Aya Hino

MPhil / PhD in Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London

E-mail: ssp02ah@gold.ac.uk

Questioning the ontological and epistemological premises of the Socialist Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia: the mechanism of state survival

Abstract

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) remained as a state for almost

fifty years, despite the seemingly irreconcilable problems that are said to have led to the

disintegration of the country. By looking at the articulation of two different sets of

ontology and epistemology in the SFRY – the one articulated by the state and the other

by individual republics – through the conceptualization and interactions of orders,

borders and identities, this paper argues that integral mechanism for state survival

depends on the negotiation between the two different sets of ontology and epistemology.

This paper also indicates that the negotiation can be successful only when the balance

between horizontal inclusion and vertical hierarchies, both of which are implemented

while conceptualization of orders, borders and identities takes place, are maintained and

stabilized.

2

Rethinking Preliminary Literature

Why and how did the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) remain as a

state for almost fifty years despite the seemingly unresolvable problems that are said to

have led to the disintegration and complete dissolution of the country? Since its

establishment in early 1945, as a result of the Partisan Movement sweeping the Axis

forces out from the region and liberating the occupied territory, the SFRY, which were

composed of six republics – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and

Slovenia – and two autonomous provinces within the Republic of Serbia – Kosovo and

Vojvodina – somehow managed to survive as a state until 1992. Yet the country is not

static in terms of its internal political, social and cultural structures. The complexity of

the SFRY has been such that the country has fascinated researchers for a while now,

however, the focus of the conventional studies on the SFRY centers on understanding

the tumultuous history of the region and on articulating the measures of failure of the

county, which aims at suggesting causes or reliable explanations of disintegration. Thus,

the conventional studies provide significant implications for the malfunction of the

SFRY and its disintegration process, the mechanism of state survival per se is not yet

distinctively ascertained.

Allcock (1991), Gallagher (1997), Campbell (1998), and Schwartz (2000) identify

historically crafted complexity of ethnicities, religions and nationalities, with specific

concentration of the multiple identity formations in the SFRY, which were not always

compatible to one another, as the cause of the fragmentation. Danforth (1993), Sekulic,

Massey and Hodson (1994), Vermeulen and Govers (1994), Bringa (1995), Rezun

(1995), Fearon and Laitin (2000), Isakovic (2000), and Wilmer (2003), in particular,

insist the irreconcilability of dual identities, that is, Yugoslav identity on one side of the

spectrum, which was implemented by the federal government, and identities based on

ethnicity or religion on the other side, which found a strong support from the leaders of

different republics. These studies suggest that the confrontation in terms of identity

between the federal government and republics was eventually transformed to the

political conflict of questioning republics status within the federal system, which

resulted in the decentralization and ultimate dissolution of the country. The studies of

disputed identities frequently emphasize the fact that there was no unified view of

historiography in the region, as Bakic-Hayden and M. Hayden (1992), Banac (1992),

3

Dimitras (2000), and Fleming (2000) suggest. These studies are recurrently also linked

to the study of nationalisms, in the sense that emergence of and evocation of

nationalism requires the existence of the concept of nation, which correspond to the

individuals’ need for belonging, formation of group, and collective identity (Steinbeck

1993). Scholars such as Hayden (1992), Doder (1993), Denitch (1994), Brubaker (1996),

Pavkovic (1996), Oberschall (2000), and Perica (2002) highlight how drastic

nationalisms were discursively implemented, and how ethnic or national identities were

politicized in the course of the decentralization of the federation. Additionally, Lytle

(1992), Judha (1997), Vickens (1998), Pavlovic (2000), Mikula (2002), and Banac

(2006) point out the never-ending insurgence of nationalisms based on the articulation

of specific politicized rhetoric used for institutionalization of ethnic or religious

affiliation with which individuals associated themselves. Among others, Adizes (1971),

Furubotn and Pejovich (1973), Dubey (1975), Lang (1975), Cohen (1993), Flaherty

(1998), Tomusk (2000), Caspersen (2003), Gow (2003), Macdonald (2003), Brancati

(2006), Schopflin (2006), and Mansbach and Rhodes (2007) discuss significant

implications for the bottling-up frustrations – against the one-sided communist ideology

and the process of decentralization – in the republics, arguing that the process, which

was at first designed to contain the rise of republics’ nationalisms, actually was abused

to rouse irreconcilable nationalisms.

Other scholars particularly pay attention to the structural drawbacks of political and

economic system of the SFRY, which gave republics de facto, if not de jure, power and

authority. Cohen (1993), Schwartz (2000), and Blitz (2006) point out the constitutional

predicaments, which consequently implemented a system of dual authority of the

federal government and republics, insisting that the political and economic system

enforced by the constitution and related regulations contained a leeway to normatively

justify a certain level of power of republics over the federal government. As the

constitution left much room for interpretation in terms of republics’ power in the

federation, at the final stage of the dissolution of the SFRY, particularly 1980s onward,

the leaders of republics adhered the idea that their republic retained the competence and

authority to control over its population. Hoffman and Neal (1962), Horvat (1971, 1975,

1992), Rusinow (1978), Vacic (1979), Almond (1983), Dragnich (1983), Lydall (1984),

Prout (1985), Kornai (1992), Ramet (1992), Abe (1993), Hodson, Sekulic and Massey

(1994), and Koyama (1996) critically analyze the socio-political and socio-economic

4

structure of the SFRY, which were based on unique Yugoslav socialism, and suggest

the multiple malfunctioning of the structures that socialist self-management system

achieved to realize, on one hand, self-determination of people, democratic decision

making process and ideological separation from the Soviet Union, but on the other hand

failed to encourage even economic development, articulation of shared interests and

unquestioning authority of the federal government.

As such, the nature of the SFRY and its failure has been the subject of extensive

inter-disciplinary investigations. What emerged from the preliminary studies is that,

although the process of decentralization was not necessarily perceived as the only cause

of the disintegration, it certainly gave way to the politicization of differences and

institutionalization of nationalisms. The conclusion that the dissolution of the SFRY

was caused by a poorly managed process of decentralization, which in turn resulted in

the normative articulation of differences and universalization of particularities, which

consequently led to the empirical implementation of alternatives – powerful republics’

institutions, or authority of ethnic or religious groups – is indeed plausible. Yet, we

have to be aware of the limitations of demonstrating causality in one way or another.

According to Max Born, an analysis of causality postulates a “law by which the

occurrence of an entity B of a certain class depends on the occurrence of an entity A of

another class, where the word entity means any physical object, phenomenon, situation,

or event. A is called the cause, B the effect” (Born 1949, as cited in Sowa 2000).

Following this definition, in the preliminary studies on the SFRY, entities are often

considered as if to some extent being agents to bring about other entities. For instance,

the differences among ethnic or religious groups (as entity A) are always considered to

bring about nationalisms and conflicts (as entity B), or socio-political and

socio-economic structure based on socialist self-management system (as entity A)

involuntarily creates a platform for uneven economic development (as entity B), which

leads to a conflict based on the different degree of development (as entity B’).

The problem of understanding the disintegration and dissolution of the SFRY is that

scholars tend to assume that there is a definite cause among various contingent factors,

and that the causal relationship between one entity and another is immutable. While the

causality suggested by preliminary literature might hold, however, there are always

difficulties in establishing validity of causal correlation in a study of social science. In

addition to that, it is not always evident what is the cause and what is the effect. For

5

example, I wonder whether the differences among ethnic or religious groups actually

bring about conflicts among different nationalisms, or vice versa, historically articulated

nationalisms are the functional apparatus to differentiate one group from another. Put

otherwise, associating ourselves with a specific causal theory indeed allow us “to

describe world… [which is] closely tied to an explanation of what is going on… [and

to] set standards and lay down form of conduct which are desirable” (Vincent, 1987).

Meanwhile seeing that all theories involve specific elements, such as fundamental

principles, assumptions and definitions, embracing a particular causality as a premise to

explain the dissolution of the SFRY delimits the area of our attention, and imposes a

precise order on a multiplicity of causalities in order to make sense of what we see as

reality.

