
of worker wages
(see The Economic Management Mechanism
, ch. 3).
The commune was also the lowest level in the complex delegate
system that ultimately elected members of the Federal Assembly.
Workers, sociopolitical organizations, and local communities
elected the members of three-chamber commune assemblies, which in
turn elected delegates to republic and provincial assemblies and
delegates to the Federal Chamber of the Federal Assembly.
Delegates to the republic and provincial assemblies elected
members of the Chamber of Republics and Provinces, of the Federal
Assembly, but they had no voice in choosing the Federal Chamber.
In practice, individual voters at the commune level chose only
from closed lists of delegate candidates, with little regard for
capacity to represent a constituency. Although liberalization of
the electoral system was frequently discussed, no open nomination
process had emerged by 1990. Both commune and republic assemblies
had three chambers, each representing a sector of society
(associated labor, local communities, and sociopolitical
organizations). Because those categories overlapped, some
citizens were represented by more than one delegate.
Behind the principle of workers' self-management, prescribed
at length in the 1974 Constitution, was the concept that selfmanaging citizens' organizations would assume complete
governmental control and the state would disappear entirely at
some point. In practice, however, grass-roots political power
shrank in the 1980s, especially as it applied to economic policy.
Exercise of this power was blocked by an intermediate layer of
political managers, whose selection remained an LCY prerogative
at the republic and provincial levels. Given this selection
policy, the regional Yugoslav system mainly chose loyal party
operatives over competent managers when such a choice was
necessary. Given the autonomy of all state agencies below federal
level in Yugoslavia, these political appointees were able to
block national reform programs that threatened their elite
positions. Yugoslavia had renounced both Stalinist centralized
planning and (to a large extent) the practice of limiting the
best party jobs to a privileged elite, known as nomenklatura.
Nevertheless, in Yugoslavia a number of inflexible smaller
systems similarly deprived industrial and agricultural workers of
the initiative and decision--making powers guaranteed them by the
Constitution to control their own economic destiny. Decision--
making bodies were in no way answerable to the workers for their
policies. Neither of the chambers of the Federal Assembly,
election of whose delegates nominally began at the grass-roots
level, represented workers or their organizations as separate
interest groups independent of the overall political position of
their region.
Data as of December 1990
|
