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Serbia's Antibureaucratic Revolution: Milosevic, the Fall of Communism and Nationalist Mobilization
The antibureaucratic revolution was the most crucial episode of Yugoslav conflicts after Tito. Drawing on primary sources and cutting-edge research, this book explains how popular unrest contributed to the fall of communism and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism, competing nationalisms and the break-up of Yugoslavia.
253 pages, Hardcover
First published August 4, 2008
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August 12, 2011
This new work from Vladisavljevic is absolutely invaluable to anyone who wishes to understand the intricacies that defined the collapse of Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century. Using new sources and building on approaches from social movement theory, Vladisavljevic has presented a foil to reductionist arguments based on endemic nationalism, showing instead that nationalism was merely the final result of a more complex and wider malaise rather than being the sole reason for the Yugoslav collapse.
Examining the political career of Slobodan Milosevic within the decentralised federalism of late Yugoslavia, Vladisavljevic argues that first the Kosovo Serbs and second the wider population were the movement that toppled the power structure. Where before it has been supposed that politicians deliberately mobilised and led protest movements, Vladisavljevic shows that politicians, particularly in Serbia, played catch up to the movement and adapted their own position in acts of self preservation and promotion, realising the power of popular unrest to advance in the ranks of authority. Milosevic is shown to be a ruthless political operator who is intelligent enough to make his own political plotting fit with the programme of both the Kosovo-Serbs and the disenchanted workers, using their concerns as a springboard to double cross his elite opponents and consolidate power.
Examining the political career of Slobodan Milosevic within the decentralised federalism of late Yugoslavia, Vladisavljevic argues that first the Kosovo Serbs and second the wider population were the movement that toppled the power structure. Where before it has been supposed that politicians deliberately mobilised and led protest movements, Vladisavljevic shows that politicians, particularly in Serbia, played catch up to the movement and adapted their own position in acts of self preservation and promotion, realising the power of popular unrest to advance in the ranks of authority. Milosevic is shown to be a ruthless political operator who is intelligent enough to make his own political plotting fit with the programme of both the Kosovo-Serbs and the disenchanted workers, using their concerns as a springboard to double cross his elite opponents and consolidate power.
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