Another contribution of preliminary literature is, perhaps, that fact that the studies of

what caused the disintegration of the SFRY indicate discontinuity and changes in a

political and social setting. That is, by identifying a cause(s) and an effect(s), these

studies indicate that certain material being as well as ideational meaning once existed

and shared in a society no longer subsist, as a result of empirical or normative changes

occurred when an entity causes another. For example, assuming that disputed ethnic or

religious identities caused severe violent conflicts among republics, we can perhaps

argue that the idea of unified Yugoslavia no longer persists. However, as Foucault

(1994) suggests, although identifying discontinuities can be perceived as a working tool

to analyze the fundamental codes, which a society employs as to construct new

epistemology, or to configure new knowledge to match a transitional environment, it is

imperative to recognize the existence of continuities, exemplified by continuous

discourses or regular epistemological conceptualization, with which knowledge steadily

accumulates and a society gradually establishes what constitute truth and what does not,

or what is acceptable and what is not. Regarding discontinuities and continuities, Dower

(1994) provides a very insightful empirical study on the Japanese political, social and

economic structures in the period between 1926 and 1989, the era named Showa – that

is equivalent to the reign of the Showa Emperor – in which the Japanese society

experienced both war and peace. He claims that although the ideological discontinuity,

the transition from militarism to democratic pacifism, certainly and dramatically

changed the social norms in the Japanese society, it is actually the continuity of the

forms of industrialization and institutionalization adopted in 1930s, and the continuity

6

of the normative process of internalization / externalization implemented during

wartime, that constituted the political, social and economic structures in the

post-occupation period.

As Foucault’s theoretical justification and Dower’s empirical analysis explicitly

designate, an analysis of continuities is as important as of discontinuities, because the

flow of history is a reflection of both discontinuities and continuities, which indicates

the fact that some “things are no longer perceived, described, expressed, characterized,

classified, and known in the same way” (Foucault 1994) from one era to another. Thus,

I argue that preliminary literature specifies the significant discontinuities but fails to

provide the entire picture of the historical flow that took place in the SFRY.

Furthermore, for the same reason, I strongly suggest that any understanding of the

SFRY’s unity for almost fifty years is directly related to an understanding of

continuities within the SFRY. That is, while preliminary literature provides meaningful

insights into the discontinuities, this paper aims at identifying the continuities within the

SFRY, and more importantly, the continuity of the SFRY as a state, by questioning why

and how the country survived for almost fifty years despite its inherited predicaments,

that the preliminary literature thoroughly reveals.

Methodology

One specific element the studies on the SFRY identify is the fact that there are in

fact two different sets of ontology and epistemology that existed in the region: an

ontology and epistemology articulated on the basis of the spatio-temporality of the

entire Yugoslavia, and an ontology and epistemology on the basis of the particular

republics’ setting. The inconsistency, or the lack of a single unified ontology and

epistemology, then, presumably, passively enhanced two different conceptualizations of

subjectivity – state subjectivity, and individual subjectivity based on republics or ethnic

/ religious groups – which are also considered as irreconcilable. Thus, in turn, this study

assumes that the stability and integration of the SFRY depends on the negotiation

between the two sets of ontology and epistemology: the state’s and that of the individual

republics.

What do I mean when I say that there were two sets of ontology and epistemology

7

exited in the SFRY? Ontology, by definition, deals with questions of what entities exist

or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be categorized, related to one another,

and situated within a hierarchy. Epistemology concerns the questions of knowledge, and

how such knowledge can be acquired. Following these definitions, the first set of

ontology and epistemology, namely the state’s ontology and epistemology, articulates a

spatio-temporal entity specific of what Yugoslavia is, and who exists in Yugoslavia

with what kind of categories – i.e. workers, socialists etc – and in which hierarchy. This

ontological conceptualization of entities existing within the SFRY inevitably leads to

the creation of a specific set of knowledge that the entities can and should acquire – i.e.

unified view on the history of Yugoslavia, origin of state power, relationship among

individuals etc – and this knowledge, in turn, determines people’s behavior. Thus, the

state’s ontology and epistemology explicitly stimulates the creation of what Foucault

calls the “docile body” (1975, 137-138) of a society that forces individuals to comply

with particular rules and social norms, and to maximize the utility of objectified

individuals. Objectified individuals indicate the fact that individuals within a docile

body of society become object of social construction of ideal type of constituent

members of the society through the implementation of specific legal orders or social

norms, insomuch that they are stripped their individualities and uniqueness to the extent

that they are converted into “secular ideal type of legally constituted subjects” (Arendt

1979). In this sense, the actual undertaking of the state’s ontology and epistemology in

the SFRY is as to tame individuals by controlling their behaviors in a deceptive way

and by producing specific set of orders and norms. As a consequence, the process of

objectification, or de-personalization of individuals requires them to identify themselves

with the state, rather than with their own personal affiliations such as ethnicities or

religions, and implements a particular state subjectivity.

On the other hand, the second set of ontology and epistemology, namely the

individual republics’ ontology and epistemology, deals with the question of who we

personally are – i.e. men, women, Croatian, Serb, Moslem etc – which recalls the

foundation of personal affiliations specific of each individual, as opposed to the state’s

ontology and epistemology that controverts particularities of individuals. The individual

republics’ ontology and epistemology also concerns the question of where or whom we

belong to – i.e. local commune, Croatian community, Moslem religious group etc –

which allow individuals to articulate differences based on ethnic, religious or cultural

8

specifics. The ontological particularities instigate specific knowledge – i.e. different

histories, rights and responsibilities as a member of a particular group etc – and provide

normative justifications for rules of behaviors, which are different from the rules

implemented, and behaviors expected by the state. Thus, the republics ontology and

epistemology encourages the articulation, internatlization, and politcization of

differences, and consequently the implementation of an individual subjectivity.

As much of preliminary literature suggests, the state’s and the individual republics’

ontology and epistemology were brought into the disputed context by various factors,

which as a result ingenerated discontinuities in the SFRY, which was crystallized by the

complete dissolution of the country. However, as I have noted several times,

presumably, the state’s and the individual republics’ ontology and epistemology were

not necessarily always disputed and brought into catastrophic conflict, simply because

the SFRY managed to survive at lease fifty years. Thus, there certainly existed

continuities in the country, which were somehow permitted by implementing stable

relationship between the state’s and the individual republics’ ontology and

epistemology. As such, exploring the conceptualization of ontology and epistemology

within the SFRY has much significance, and understanding the interaction between the

two different sets of ontology and epistemology allows us to comprehend not only the

disintegration process as a discontinuity, but also the mechanism of state’s survival as a

continuity, which, as I have already noted, has crucial implications for the

understanding of the entire picture of historical flow and changes took place in the

country. That is, by looking at the negotiation between two different sets of ontology

and epistemology, which aimed at maintaining the stable relation between the two

instead of stimulating the disputed relation, it is possible to identify why the SFRY

experienced integration and disintegration process. In addition to that, exploring two

different sets of ontology and epistemology does not necessarily require us to identify

cause-effect correlation and to apply a precise order on a multiplicity of causalities,

instead it allows us to take various causalities into account without making any specific

hierarchy of consequentiality among them.

Therefore, the question here in terms of methodology is how we can identify a

process of articulating, implementing and universalizing a particular ontological and

epistemological understanding in the SFRY. In other words, the concern is with the

process through which the state’s subject-hood and individual subject-hood are

9

articulated, and how the stable balance between two subjects is negotiated. The point of

departure for answering these questions is that nothing is automatic or universal, and

subject is a social construction through the process of which people coming term with

specific norms and act accordingly. This post-positivist understanding of subject

inevitably involves discursive process analysis of how the social construction of the

subject takes place, through articulating a specific ontology and epistemology. The

process of constructing subject-hood, and a specific set of ontology and epistemology

engages with at least three focal points: orders, borders and identities, in the sense that

orders constitute legal subject with certain identities, within a specific territorial setting

divided it from outside by implementing and maintaining borders.

