Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States

Divergent Paths toward a New Europe

Mieczysław P. Boduszyński

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9780801899195
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the 1990s, amid political upheaval and civil war, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved into five successor states. The subsequent independence of Montenegro and Kosovo brought the total number to seven. Balkan scholar and diplomat to the region Mieczys?aw P. Boduszy?ski examines four of those states—Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—and traces their divergent paths toward democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration over the past two decades.

Boduszy?ski argues that regime change in the Yugoslav successor states was powerfully shaped by both internal and external forces: the economic conditions on the eve of independence and transition and the incentives offered by the European Union and other Western actors to encourage economic and political liberalization. He shows how these factors contributed to differing formulations of democracy in each state.

The author engages with the vexing problems of creating and sustaining democracy when circumstances are not entirely supportive of the effort. He employs innovative concepts to measure the quality of and prospects for democracy in the Balkan region, arguing that procedural indicators of democratization do not adequately describe the stability of liberalism in post-communist states.

This unique perspective on developments in the region provides relevant lessons for regime change in the larger post-communist world. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers will find the book to be a compelling contribution to the study of comparative politics, democratization, and European integration.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction: Explaining Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States
• 1 Post-communist Diversity
• 2 Characterizing Regime Type
• 3 The Development of Disparity
• 4 Simulated Democracy: Croatia’s Transition in the 1990s
• 5 Substantive Democracy: Slovenia’s Transition in the 1990s
• 6 Illegitimate Democracy: Macedonia’s Transition in the 1990s
• 7 Populist Authoritarianism: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s Transition in the 1990s
• 8 The Yugoslav Successor States in the New Millennium
• 9 Conclusions
• Notes
• References
• Index