ABSTRACT
States require cohesive ideas and identities to legitimate themselves. In most cases in Europe states are based on a single dominant ethnic group, a Staatsvolk, which frames the purposiveness of political institutions. Yugoslavia (born 1918, died 1991) is significant because no one single ethnic group was in a position to act as the Staatsvolk. It also experienced no durable and convincing construction of a state based on ethnic consensus, through authentic federation or consociation, admittedly a difficult undertaking. The principal national communities never sought genuinely to understand the other’s perspectives, interests or aspirations. The consequences were predictable. Under the impact of incipient democratisation the previous system of control collapsed. There had developed some interests in the perpetuation of Yugoslavia but they were too weak to withstand ethno-national movements that sought self-determination through separate statehood.
