Yugoslavia—a Peripheral Tragedy

The post-war political economy of Yugoslavia is analysed in terms of an interaction between patterns of international relations which have tended to peripheralise Yugoslavia and stubborn internal problems of centre-periphery relations. It is argued that the tendency for the West to give open-ended financial support to Yugoslavia for political reasons has in the past made it regrettably easy for Yugoslav governments to postpone decisive action on these internal problems. The present civil war situation in Yugoslavia, and the likely dissolution of the Yugoslav state, are explained in terms of a combination of unresolved centre-periphery problems and very poor economic performance over the past two decades or so. The analysis underlines the danger that economic aid may in the long run further destabilise countries suffering from this kind of domestic instability, and that processes of democratisation, highly desirable in themselves, may have similar results in the given circumstances.