ABSTRACT
This chapter examines patterns of involvement in national decisionmaking consistent with the realization of the fundamental human rights of individuals, as well as of large segments of a population in a plural society such as Yugoslavia. It explores conditions for a nonviolent transition from a hegemonic to a new human rights regime and conditions for the maintenance of domestic and international security as the democratic order emerges in Yugoslavia. The consociational model of democracy is a way of accommodating the disruptive cleavages inherent in Yugoslavia at the national level. Yugoslavia is a plural society where various social cleavages overlap and reinforce each other. Within its state borders, eight major ethnic groups coexist. Considering ethnic identity, language, and religion as determinants of the cultural division of Yugoslavia, several partly overlapping and partly distinct cleavage lines emerge. The division of Yugoslavia into six republics and two autonomous regions approximates, but does not mirror, ethnic boundaries.
