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.
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.
