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Yugoslavia THE POLITICAL AGENDA FOR THE 1990s
As Yugoslavia entered the 1990s, four major political
problems remained unsolved: (1) achieving meaningful, nationwide
economic reform to save the country from the economic decay that
had occurred in the 1980s; (2) finding and institutionalizing
procedures for compromise among regions with increasingly diverse
political and economic interests; (3) forging useful political
relations with Western nations willing to provide economic aid,
and making foreign policy adjustments to harmonize with new
political conditions in Europe; and (4) negating the divisive
influence of the rotation system to ensure selection of national
leaders competent to focus attention on solving all-Yugoslav
issues. Ultimately, resolution of all those problems depended on
restructuring the national political system to allow for multiple
parties and accurate representation of current economic interest
groups; such representation required a breakdown of the
traditional regional fiefdoms of party and enterprise groupings.
Because "self-managed socialism" was the foundation of both
economic and political institutions in Yugoslavia, economic and
political issues were inseparable in the post-Tito period. For
that reason, formation of economic policy was the main driving
force of political decision making in the late 1980s and early
1990s. An important aspect of the economic reform issue was the
desperate need for an all-Yugoslav program for equitable division
of the natural resources distributed so unevenly among the six
republics. Without unanimous backing for such a program by all
six republics, only the richer republics could function in the
market economy specified in reform programs; on the other hand,
without sufficient motivation to continue their financial
contributions to the federation, Slovenia and Croatia would
declare economic independence and demolish the national economy.
Because most members of the intelligentsia belonged to the
party, criticism and reform proposals from that important quarter
were frequently cautious in the 1980s. Although new political
energy and diversity in several republics promised the eventual
reversal of this tendency and the uprooting of old-line centers
of political power, such change had not yet altered the paths of
political power in 1990. Historically, the shape of Yugoslav
regional political interests has only changed in times of common
threat (such as invasion or economic disaster), or if a strong
leader were skillful and determined enough to focus the attention
of all factions on survival of the federation. In 1990 all
regions continued to declare their commitment to Tito's federal
goal as a matter of common survival. The less wealthy republics--
Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Hercegovina--adhered most
strongly to this line because they obviously could not survive
outside the federal structure. Meanwhile, the most powerful
republics--Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia--took advantage of the
vacuum in the national leadership to alternate between defending
the federation and asserting local sovereignty, depending on
political conditions.
But while politicians were swearing allegiance to the
Yugoslav nation, the updating and restating of historical
conflicts continued into the 1990s, always threatening to
overcome constructive political approaches. Longstanding
animosities remained between Serbia and Croatia
(see The Kingdom of Yugoslavia
, ch. 1); the Muslim minorities and the Macedonians
in Macedonia
(see Macedonia
, ch. 1); and the Serbian and
Montenegrin minority in Kosovo and the Albanian majority in that
province
(see Kosovo
, this ch.).
In 1990 the Serbian-Slovenian split in the LCY severely
limited the unifying role of that organization and its policy
input to the government. Because the party had played the role of
national synthesizer of interests, the LCY split also was the
final blow for Tito's concept of mandatory consensus among
factions in national decision making. Only the Yugoslav
government institutions themselves remained in an all-Yugoslav
power role, but those institutions had never been tested on their
own merits as the final arbitrators of conflicting interests on
behalf of the federation as a whole.
Besides the task of wholly remaking the Yugoslav economic
structure, the government faced an escalating crisis in Kosovo.
In 1990 Kosovo was the most critical of many domestic problems
unresolved since the 1980s because of the struggle between the
Serbian and the Slovenian factions of the party.
As the 1990s began, the political culture of Yugoslavia was
in an unprecedented state of flux. To reach his goal of
separating his government completely from communist domination,
Prime Minister Markovic pushed new laws that would allow
national, multiparty elections in 1990. Substantial opposition
met his proposals in the Federal Assembly and the Presidency,
however--especially because at the time of the proposed changes
only Slovenia and Croatia had committed themselves to a
multiparty system at the republic level.
Each side in the Serbian-Slovenian conflict had goals that,
if reached, would threaten and enhance the health of that
culture. On one side, a reasonable case was made for a strong,
Serbian-dominated state, with a reinvigorated League of
Communists, as the most efficient way to achieve any truly
national program; but that scenario promised little progress
toward political reform or pluralism, and it threatened the
independence of other republics. Diametrically opposed was the
position of Croatia and Slovenia, which included political
movements promising a highly diversified political culture, with
free input from all parts of society. But the efficacy of such a
culture in achieving short-range, drastic national reform was
very doubtful. Meanwhile, the new East European spirit of
democracy infected all the republics of Yugoslavia through
intellectual and media channels long available for such
communication. Republican communist parties, many with young,
energetic leadership, liberalized their approach to dissent from
within, and dozens of noncommunist political groups challenged
every orthodox belief of the old order. Many feared that these
events would mean total fragmentation of the political structure,
and a return to the instability that preceded World War II. But
the long, slow process of liberalization that Tito began in 1948
was clearly accelerating as the 1990s began.
* * *
A number of useful monographs on the Yugoslav political
system appeared in the 1980s. The Politics of Ethnicity in
Eastern Europe, edited by George Klein and Milan J. Reban,
contains a chapter summarizing the ethnic dynamics behind
contemporary political institutions. Yugoslavia: Politics,
Economics and Society, by Bruce J. McFarlane, is a
multidimensional account that provides historical background as
well as contemporary analysis, stressing the linkage of economic
and political issues. Harold Lydall's Yugoslavia in Crisis
also emphasizes economics as a vital component of the
contemporary political crisis, with an in-depth description of
economic and political institutions. The Yugoslavs, by
Dusko Doder, is an informal cultural description providing much
insight to the behavior of Yugoslav groups and institutions.
Yugoslavia in the 1980s, edited by Pedro Ramet, is a
collection of essays on political institutions, domestic issues,
foreign policy, and Yugoslav political philosophy. Finally, the
essay collection entitled Yugoslavia: A Fractured
Federalism, edited by Dennison Rusinow, covers official and
unofficial political power centers and their roles in the
decision making process at all levels of government. (For further
information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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