Table 1 Orders/borders/identities Triad

Table 1 demonstrates the intersections of orders, borders and identities, and what are

implemented, legitimized or encouraged on each nexus: borders / orders nexus (BO),

orders / identities nexus (OI), and identities / borders nexus (IB). By principally looking

at the original constitution of the SFRY, with occasional references to personal speeches,

10

surveys and censuses, the first part of this paper aims at identifying the state specific

ontological and epistemological conceptualization, which together implement an

exclusive state subjectivity, through static articulation and legitimization of orders,

borders and identities within the country. The second part intends to reveal the

articulation of the individual republics’ ontology and epistemology, as opposed to the

state’s ontology and epistemology, which encourage the acquisition of narrow

individual subjectivity based on personal affiliations, such as ethnicities and religions,

and personal conceptualization of self, which is, in some cases, irreconcilable with state

subjectivity.

Orders mean a set of linked political/ social structures, institutions and practices,

which converse, maintain and enforce ‘normal’ ways of relating and behaving. Political

/ social structures include both material arrangements such as economic, and cultural

such as customs and traditions. Political / social institutions include education, families

and government organizations. Both structures and institutions determine, to some

varying degree, the actions of individuals socialized into the structures and institutions.

Orders have significance only when there are established borders to demarcate specific

entities from that outside the orders. In this sense, the most primal definition of borders

is that a border articulates geographical boundaries of political entities or legal

jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federal states, and other

sub-national entities. Additionally, as recent studies on boundaries indicate, borders are

perceived as “constituting a normative construct of state-territorial organization”

(Newman 2001, 140). It is also suggested that processes of establishing borders and of

implementing their functions through particular orders explicitly indicate the

construction of spatio-temporality, and thus, the articulation of the power and authority

within the specific spatial setting. The conceptualization of spatio-temporality through

instigating orders and borders always correlates to, and sometimes is even dependent

upon the articulation of identities (Hansen 2006, 211). Identities, as Maalouf (2003)

states, is based on a unique comprehension of oneself as a discrete, independent entity,

which marks qualities of differences and sameness in terms of one’s relations to others

and to specific collective community. Thus, “identity is not something that states, or

other collectives, have independently of the discursive practice mobilized in presenting

and implementing” (Hansen 2006, 1) social, political and cultural practices, and it is

therefore “impossible to define identity as a variable… or measure its explanatory value

11

in competition with non-discursive material factors” (ibid, see also Goldstein and

Keohane 1993; Katzenstein 1996; Laffey and Welds 1997).

Although these concepts – orders, borders and identities – are not entirely new, they

are gaining more attention both from intellectuals and policy makers than ever before.

Among many substantive and intellectual reasons to justify the focus on these concepts,

Lapid (2001, 6) indicates some of the most pertinent reasons. First, these concepts are

individually and together considered as “key concepts” (Carville, Mathewson and

Kenzer 1996) in current political and social theories and practices, and they are

“ever-interesting” as well as “indispensable” (McLennan 1995). They are

ever-interesting “by virtue of their ability to reconfigure in face of changing realities”

(Lapid 2001, 6), and they are indispensable “on the strength of their sustained relevance

to many major theoretical undertakings” (ibid). it is also particularly striking that, as

many interdisciplinary relationalist literatures suggest that these concepts are

“intimately related to each other; they are therefore best defined, and best discussed, in

relation to each other” (ibid 7, see also Ruggie 1998 131). For instance, a process of

forming collective identity inevitably involves bordering issues to articulate spatial

identity of ‘us’ and ‘others’. Likewise, bordering issues invariably connect to political

ordering, consequently implementing social and moral ordering principles, or norms.

Additionally, political ordering, together with collective identity, encourages the

establishment of nation state based on the evocation of nationalism.

Analyzing two different sets of ontology and epistemology that existed within the

SFRY by exploring the conceptualization of orders, borders and identities, and the

intersections of these concepts, I will argue as a conclusion that the negotiation between

the two different sets of ontology and epistemology maintained the stable relation

between the two, by legitimizing the inequalities and hierarchies on the vertical line,

and simultaneously sustaining the equalities and inclusions on the horizontal line, which

together implement continuities in the SFRY that exemplified as survival of the country

for almost fifty years. By arguing so, this paper articulates the entire picture of historical

flow and changes took place in the country, insomuch that it is possible to understand

why the SFRY not only experienced the disintegration and dissolution but also

remained as a state despite the seemingly irreconcilable problems inherited in the

country.

12

Ontology and Epistemology of Federal State

Orders

One of the most notable orders in the SFRY is, as Horvat (1971, 1975, 1992), Vacic

(1979), Abe (1993) and Koyama (1996) suggest, its socialist self-management system,

and related economic structure and governmental institutions, which are explicitly set

out by the adaptation of the 1974 constitution. The emphasis on the socio-economic

orders encouraged by the federal government, in turn, articulates the concept of state

subject in the SFRY, and thus puts forward, what Arendt (1979) calls, a thoroughly

secular ideal type of legally constituted subject, and a specific relation among the

subjects which constructs Foucault’s account of “docile body” (Foucault 1975,

137-138) of a society, which implicitly forces individuals to comply with particular

rules of social norms. The emphasis is very recognizable even by simply examining the

contents of the 1974 constitution, which realized final ideological separation from the

Soviet model of socialism, and implemented associate labor and social self-management

specific of the SFRY. The constitution spares more than thirty pages to explain in detail

the socio-economic system, now called socialist self-management system, whereas it

only spends fifteen pages on the socio-political system, ten pages on the rights and

duties of citizens, four pages on legality and courts practices, and three pages on

national defense.

The socio-economic system defined by the constitution is that:

[It] shall be based on freely associated labor, socially

owned means of production, and self-management

by the working people in production, in distribution

of the social product of basic and other organizations

associated labor, and in social reproduction as a

whole (Part Two Chapter I Article10, 30).

Here, we can identify the underlying socio-economic ideology: that social ownership of

the means of production should be the primary condition of the system, instead of state

13

ownership, because the most fundamental ideal of the SFRY as a socialist state is to

achieve ‘the death of the state’ to the extent that Marx and Engels put forward within

their original texts (Marx 1909, 1971, 1974, Marx and Engels 1967, 1968, 1970) rather

than Lenin’s interpretation of Marxism. Furthermore, Article12 can be, to some extent,

interpreted even as ‘the death of the concept of ownership’, which implies the final

separation from capitalism, and the realization of the Yugoslav version of socialism,

which is, at least ideologically, different from the system of the Soviet Union, where the

socio-economic system is based on state ownership, industrial manufacturing,

administrative planning and collective farming. The ideological separation from the

Soviet Union is the very foundation upon which the Yugoslav federal government

places its legitimacy. Article12 states that:

… No one may acquire the right of ownership of

social resources, which are conditions of labor in

basic and other organizations of associated labor, or

are the economic foundations for the realization of

the function of self-managing communities of

interests, or of other self-managing organizations and

communities, and of socio-political communities

(Part Two Chapter I Article12, 30).

The rationale behind the justification of this sort of understanding of ownership can be

found in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ)’s fundamental manifesto of

achieving the elimination of technocrat dominance, the realization of self-management

by the workers, and them seizing the control of expanded reproduction. The

constitutional implementation of socialist self-management system is more

circumstantially explained in the Associated Labor Law adopted in 1976, and the first

provision of the law in particular provides overall picture of the system.

In terms of socio-political system, the SFRY employs a delegation system, in which

citizens of the SFRY are granted a right to elect a delegate within their own commune,

in which a representative is chosen co-optatively by the members of the delegate. As a

result, there were approximately ninety thousands representatives and one million

delegates involved in the political decision making processes. Yet, almost all of them

14

remained in their workplace even after elected as a representative or a delegate. This is

a consequence of non-occupationalization of politics. Therefore, except for some

notable political leaders of KPJ, the concept of subject in the SFRY is explicitly defined

as socialist working people, who are in equal relation to one another in spite of their

ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds. The constitution states that:

[The SFRY] is based on the power of the working

class and all working people and on the relations

among people as free and equal producers and

creator whose labor serves exclusively for the

satisfaction of their personal and common need…

Man’s inviolable status and role shall be based on:

the social ownership of labor… the right to

self-management… the right of the working man to

enjoy the fruits of his labor and of the economic

progress of the social community… solidarity and

reciprocity by everyone towards all and by all

towards everyone… free initiative in the

development of production… democratic political

relations… and equality of rights, duties, and

responsibilities of people (Introductory Part II, 14).

