Yugoslavia and the World System

Abstract

This dissertation examines the economic development in Yugoslavia and the causes of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Contrary to the opinion widely spread in the West, according to which the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia was
about old religious and nationalist enmities, which were suppressed only during communist rule, I argue that the
Yugoslav crisis and the disintegration of the state had above all economic causes. The question of why and how the
whole Yugoslav development process based on self - management socialism and one-party rule repeatedly generated
harsh conflicts between the republics has a special significance in this work. The more the development of the selfgoverning mechanism progressed, the more elements of the market penetrated the Yugoslav system. The possibility of
using this work for international development is to make Wallerstein’s world system analysis on Yugoslavia as a unit of
study to determine the existing characteristics and disparities, which were possibly responsible for its disintegration.