ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Yugoslavia. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Yugoslavia. Year One of the anti-Milosevic Serbian revolution showed both progress and disappointment. Although considerable success had been achieved in reintegrating the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into the international community, fighting between rival political factions within the anti-Milosevic coalition, together with the still-unresolved issue of Montenegro, has significantly stymied constitutional, political, and economic reforms. The Yugoslav federal government fell as a result of the handling of the Milosevic case, and tensions within the Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition also threatened to break the coalition apart.