Additionally, it is noted that the working class and all working people are bound to

observe the power and rules of socialist social relations (ibid, 20). They are also

required to “realize and adjust their interests and self-managing rights in line with the

general interests of socialist society” (ibid, 20). At the same time, the status and roles of

KPJ and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which is led by KPJ, become more

apparent. The status and roles are defined as follows:

Under conditions of socialist democracy and social

self-management, the League of Communists of

Yugoslavia, with its guiding ideological and political

action, shall be the primary initiator and exponent of

15

political activity aimed at safeguarding and further

developing the socialist revolution and socialist

social relations of self-management… The Socialist

Alliance of the working People of Yugoslavia…

shall be broadest base for socio-political activity in

the socialist system of self-management

(Introductory Part VIII, 24).

That is, despite democratic electoral procedure and republics’ political, economic, social

and cultural autonomy to certain degree, KPJ situates itself as an umbrella authority that

unites individuals, communes, and republics, who do no necessarily share common

ethnic, cultural or religious backgrounds.

What do these constitutional implementations of socio-economic and socio-political

system and the nature of people within that system unequivocally affirm? First, through

the process of establishing a socialist self-management system, individual differences

among people are inevitably sublimed into the de-personalized subject as socialist

working people, who are expected to have a shared interest in realizing socialist

self-management system, under the unquestionable legitimacy of the federal

government. The de-personalized subjects are obliged to follow the specific socialist

rules of what is acceptable as a member of socialist state and what is not, which in turn,

implement specific moral principles of what is right and what is wrong, on which

people are required to base their judgment. As such, orders in the SFRY constitute ideal

type of state subjects, who together form a docile society over which the federal

government can maintain its authority.

Borders

The Partisan Movement started its program of recapturing the former territory of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, when the Axis powers invaded into the region, and the

Movement had successfully liberated most of the occupied areas by the time of the

declaration of the independence of the SFRY in 1945. The gained territory of the SFRY

is basically equivalent to the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that existed from

1981 to 1941. The territoriality and sovereignty of the SFRY was internationally

16

recognized when the country joined the United Nations as one of the first members. The

Article 2-1 of Chapter I in the Charter of the United Nations states, “the Organization is

based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members” and Article 2-7

claims that “nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations

to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state

or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present

Charter”, which together define sovereignty, territoriality and non-interventionism as

the primal condition of a state and state system.

The nature of the territory of the SFRY is clearly defined in its constitutions, and in

this respect, the 1974 constitution presents, perhaps, the most comprehensible definition.

It states that:

The territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of

Yugoslavia is a single unified whole and consists of

the territories of the Socialist Republics. The

territory of a republic may not be altered without the

consent of that Republic, not the territory of an

Autonomous Province without the consent of that

Autonomous Province. The frontiers of the Social

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia may not be altered

without the consent of all the Republics and

Autonomous Provinces. Boundaries between the

Republics may only be altered on the basis of mutual

agreement: and, if the boundary of an Autonomous

Province is involved, on the basis of the latter’s

agreement (Part One Article5, 28).

Although this is the only section in the constitution in which territoriality and issues of

borders are explicitly mentioned, the articulation of spatiality has much significance.

That is, implementing and maintaining borders does not only mean territorial and spatial

delimitation, but also means, first, the implementation of a jurisdictional area within

which rules are enforced and demographic censuses are taken, and second, the

articulation of a normative distinction between ‘us’ and ‘others’. Anderson (2006)

17

argues that the technological implementation of things like the census and maps

resonates with a shared imagination of a state and shared sense of a community among

people, with which people articulate an ideal or normative universalization of ‘us’ and

‘others’. Escolar (2003) also argues that developing cartography as a means to represent,

describe and interpret the world constructs “knowledge of the territory” (ibid, 29),

which is linked to the state’s “capacity of ownership over its jurisdictional and eminent

possessions… which would enable the administration to foresee, calculate and exercise

its functions and responsibilities” which in turn implement “the non-arbitrary logic of…

domination” (ibid).

The idea of ‘us’ in the SFRY is also found in the constitution where the concept of

citizenship in the country is clearly defined. The constitution states that:

Yugoslav citizen shall have a single citizenship –

that of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Every citizen of a republic shall simultaneously be a

citizen of the Socialist Federal Republic of

Yugoslavia. Citizens of one republic on the territory

of another republic shall have the same rights and

duties as the citizens of that republic (Part Three

Chapter I Article249, 102).

This article is remarkable to the extent that articulating spatiality does not only define

the territoriality of the SFRY, but it also implements exclusive citizenship in the country,

as a single citizenship, which thus implicitly denies more narrow articulation of

citizenship based on republics or autonomous provinces.

Nevertheless, the spatial differentiation does not only mean that boundaries of

political entities or legal jurisdictions are drawn. It indeed functions as to establish some

kind of basis for statehood, which can be interpreted as an articulation of

foundationalism in the sense that particular history and historical beings, such as the

notion of the unified Partisan Movement to save Yugoslavia and Yugoslav people from

the Axis powers, or the belief that Yugoslav people have suffered greatly from

continuous interventions and occupation first by Ottoman Turkey, the Soviet

Communism, and then the Axis powers, become historical truths, which consequently

18

draw the lines of social boundaries to implement temporal specific understanding of

what is acceptable and what is not.

Identities

Table 2 Percentage of Adult Population of Yugoslavia Identifying Themselves as Yugoslavs

A process of identity formation usually takes place through discursive construction

of individual subjectivity of who I am, and identification of personal affiliations of

where or whom I belong to (Goldstein and Keohane 1993, Katzenstein 1996, Laffey and

Weldes 1997, Maalouf 2003, Hansen 2006). However, interestingly, the particular

identity that the federal government implicitly set forward and promoted is somehow

goes beyond, and is indeed expected to go beyond, the idea of identity remaining

personal. That is, ethnic, religious and cultural characteristics, which usually implement

specific foundations for constructing identities, within the SFRY, is so diverse that the

federal government is aware of the need to articulate overall state identity to conquer

the differences among people. Concerning the federal government’s awareness of

acquiring a state identity, Tito once claimed that “no one questioned ‘who is Serb, who

is Croat, who is Muslim’, as we’re all one people, that’s how it was back then, and I still

think it is that way today” (Tito, as cited in Service 2005, 592). Tito also stated, “a

decade ago young people en masse began declaring themselves as Yugoslav. It was a

form of rising Yugoslav nationalism, which was a reaction to brotherhood and unity and

a feeling of belonging to a single socialist self-managing society” (ibid). Yet, the

19

so-called Yugoslav identity is considered as a ‘special’ group in the SFRY, which

requires a different way of analyzing its process of formation and its nature.

Table 4, based on the national censuses of the SFRY, shows the percentage of

people identifying themselves as Yugoslav in 1961, 1971, and 1981 respectively. The

number of individuals identifying themselves as Yugoslav increased from 1.3% in 1971

to 5.4% in 1981, or 273,077 to 1,219,024 persons. Given that the median size of each

republic is 446 square kilometers with a median population of 29,329, in many

republics “more than 10% of the population declared Yugoslav identity” (Burg and

Berbaum 1989, 535). Another survey conducted by Yugoslav sociologists state that

“some 15% of Yugoslav youth declared Yugoslav identity and some 36% expressed a

‘preference’ for declaring it in place of their ethnic identity” (ibid). Regarding ethnic,

religious, cultural, economic and demographic diversity among these republics, the

declaration of Yugoslav identity by such proportion indicates a significant allegation of

a shared identity, which seems to overcome spatial, ethnic and religious divisions and

differences.

