About the Book
What are the consequences of Yugoslavia's existence – and breakup – for the present? This book reflects on this very question, identifying and analysing the political legacies left behind by Yugoslavia through the prism of continuities and ruptures between the past and present of the area.
After the collapse of Yugoslavia, it's former states adopted a nation-building process which opted to eradicate the past as such an approach seemed more convenient for the new national projects. The new states adopted new institutions, new market-oriented economic paradigms and new national symbols. Yugoslavia existed for 70 years and to consider the current political situation in post-Yugoslav states such as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo without taking into account the legacy and remnants of Yugoslavia is to discount a vital part of their political history.
This volume takes a multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted approach to examining the legacy of Yugoslavia, covering politics, society, international relations and economics. Focusing on distinctive features of Yugoslavia including worker self-management, the combination of liberalism and communism and the Cold War policy of Non-Alignment, The Legacy of Yugoslavia places Yugoslavia in historical perspective and connects the region's past with its contemporary political situation.
Table of Contents:
Introduction (Othon Anastasakis, Adam Bennett, David Madden, Adis Merdzanovic)
Part I. Politics and Society
1. Adis Merdzanovic (St Antony's College, Oxford): Liberalism in Yugoslavia: before and after the disintegration
2. Denisa Kostovicova (LSE), Adam Fagan (Queen Mary University, London), and Ivor Sokolic´ (LSE):
Civil society in post-Yugoslav space: The test of discontinuity and democratisation.
3. Catherine Baker (Hull University):Music, media and culture one generation after Yugoslavia: do we still need “nostalgia”?
Part II: International Affairs
4. Ljubica Spaskovska (Exeter University): Transformations of global citizenship in the former Yugoslavia: The legacies of Yugoslav non-aligned multilateralism
5. James Ker-Lindsay (LSE):Between a Borderless Yugoslavia and a Europe without Borders: The Legacy of Territorial Disputes in the Western Balkans
6. Othon Anastasakis (St Antony's College, Oxford):Parallel trajectories and legacies of the past: Russia and Turkey in the Western Balkans
Part III: Economics
7. Adam Bennett (St Antony's College, Oxford):Macroeconomic Stability and Enterprise Self-Management in Yugoslavia: An Impossible Marriage
8. Milica Uvalic (University of Perugia): What happened to the Yugoslav economic model?
9. Jakov Milatovic and Peter Sanfey (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD): Are Yugoslav successor states on the path to sustainable market economies?
Conclusion (Othon Anastasakis, Adis Merdzanovic, Adam Bennett and David Madden)
Index
About the Author :
Adam Bennett is Deputy Director of the Political Economy of Financial Markets (PEFM) program and an Associate of SEESOX at the European Studies Centre, UK. He also lectures (on a part-time external basis) at Cardiff University. Prior to joining St. Antony's College, Bennett worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from which he retired in 2011.
Adis Merdzanovic is a postdoctoral Junior Research Fellow at South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) at the European Studies Centre of St Antony's College, University of Oxford, UK.
David Madden is the Chair of the SEESOX Steering Committee and Distinguished Friend of St Antony's College, University of Oxford, UK. A member of the UK Diplomatic Service for 34 years, he
has extensive experience of working in and with countries and places on the brink of break-up, those seriously divided, and those where regional tensions run high. He was successively British High Commissioner in Cyprus, and Ambassador in Athens before retiring in 2004.
Othon Anastasakis is the Director of South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) and Senior Research Fellow at St Antony's College, UK. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is the Principal Investigator of the SEESOX Greek Diaspora Project.
Review :
As the successor states enter their fourth decade, it is tempting to dismiss the legacies of the four decades of a single Yugoslavia that preceded them. This welcome volume addresses the continuing connections of the one with the many, from the strengths and weakness of the former Yugoslavia to its continuities and discontinuities in the seven successor states. Drawn from a recent Oxford conference, its editors have assembled nine instructive chapters primarily from regional scholars. They cover a range of relevant subjects that would daunt any single author. The political chapters examine continuing ambiguities in the role of liberal ideology, civil society and a once common popular culture. Chapters on international affairs consider the legacies of non-alignment, territorial disputes and relations with Russia and Turkey. The final chapters move from two critical appraisals of the Yugoslav economic model that debate its recent relevance to the EU's market model and to a third surveying the struggles over its adoption in business practice and public opinion.
Unlike for example electricity, history does not have a switch button, and thus one cannot just simply turn the darkness of one historical period into a light of another, or vice versa. Even after major historical events – wars, state disintegration, revolution or regime collapse – major characteristics of pre-Event system continue well into a new, post-Event era. This book analyses continuities and discontinuities between the Cold War Yugoslavia and post-Yugoslav states, in economic, social, political and ideational spheres. Even 30 years after its collapsing, Yugoslavia still lives in collective memory, institutional practice and identity-designing of its many successor-states. And - as some of the authors of this collection argue - the change, where it happened, was not always for better. Remembering the old and trying to preserve as much as one can in new circumstances is thus not always irrational.
Yugoslavia´s legacy is crucial for an understanding of the Western Balkans in the 21st. century. Bringing together a variety of disciplines and analytical perspectives this volume sheds new light on continuities and discontinuities of practices, institutions, and experiences of the successor states until the present day. It is highly recommended to all those interested in the history and recent past of this fascinating region.
This volume wonderfully captures how, almost thirty years after its violent dissolution, the legacy of Yugoslavia continues to be felt in the post-Yugoslav region in multiple and complex ways. It highlights the many continuities between the structures and policies of the defunct socialist federation and its successor states, despite claims by nationalist elites about breaking with the past in the creation of new political and economic entities and systems. It also shows how Yugoslavia remains a reference point for both elites and societies in the region-providing a useable past in foreign policy and contests around borders, as well as a source of nostalgia when the present is defined by the inequities and hardships of a flawed political and economic transition.
