ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the recruitment and sociopolitical composition of political elites on the regional level of the Yugoslav system. To provide a background to the examination of elite composition, it surveys changing trends and issues in the recruitment of Yugoslav political decisionmakers over the past thirty-five years. The chapter presents the findings from the analysis of those elite characteristics for which information was available: age, political generation (party membership and participation in the partisan struggle), level and type of education, and ethnic background. The study of elite backgrounds is based entirely on empirical data not previously available or analyzed and is part of this author’s broader research project on elites in Yugoslav society. The institutional methods and screening criteria for selecting governing elites in Yugoslavia, that is, the process of elite recruitment, can be differentiated into a number of patterns since the end of World War II.