Some people, perhaps, argue that the Yugoslav identity simply indicates a

mishmash of people who do not want to be listed as members of any existing nationality,

which are based on ethnicity or religion. However, despite the significant increase of the

number of Yugoslav, the problem is more complicated than it seems. First of all, there

is no specific definition of what Yugoslav means, and even federal leaders have never

come to terms with what it means and how to interpret Yugoslavism as the underlying

ideology of Yugoslav identity. Kiro Hadzi-Vasiley claims that “Yugoslavism is neither

a national nor supranational category” (1967, 242), whereas Croat publicist Predrag

Matvejevic notes that there are several types of Yugoslavism, suggesting that it is

wrong “to attribute to every type of ‘Yugoslavism’ an a priori tendency to be

supranational category… [or to] suspect that ‘Yugoslavism’ is a Unitarian idea even

when it has not been tending toward Unitarianism” (Matvejevic, as cited in

Hadzi-Vasiley 1967, 255). Matvejevic, however, suggests a ‘should-be favorable’ type

of Yugoslavism, which he defines as something that leads to greater tolerance among

different nationalities and ethnic groups, because “the lower the cultural level of a

nationality, the stronger the national hatred” (ibid).

Yet, in my opinion, this claim is very tenuous, insomuch as the majority of the

research projects which focus on ethnic conflicts have indicated that ethnic hatred tends

20

to be much greater among intellectuals than among people with lower cultural level,

since while the elites might be the instigator of national sentiment, the people with

lower cultural level might be the follower. For instance, the intellectual dispute over

historical unification of Yugoslavia, which is crystallized by the speech of Momsilo

Zecevic at one of the congress of historians in 1979, strongly suggests that, despite the

effort of the federal government to articulate the history of Yugoslavia as an primary

foundation and justification for Yugoslav identity, national status and ethnic / religious

identities are always at the center of political question among intellectuals, as opposed

to the federal status and overall state identity (Banac 1992). This has two significant

implications. First, “the historiographies of the successor states will be unequal in

harmony, quality, and orientation, according to the level of ideologization in each” (ibid,

1104). But simultaneously “the historical guild [of each republic] will have a difficult

task in removing… the heritage of the Communist dirigisme” (ibid, 1104), because the

dispute over Yugoslav historiography occurred due to the remaining of the continuity of

the strong Partisan legacy.

Nevertheless, identifying oneself as Yugoslav does not necessarily means that

Yugoslav identity is the alternative to the history-long diverse ethnic identities. Instead,

particularly at the early stage of articulating Yugoslav identity, as Dugandzija (1984)

and Matvejevic (1983) insist, “the declaration of Yugoslav identity in 1971 can be

interpreted as an indication of the conscious rejection of a fissiparous or exclusivist

orientation in favor of a more integrative, or universalist one” (Burg and Berbaum 1989,

539). More importantly, the nature of Yugoslav identity has been transformed from

simple denial of exclusivist ideology to a mean of expressing diffuse support, if not

active support, for the regime, since “the definition of Yugoslav as political identity

appears to have become more clearly established in both the popular press and more

scholarly works” (ibid), which explicitly indicates the separation of Yugoslav identity

as purely political from ethnic identity as individualistic.

Ontology and Epistemology of Republics

Orders

21

As analyzed in the previous section, the socialist self-management system in the

SFRY, as the primal socio-economic and socio-political order, emphasized the

de-personalization of individuals to constitute a state subject as unified socialist

working people. Consequently, individuals were expected to form collectivity based on

the Yugoslav’s interpretation of socialism. They were also expected to have shared

interests and to be obliged to follow the specific socialist rules under the legitimacy of

the federal government. However, constitutionally and empirically speaking, there were

much room for republics and autonomous provinces to exercise their own interests

within decision-making processes in various political, economic and social situations.

Table 3 Decision-Making Process in the Socialist Self-Management System

Table 3 shows the decision-making process in the socialist self-management system

of the SFRY. In terms of politics, citizens within each republic or autonomous province

first appoint their own delegate through democratic electoral process, and a

representative is elected by the members of the delegate, who forms, together with other

representatives from other communes, the Republic Assembly to decide arrangements

for socio-political issues, regional issues and issues related to associate labor within

22

their republic or autonomous province. Also representatives from republics and

autonomous provinces influence the decisions made at the Republic Chamber within the

Federal Assembly. Decisions regarding economy are basically dealt by the members of

the basic organization of associate labor within each republic or autonomous province,

namely OOUR, which is composed by citizens – i.e. socialist working people. OOURs

form ROs, equivalent to corporations, which conducts business regarding banking,

logistics, material allocations, and so forth. OOURs also have a direct influence on the

decisions of the Federal Chamber in the Federal Assembly. Additionally, they also have

exclusive authority over education, public health and cultural enterprises within each

republic and autonomous province.

The 1974 constitution clearly defines the rights of OOURs, by stating that “basic

organizations of associated labor are the basic forms of associated labor in which the

workers directly and on terms of equality realize their socio-economic and other

self-management rights and decide on other questions concerning their socio-economic

status” (Part Two Chapter I Article14, 31). Furthermore, the article 298, 299, 300, 301,

302, 303 and 304 clearly state that the Republic Chamber in the Federal Assembly,

which is composed by the representatives from republics and autonomous provinces, is

the body to introduce and enforce new bills and other draft enactments. In fact, the

decision-making process in the SFRY suggests that, although individuals in the country

are de-personalized as working people, who are expected to follow certain rules of

socialist society and to accept legitimacy of the federal government, which is led by

KPJ, they are allowed to maintain the right of self-determination within their commune

or their republics and autonomous provinces, which brings me to the point that the

socialist self-management system of the SFRY actually inherits intensional context for

exercising personal, ethnic or republics specific interests

Borders

The borders among republics are to large extent a compromise for the federal

government for whom it is necessary to contain nationalisms. Although the intension of

the federal government was to have these borders drawn in line with the idea of

maintaining equality among the republics in terms of the size of territory and of

population, the drawing borders has resulted in the drawing lines among different

23

ethnicities, which to varying degree encourage sustaining individual affiliations toward

a specific ethnicity, religion, or culture. Nevertheless, for the federal leaders, the

mechanism of the borders among the republics is understood simply as a means to

create just political and economic entities for the socialist self-management system.

Thus, the control over the republics’ borders is not so strict that individuals are granted

right for free movement, as the 1974 constitution defines:

Citizens shall be guaranteed freedom of movement

and residence. Restriction of freedom of movement

or residence may be provided for by law, but only in

order to ensure the conduct of criminal proceedings,

to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, to

protect public order, or when so required by the

defense interests of the country (Part Two Chapter

III Article183, 87).

However, simultaneously, the borders among republics were utilized as not quite

what the federal government intended to. First, in terms of economy and development,

the borders implement uneven economic development among republics and stabilize an

inequality. Second, the borders constitute ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ within a republic,

and in the SFRY as a whole. For example, Albanians composes majority ethnic group

within the autonomous province of Kosovo, yet they are minority in proportion within

Serbia, or, 75% of the population of Croatia is Croats, according to the 1981 census, but

the proportion of Croats in the SFRY remains only 19.75%. The same census also

suggests that Moslems is the biggest nationality group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, yet

the number of Moslems population in the SFRY accounts only for 8.92%. In terms of

this majority vs. minority context resulted from the articulation of borders among

republics, Milosevic’s claim on Serbs’ status in the federation in 1989 exemplified the

awareness of republics.

When a socialist Yugoslavia was set up, in this new

state the Serbian leadership remained divided, prone

to compromise to the detriment of its people. The

24

concessions that many Serbian leaders made at the

expense of their people could not be accepted

historically and ethnically by any nation in the world,

especially because the Serbs have never in the whole

of their history conquered and exploited others…

Serbia historically defended itself in the field of

Kosovo, but it also defended Europe… It appears no

only unjust but even unhistorical and completely

absurd to talk about Serbia’s belonging to Europe.

Serbia has long been a part of Europe (Milosevic 18th

June 1989).

As a response to Milosevic and Serbs’ politicization of their national status, and as to

construct more narrowly defined spatiality and temporality, Tudjman claimed during an

interview in 1991 that:

Croats belong to a different culture – a different

civilization from the Serbs. Croats are people of

Western Europe, part of the Mediterranean

tradition… The Serbs belong to the east. They are

eastern people like the Turks and the Albanians.

They belong to the Byzantine culture… Despite

similarities in language, we cannot be together

(Tudjman, as cited in Cohen, 1993, 208).

