The self-destruction of Yugoslavia

In: Canadian review of studies in nationalism: Revue canadienne des études sur le nationalisme, Band 27, Heft 1/2, S. 21-32

Abstract

Argues that the Yugoslav socialist federal system collapsed because ethnic nationalism was built into its constitution, and that elites used this ethnic principle in the 1980s to legitimize political power in their respective federal units and increased ethnic tensions to the point where dissolution became inevitable. The shift in the 1970s away from Leninist democratic centralism to a federal state organized on the ethnic principle.