ABSTRACT
The break-up of Yugoslavia was a complex affair. The main feature of late socialist Yugoslavia was its sheer convolution, involving a highly diverse multinational society, radically decentralized power-sharing federalism, as well as ideologically rooted and elaborate authoritarian institutions. In this context, many factors helped undermine its stability towards the end of the 1980s, such as the economic crisis; leadership succession; elite conflicts; attempts at economic, political and constitutional reforms; the rise of nationalism among the intellectuals and wider populace; memories of past nationalist conflict and of extreme large-scale violence; and the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union – to mention only the most obvious. Scholars of Yugoslavia have widely and insightfully discussed this complexity of the state and society, and intricate and fast unfolding political developments in the 1980s, especially at the elite level, as well as their impact on the break-up of Yugoslavia.1 What is largely missing in this literature, however, is the study of popular politics and its political consequences, not least the unintended ones. This chapter takes such a perspective – from below – and explores the
protest of various, often dissimilar and unconnected non-elite groups and their interaction with elites, especially with the authorities at various levels of the highly complex party-state, as well as their role in the fall of Yugoslavia. It discusses the origins, forms and dynamics of key episodes of grass-roots mobilization in the second half of the 1980s and focuses on the impact of popular politics on the regime and state. The study of popular politics and its consequences in late socialist Yugoslavia is all the more important considering that ordinary people across Eastern Europe played an important role in political struggles that surrounded the fall of communism, at times in massive demonstrations that broke the back of the old regime, which was widely acknowledged in scholarly and popular writing. Indeed, the levels of mobilization of ordinary people across Yugoslavia in
the late 1980s exceeded considerably popular involvement in politics in most states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Large numbers of participants, a great variety of groups involved and of their protest strategies, wide geographical sweep of popular protests and often dramatic consequences,
including the resignation of scores of high officials, even regional governments, were the key features of this mobilization. This chapter argues that without exploring popular politics and its political implications, and especially its unintended consequences, one can hardly explain the break-up of the Yugoslav federation.2