What is significant here is that these remarks, first, articulate a spatial distinction among

republics. Second, these remarks also articulate mental map of where they belong to by

employing an Orientalist discourse to barbarian-ize others and to situate themselves on

the top of hierarchy, and thus implementing specific moral rules – i.e. rules of western

civilization – to characterize their own society. Additionally, the borders among

republics and these remarks by the leaders of republics legitimize specific histories of

each republic or of an ethnic group, which establish the narrow social meaning of their

histories, and consequently articulate narrow normative boundaries of communities. The

25

narrow discourses on territoriality, and the subject constituted by the narrow articulation

of territoriality, are ‘inevitably used in practice to subordinate and marginalize those

who are deemed different” (Steans, Pettiford and Diez 2005, 137). Therefore,

“minorities are recognized as citizens but, in a ‘nation-state’, minorities are bound to

feel in an uncomfortable position and little is done to prevent this happening”

(Dimitrijevic 1993, 50, as cited in Gallagher 1997, 53).

Identities

Table 4 Distribution of the Population in Yugoslavia According to Nationality in 1982

26

Table 5 Distribution of the Population in Yugoslavia in 1982 (pie Chart)

Table 4 and Table 5 show the distribution of the population of Yugoslavia according

to nationality in 1982, based on the 1981 census. The biggest ethnic group in the SFRY

is Serbs (36%), followed by Croats (20%). The proportions of the other ethnic groups

are considerably smaller than these two big ethnic groups, although it does not

necessarily mean that these minority groups share small proportion of population in a

given republic or province, as I have already mentioned. For example, Slovenes only

account for 8% in entire Yugoslavia, yet within the Republic of Slovenia the proportion

of Slovenes is approximately 91%, or 1,712,000 out of 1,891,000 persons are Slovenes.

The same thing can be said about Albanians in Kosovo, and Moslem in Bosnia and

Herzegovina.

Although this instrumentalist view of looking at the distribution of the population in

the SFRY in terms of ethnic groups signifies the ethnic diversity of the country and

problematic situation in regard to majority-minority relationship, it is impossible to

understand how an individual, or a group of individuals, identify themselves as a

member of a particular ethnic group, and how the construction of ethnic identities takes

place.

The process of ethnic identities construction has been the subject of intense

scholarly research. Many of the research projects treat ethnic identity as socially

27

constructed, rather than applying an instrumentalist framing in which the self is taken

for granted. For example, Schwartz (2000) examines the paradoxical rivalry ethnic

identity formation between Serbs and Albanians in particular, claiming that the process

of identity formation for these two ethnic groups largely depends on interpreting

historical events as historical significances for a given group, and transforming these

events into historical narratives, which draw specific distinction between ‘us’ and

‘others’. Through the process of interpretation and transformation, not only a specific

identity of ‘who we are as Albanians / Serbs’ is implemented, but also exclusive rights

of the group are defined – i.e. the right to occupy a specific geographical territory, or the

right to govern the territory.

Nevertheless, the analyses on discursive construction of ethnic identities in the

SFRY indicate that ethnic identities are constructed, implemented and encouraged by

mass population, through two different routes, which take place simultaneously. One

route is performed by the elites of a given group who “construct antagonistic ethnic

identities in order to maintain or increase their power (Fearon and Laitin 2000, 873-4),

and / or by the mass public of the group “whose individual actions produce, reproduce,

and contest the content and boundaries of ethnic categories” (ibid, 874). Milosevic’s

and Tudjman’s rhetoric obviously falls into this category, and also groups of historians

who dispute over the history of Yugoslavia in favor of their own versions of national

histories can be recognized as to encourage this type of ethnic identity formation

process. The other route of ethnic identity construction is identified as a

supra-individual discourse of ethnicity, which contains an “internal, ideational logic that

constructs actors and motivates or defines their possibilities for action” (ibid). Examples

of this route are historical myths of an ethnic group, a shared understanding of their

ethnic origin and their history, and so forth.

The diversity of nationality suggests that despite the federal leaders’ claim of unity

and brotherhood of the country, the majority of people’s identity is articulated on the

basis of narrowly defined spatial, temporal and consequently ethical legitimization of

ethnicity / religion, and their own version of history. This narrow articulation of identity

encourages republics to promote explicitly defined nation-ness, as an alternative to, or a

counterpart of, the concept of statehood claimed by the federal government. The

incoherence of identity means that the question of who we are and of what is true are

differently embellished, and indeed ethnic / religious discourses are related to the social

28

and political institutions and authorities of particular groups, constituting networks of

institutional power of the groups.

What Keeps a State Together?

In the SFRY, there exists a dual structure in terms of conceptualization of orders,

borders and identities. ‘Dual’ means double, two fold or in two parts. The dual structure

in the SFRY indicates the co-existence of two different sets of ontology and

epistemology, which are, to some varying degrees, in a conflictual relationship, and

instigate disparities among groups, or among republics. Put otherwise, ontologically

speaking, within each concept of orders, borders and identities, a specific image of what

entities exist and how such entities can be categorized, related to one another, and

situated within a hierarchy in the SFRY on one hand, and in each republic on the other

hand, is defined. Consequently, the ontological conceptualizations implement certain

knowledge, in epistemological sense, which determines, for example, historical truth,

legitimacy of power, relationship among people, and possibilities of actions. Take for

instance, the dual conceptualization of orders stimulates to establish exclusive political

institutions within each republic, and allocates uneven economic development, although

constitutionally orders encourage the equal relationship among people and among

republics, and define the judicially equal status of men in the SFRY. Similarly, the dual

conceptualization of borders brings about exclusive nation-ness based on narrow

articulation of territoriality and sovereignty of republics, even though federal

territoriality and sovereignty legitimize the equal rights and duties of men within the

broader spatial conceptualization. In terms of identities, on one hand the acquisition of a

Yugoslav identity, which is articulated as a mode of rejection of exclusivists’

orientation and as a political identity, is guaranteed. Yet on the other hand, narrow

implementation of ‘us’ and ‘others’ based on nationalities, which are always associated

with the particularities of ethnicities and religions, gives a justification for radical

behavioral implications for questioning national status in the country.

More importantly, these two sets of ontology and epistemology construct, as a result,

two different subjects in the SFRY. The state’s ontology and epistemology explicitly

stimulates de-personalization of individuals and transforms individuality into state

29

subject, which is prescribed as unification of working people who share the same

interests of realizing socialist self-management society, who have a shared identity, and

who are in turn expected to follow a particular set of norms of socialist country. On the

other hand, republics’ ontology and epistemology implement a more narrow

interpretation of subject, which is largely based on personal affiliations to define who I

am and where or whom I belong to, and which finds its rationale in different

understandings of history, specific rights and responsibilities as a member of a

particular group, and politicized differences among people or among groups. As such,

the ontological and epistemological dual structure constituted by the dual

conceptualization of orders, borders, and identities respectively are more often than not

assumed as the engineering force of the disintegration of and discontinuities in the

SFRY. It is, perhaps, reasonable conclusion to the extent that the inherent duality gives

a way to the de facto power flow from the federal government to the republics, which

calls appropriate re-constitutionalization and reorganization of the new relationship

between the federal government and the republics, and among the republics. However I

would strongly insist that we should not jump onto this seemingly simple and

comprehensible conclusion, but instead assume that there must be an integral

mechanism to sustain the state at least for fifty years. To figure out the integral

mechanism of the SFRY, which is set forward by the federal government and which is

gradually internalized by the people in the country, we need to shift out focus from

discrete concepts of orders, borders and identities, to the intersections of these three

concepts, where inter-conceptual discourse practices to keep the state together take

place (Brown 2001, Harvey 2001, Newman 2001, Mansbach and Wilmer 2001,

Mansbach and Rhodes 2007).

On the borders / orders (BO) intersection, Lapid claims that “ordering and…

bordering… go hand in hand” (2001, 14), and “social order presupposes… underlying

mental order based on fundamental distinction between that which is included and that

which is excluded” (Zerubavel 1991, as cited in Lapid 2001, 13). Such is surely the case

of the SFRY. The dual structure within the concept of borders and orders together

defines the hierarchy of interests as the most primary social and mental ordering

principle. That is, shared interests are discursively constructed by territorialization of

the federation and by institutionalization of communist ideology, and these interests are

situated at the top of the hierarchy. Shared interests, or say state interests, means the

30

ideological separation from the Soviet influence and the Soviet model of communism,

the maintenance of the territoriality which is retrieved by the Partisan Movement, and

the realization of Yugoslav specific self-managing socio-economic, socio-political

system. At the same time, national interests, as opposed to the state’s shared interests,

such as particularistic ethnic interests, are positioned at the bottom of hierarchy.

