Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-nf276 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-19T07:51:36.965Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Yugoslavia in 1989 and after

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

V.P. (Chip) Gagnon Jr.
V.P. (Chip) Gagnon Jr.*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, USA
*
* Email: vgagnon@ithaca.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The year 1989 marked a turning point for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). But unlike other places in the region, that year saw a turn towards growing political conflict which soon led to violent warfare. This paper identifies and discusses three processes that led to this outcome. The first process was the impetus towards reform of the Yugoslav federal state, its political and economic system. The second was the conflict over the future of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije – SKJ). The third was the shifting meanings of ethnic and nonethnic labels and the ways in which putative “national” and “ethnic” interests came to be aligned with specific political options. By the end of 1989 these three processes had come together to spell the end of the SKJ, of the SFRY, and of “Yugoslavism” as a political identity. In their places, ruling parties threatened by changes within their own societies, as well as by pressures created by the 1989 revolutions in the region, resorted to strategies of conflict and violence in an attempt to forestall the kinds of changes and elite turnovers seen in other socialist countries.

Keywords

Yugoslavia1989SerbiaCroatiaSKJ

Information

Type
Special Section: Legitimacy and the Legacy of 1989
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 23 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Carter, April. Democratic Reform in Yugoslavia: The Changing Role of the Party. London: Pinter, 1982. Print.Google Scholar
Dabčević-Kučar, Savka. Interviews. Nedeljna Dalmacija 14 Jan. 1990. 21, 28. Print.Google Scholar
Dević, Ana. “Nationalism and Powerlessness of Everyday Life: A Sociology of Discontents in the SFR Yugoslavia before the Breakup.” Workshop, Living with the Beast: Everyday Life in Authoritarian Serbia. Clark University, Worcester, MA. Apr. 2000. Paper.Google Scholar
Dizdarević, Raif. Od smrti Tita do smrti Jugoslavije: Svedočenja. Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Djukić, Slavoljub. “Kroz iglene Uši.” Borba, 15 Aug. 1991: 11. Print.Google Scholar
Djukić, Slavoljub. “Pod okriljem Stambolića.” Borba, 16 Aug. 1991: 11. Print.Google Scholar
Dugandžija, Nikola. “Domet Nacionalne Zaokuplenosti.” Položaj Naroda i Međunacionalni odnosi u Hrvatskoj. Ed. Bahtijarević, Štefica and Lazić, Mladen, Zagreb: Institute for Social Research, 1991. 101–14. Print.Google Scholar
Gagnon, V. P. “Ideology and Soviet–Yugoslav Relations 1964–1969: Irrational Foreign Policy as Rational Choice.” Diss. Columbia U, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Gagnon, V. P. The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Goati, Vladimir. Politička Anatomija jugoslovenskog društvo. Zagreb: Naprijed, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Gordy, Eric. The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Gow, James. Legitimacy and the Military: The Yugoslav Crisis. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Johnson, Ross A. The Role of the Military in Communist Yugoslavia: An Historical Sketch. Rand Paper Series, no. P-6070, Santa Monica, CA: Rand. Jan. 1978. Print.Google Scholar
Jović, Borisav. Posljedni dani SFRJ: Izvodi iz dnevnika. Belgrade: Politika, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Marković, Ante. Testimony to International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, 23 Oct. 2003, p. 27993. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. <http://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/trans/en/031023ED.htm>..>Google Scholar
Pašić, Najdan. Razgovori i rasprave o političkom sistemu. Belgrade: Partizanska knjiga, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Perović, Latinka. Zatvaranje kruga: Ishod rascepa 1971–1972. Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
Remington, Robin. “Armed Forces and Society in Yugoslavia.” Political-Military Systems: Comparative Perspectives. Ed. McArdle Kelleher, Catherin, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1974. 163–89. Print.Google Scholar
Stambolić, Ivan. Personal interview. 17 Jul. 1995.Google Scholar
Stambolić, Ivan. Put u bespuće. Belgrade: Radio B92, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Tripalo, Miko. Hrvatsko proljeće. Zagreb: Globus, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
Tripalo, Miko. “Možda smo nešto progriješili.” Ljudi iz 1971.- Prekinuta Šutnja. Ed. Baletić, Milovan. Zagreb: Vjesnik, 1990. 58–59. Print.Google Scholar
Vuković, Zdravko. Od deformacije SDP do Maspoka i Liberalizma. Belgrade: Narodna Knjiga, 1989. Print.Google Scholar