ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the events and trends of the inter-war period, including the early relations between the Serbs and Croats, democratic pluralism, and the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It discusses North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO's) invasion of Kosovo and the parameters of the Rambouillet Accords, and argues that a successful political solution will consist of a balanced, equitable arrangement involving both cultural and regional autonomy. With the economic crisis affecting the social and economic conditions in the regions, especially in Kosovo, the federal government attempted to resolve the growing poverty in the Kosovo region by redistributing a disproportionately high percentage of its federal development funds to these provinces. The chapter addresses two central questions: Does international coercion provide the basis for permanent autonomy in the Kosovo region? And, in what ways does the current political solution reveal the difficult implications for imposing autonomy from the outside?