Likewise, on orders / identities (OI) intersection, where “current theoretical and

empirical discussions of the ‘order problem’ are likely to refer to the ‘identity problem’

and vice versa” (ibid, 16), and where “no enduring political order can exist without a

substantial sense of community and shared identity” (Deudney and Ikenberry 1999,

193), the hierarchy of identity is implemented, by stating that ethnic or religious

affiliations are not political and remain personal (the 1974 constitution Part Two

Chapter III Article174, 85). By doing so, the identification of individuals with political

community – i.e. acquisition of political identity – become the primal matter. This is the

rationale behind the invention of Yugoslav identity, although people never came to term

with what exactly it means. The significance of the invention of Yugoslav identity,

through material development assistance from the federal government, and through

inter-ethnic contacts that guaranteed by the constitution as free movement and residence

of the citizen, is that it implicitly encourages the diffuse support for the regime. The

diffuse support especially in political sense has much significance, more than active

support does, in the sense that, as a large body of research on political support suggests,

there is a strong correlation between diffuse support for the political system and

political stability (Burg and Berbaum 1989).

On identities / borders (IB) intersection, on which inside / outside, self / other

distinction are materialized (Walker 1993, 1995, Albert, Jacobson and Lapid 2001), the

inside / outside distinction among republics are de-institutionalized, thus ethnic or

religious identities become less significant at least within the federal setting. At the

same time, the distinction between the SFRY and other states are firmly

institutionalized. The institutionalization of broad spatial identity, in turn, determines

the legacy of the KPJ as the defender of the SFRY, which encourages the shared

understanding of the historical establishment of the country. The implementation of the

shared history means the articulation of the hierarchy of value system through the

institutionalization of state values, which are prior to the de-politicized ethnic or

religious values.

31

BO, IO and IB intersections, which exemplified by the implementation and

stabilization of three hierarchies, constitute the vertical line of institutionalization of

inequalities. However, this is just the half of the integral mechanism in the SFRY.

These hierarchies certainly stimulate disputes, so that the other half of the mechanism,

namely the horizontal line of IBO intersections, is implemented as to mediate conflicts

inhabited in the vertical line. On the horizontal line of equalities maintained also by BO

intersection, self-rule or republics and shared-rule among republics, based on the

equality among them, are tolerated, as a set of cooperative arrangements allowing the

preservation of the autonomy of the republics within the constitutional framework. On

the horizontal line of OI intersection, the equality among people despite their personal

affiliations toward a particular ethnicity or religion is guaranteed. And on the IB

intersection, personal identification with specific ethnicity or religion in a particular

spatial setting is allowed unless it is not politicized. As such, the IBO intersections on

the horizontal line signify the de-institutionalization of differences, and equality among

the differences, by pushing particularities to a political vacuum.

Importantly, the IBO intersections on the vertical line and intersections on the

horizontal line function together and cannot be separated, which brings me the point

that the horizontal line make vertical hierarchies possible through the practices of

inclusions, and the vertical line makes horizontal inclusions possible by invoking

categories of equalities and inequalities within the hierarchies. Therefore, the

mechanism of sustaining the SFRY as a state affirms the natural necessity of IBO

intersections that can be organized partly as a system of horizontal inclusions, and

partly as a set of vertical hierarchies.

Conclusion

So, why and how did the SFRY remain as a state despite the seemingly unresolvable

problems that are said to have led to the disintegration and complete dissolution of the

country? As to conclude, the survival of the SFRY depends on the negotiation between

two different sets of ontology and epistemology, by keeping the balance between

horizontal inclusions and vertical hierarchies that constitute continuities in the SFRY.

By arguing so, I suggest that the disintegration and the complete dissolution of the

32

country, within which discontinuities of history of the region took place, can be

understood as malfunctioning of the negotiation between two different sets of ontology

and epistemology, which causes disequilibrium between horizontal inclusions and

vertical hierarchies. In addition, I also claim that by employing the method of analyzing

two different sets of ontology and epistemology existed in the SFRY and the

negotiation between the two, the multiplicity of causalities suggested by preliminary

literature are also identified without making any specific but debatable cause-effect

correlation, or without determining the degrees of significance among various

causalities. This way of analyzing the SFRY, importantly, allow us to articulate the

entire picture of the context within which the country experienced both integration and

disintegration.

33

Bibliography

Abe, N. 1993. Economic Crisis and Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Nippon Hyoron Sha Co.,

Ltd.

Adizes, I. 1971. Industrial Democracy: Yugoslav Style: The Effect of Decentralization

on Organization Behavior. Free Press.

Albert, M., D. Jacobson & Y. Lapid. 2001. Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking

International Relations Theory. In Borderlines Series. Minneapolis, MN: The

University of minnesota Press.

Allcock, J. B. 1991. Constructing the Balkans. In Black Lambs and Grey Falcons:

Women Travellers in the Balkans, eds. J. B. Allcock & A. Young. Huddersfield:

Bradford University Press.

Almond, G. A. (1983) Communism and Political Culture Theory. Comparative Politics,

15, 127-138.

Anderson, B. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism. London: Verso.

Arendt, H. 1979. The Origin of Totalitarianism. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanoich.

Bakic-Hayden, M. & R. M. Hayden. 1992. The National Question in Yugoslavia:

Origin, Hisotry, Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Banac, I. (1992) Historiography of the Countries of Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia. The

American Historical Review, 97, 1084-1104.

---. 2006. The Politics of National Homogeneity. In War and Change in the Balkans:

Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz, 30-43. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Blitz, B. K. 2006. War and Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and

Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brancati, D. (2006) Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of

Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism? International Organization, 60, 651-685.

Bringa, T. 1995. Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central

Bosnia. Princeton University Press.

Brown, C. 2001. Borders and Identity in International Political Theory. In Identities,

Borders, Order: Rethinking International Relations Theory, eds. M. Albert, D.

Jacobson & Y. Lapid, 117-136. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota

34

Press.

Brubaker, R. 1996. Nationalis Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the

New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burg, S. L. & M. L. Berbaum (1989) Community, Integration, and Stability in

Multinational Yugoslavia. The American Political Science Review, 83, 535-554.

Campbell, D. 1998. National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Carville, E., K. Mathewson & M. Kenzer. 1996. Concepts in Human Geography.

Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Caspersen, N. (2003) Elite interests and the Serbian-Montenegrin Conflict. Southeast

European Politics, 5, 104-121.

Cohen, L. 1993. Broken Bonds:Yugoslavia's Disintegration and Balkan Politics in

transition. Colorada: Westview Press.

Danforth, L. M. (1993) Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and

the Breakup of Yugoslavia. Anthropology Today, 9, 3-10.

Denitch, B. D. 1994. Ethnic Nationalism: The tragic Death of Yugoslavia. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.

Deudney, D. & J. Ikenberry (1999) The Nature and Sources of Liberal International

Order. Review of International Studies, 25, 179-196.

Dimitras, P. (2000) Writing and Rewriting History in the Context of Balkan

Nationalism. Southeast European Politics, 1, 41-59.

Doder, D. (1993) Yugoslavia: New War, Old Hatreds. Foreign Policy, 91, 3-23.

Dower, J. W. 1994. Japan in Peace and War. The New Press.

Dragnich, A. N. 1983. The first Yugoslavia: search for a viable political system.

California: Hoover Institution Press.

Dubey, V. 1975. Yugoslavia, Development with Decentralization: Report of a Mission

Sent to Yugoslavia by the World Bank. Washington: John Hopkins University

Press.

Dugandzija, N. 1984. Jugoslavenstvo [Yugoslavism]. Belgrade: Mladost.

Escolar, M. 2003. Exploration, Cartography and the Modernization of State Power. In

State/Space: A Reader, eds. N. Brenner, B. Jessop, M. Jones & G. Macleod.

Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Fearon, J. D. & D. D. Laitin (2000) Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic

35

Identity. International Organization, 54, 845-877.

Flaherty, D. (1998) Plan, Market and Unequal regional development in Yugoslavia.

Europe-Asia Studies, 40, 100-124.

Fleming, K. E. (2000) Orientalism, The Balkans, and Balkan Historiography. The

American Historical Review, 105, 1218-1233.

Foucault, M. 1975. Discipline and Punish.

---. 1994. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Science. Vintage.

Furubotn, E. G. & S. Pejovich (1973) Property Rights, Economic Decentralization, and

the Evolution of the Yugoslav Firm 1965-1972. Journal of Law and Economics,

16, 275-302.

Gallagher, T. 1997. My Neighbour, My Enemy: The Manipulation of ethnic Identity

and the Origins and Conduct of War in Yugoslavia. In War and Ethnicity, ed. D.

Turton. New York: The Boydell Press.

Goldstein, J. & R. O. Keohane. 1993. Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions,

and Political Change. Ithaca: Cornel University Press.

Gow, J. 2003. The Serbian Project and its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes.

McGill-Queen's University Press.

Hadzi-Vasilev, K. 1967. Aktuelni Problemi Reorganizacije i Razvoja SKJ [Current

Problems of the Reorganization and Development of the LCY]. Belgrade:

Ekonomska Politika publishing House.

Hansen, L. 2006. Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. New

York: Routledge.

Harvey, N. 2001. The Political Nature of Identities, Borders, and Orders: Discourse and

Strategy in the Zapatista Rebellion. In Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking

International Relations Theory, eds. M. Albert, D. Jacobson & Y. Lapid,

249-274. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Hayden, R. M. (1992) Constitutional Nationalism in the Formerly Yugoslav Republics.

Slavic Review, 51, 654-673.

Hodson, R., D. Sekulic & G. Massey (1994) National Tolerance in the Former

Yugoslavia. The American Journal o Sociology, 99, 1534-1558.

Hoffman, G. W. & F. W. Neal. 1962. Yugoslavia and the New Communism. Periodicals

Service Co.

Horvat, B. (1971) Yugoslav Economic Policy in the Post-War Period: Problems, Ideas,

36

Institutional Developments. The American Economic Review, LXI.

---. 1975. On the Theory of the Labor-Managed Firm. In Self-governing Socialism, eds.

M. Markovic & R. Supek. International Arts and Scoence Press, Inc.

--- (1992) Lutanja Jugoslavenske Privrede. Ekonomski pregled, XXXIII.

Isakovic, Z. 2000. Identity and Security in Former yugoslavia. Ashgate Publishing.

Judha, T. 1997. The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. Yale

University Press.

Katzenstein, P. J. 1996. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World

Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kornai, J. 1992. The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism Clarendon

Press

Koyama, Y. 1996. Study on the Self-management Socialism in Yugoslavia. Tokyo: Taga

Publishing.

Laffey, M. & J. Weldes (1997) Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the

Study of International Relations. European Journal of International Relations, 3,

193-237.

Lang, N. R. (1975) The Dialectics of Decentralization: Economic Reform and Regional

Inequality in Yugoslavia. World Politics, 27, 309-335.

Lapid, Y. 2001. Introduction. Identities, Borders, Orders: Nudging International

Relations Theory in a New Direction. In Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking

International Relations Theory, eds. M. Albert, D. Jacobson & Y. Lapid.

Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press.

Lydall, H. 1984. Yugoslav Socialism: Theory and Practice. USA: Oxford University

Press.

Lytle, P. E. (1992) U.S. Policy toward the Demise of Yugoslavia: The Virus of

Nationalism. East European Politics and Societies, 6, 303-318.

Maalouf, A. 2003. In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. Penguin

Books.

Macdonald, D. B. 2003. Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and croatian Victim-Centred

Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia. Manchester: Manchester University

Press.

Mansbach, R. & E. Rhodes (2007) The National State and Identity Politics: State

Institutionalization and Makers of National Identity. Geopolitics, 12, 426-458.

37

Mansbach, R. W. & F. Wilmer. 2001. War, Violence, and the Westphalian State System

as a Moral Community. In Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International

Relations Theory, eds. M. Albert, D. Jacobson & Y. Lapid, 51-72. Minneapolis,

MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Marx, K. 1909. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. London: William

Glaisher.

---. 1971. Early Writings. In Early Writings, ed. D. McLellan. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

---. 1974. Hegel's Philosophy of Right and Marx's Commeentary. ed. H. Kainz. Hague:

Martinus Nijhoff.

Marx, K. & F. Engels. 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth, Middx:

Penguin Books.

---. 1968. Selected Writings. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

---. 1970. The German Ideology. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Matvejevic, P. 1983. Jugoslavenstvo danas [Yugoslavism Today]. Zagreb: Globus.

McLennan, G. 1995. Pluralism. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.

Mikula, M. (2002) Nationalism and the Rhetoric of Exclusion. Southeast European

Politics, 3, 62-70.

Newman, D. 2001. Boundaries, Borders, and Barriers: Changing Geographic

Perspectives on Territorial Lines. In Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking

International Relations Theory, eds. M. Albert, D. Jacobson & Y. Lapid,

137-179. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Oberschall, A. (2000) The manipulation of ethnicity: from ethnic cooperation to

violence and war in Yugoslavia. Ethnic and racial Studies, 23, 982-1001.

Pavkovic, A. 1996. The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia Nationalism in a Multinational

State. St. Martin's Press.

Pavlovic, S. (2000) Understanding Balkan Nationalism: The Wrong People, in the

Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time. Southeast European Politics, 1, 115-124.

Perica, V. 2002. Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Prout, C. 1985. Market Socialism in Yugoslavia. USA: Oxford University Press.

Ramet, S. P. 1992. Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia 1962-1991. Indiana

University Press.

Rezun, M. 1995. Europe and War in the Balkans: Toward a New Yugoslav Identity.

38

Praeger

Ruggie, J. G. 1998. Constructing the World Polity. New York: Routledge.

Rusinow, I. D. 1978. The Yugoslav Experiment 1948-1974. Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of California Press.

Schopflin, G. 2006. Yugoslavia: State Construction and State Failure. In War and

Change in the Balkans: Nationalism, Conflict and Cooperation, ed. B. K. Blitz.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schwartz, S. 2000. Background to a War. London: Anthem Press.

Sekulic, D., G. Massey & R. Hodson (1994) Who Were the Yugoslavs? Failed Sources

of a Common Identity in the Former Yugoslavia. American Sociological Review,

59, 83-97.

Service, R. 2005. Stalin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Sowa, J. F. 2000. Knowledge Presentations: Logical, Philosophical and Computational

Foundations. Pacific Grove: Brooks Cole Publishing Co.

Steans, J., L. Pettiford & T. Diez. 2005. Introduction to International Relations:

Perspectives & Themes.

Steinbeck, R. 1993. Nationalism and Identity in a European Context. Stanford CA:

Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural education, Institution for

International Studies.

Tomusk, V. (2000) Reproduction of the State Nobility in Eastern Europe: Past Patterns

and New Practoces. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 21, 269-282.

Vacic, A. M. 1979. Socijalisticki samoupravni odnosi proizvodnja. Beograd:

Marksisticko Obrazavanje.

Vermeulen, H. & C. Govers. 1994. The Antholopology of Ethnicity: Beyond Ethnic

Groups and Boundaries. Amsterdam: He Spinhuis.

Vickens, M. 1998. Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo. Columbia

University Press.

Vincent, A. 1987. Theories of the State. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Walker, R. B. J. 1993. Inside/Outside: International Relations as Politica Theory.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

---. 1995. History and Structure in the Theory of International Relations. In

International Theory: Critical Investigations, ed. J. Der Derian, 308-339.

Wilmer, F. 2003. The Social Construction of Man, the State, and War: Identity, Conflict,

39

and Violence in Former Yugoslavia. Routledge.

Yugoslavia, T. F. A. o. t. S. F. R. o. 1974. The Constitution of the Socialist Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia. ed. T. F. Assembly.