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YUGOSLAVIA |
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YUGOSLAVIA |
INTRODUCTION
Yugoslavia has travelled a long way, from the first "breakaway" country from Stalin’s communist empire to emerge from behind the "Iron Curtain," in l948, to a ruthless dictatorship. Surprisingly, the country has preserved the potential to "re-Europeanise" once the current government steps down.
Tito, the Yugoslav leader, instigated and organised the "Revisionist Revolution" in 1948-49 with the support of the people. Yugoslavia left the “people’s democracies,” a group of countries tightly controlled by the USSR. It was the first crack in the then monolithic “Second World,” and as a result, Yugoslavia became popular with the West. The breakup with Stalin influenced the political environment and economic orientation. Subsequently, the adaptation of the civil service to new political conditions changed the contents and curricula of Yugoslav public administration programs.
Leaving Stalin’s USSR had an almost immediate consequence: public administration education and training institutions were inundated with Western literature and programs. Internationally renowned scholars in the field visited and taught in Yugoslavia, and some officials, academics and army officers went abroad to be trained at reputable Western institutions.
In 1953, Yugoslavia become an early member of NATO through the "Balkan Pact," a military alliance with Turkey and Greece that lasted until 1956. Elements of a market economy were introduced, and trade with the West greatly expanded. Generous loans and credits were provided, and wider cooperation with the West facilitated the free flow of cultural ideas. However, Tito`s Communist Party carefully controlled the flow and impact of Western political ideas and trends.
This environment helped foster an educational system in political science and the humanities that was much more open, receptive and, consequently, better developed than in most of the Warsaw Pact "People's Democracies." Yugoslavia was the only socialist country that permitted studies, assessment and acceptance of some basic European trends in public administration. The impact on the public administration structure and its functions was visible. Public service objectives and values, however, did not change enough. Personal unity and the fact that senior and mid-level positions were interchangeable between Tito's ruling communist party and the state bureaucracy remained the norm. The same individuals enjoyed top positions in the party’s central committee and occupied most senior public administration posts. The real consequences of this were learned the hard way: in most cases, the consecutive ethnic wars in the Balkans were created and led by the same men, ex-communist party functionaries.
The introduction of “Workers Self-Management” in l950 with the "Social Property" of enterprises and limited private ownership was another turning point. The system of a command economy was abandoned, but the party monopoly was not. The communist party retained mild control over society and strong control over state and party bureaucracies. The second Yugoslavian political and economic experiment failed to produce stable and sustainable political and economic development; full market economy was not introduced, only elements of one.
The wealth of expertise and skills acquired in a variety of advanced public administration education and training programs and through cooperation with the West was not adequately applied. During the late sixties and seventies, the country suffered from stagnation and stubborn defence of the communist party monopoly in the name of the country’s unity. As a result of this resistance to change, social conflicts grew into complete ethnic intolerance. The Yugoslav administration obediently cooperated with those in the political “elite” who threw the country into senseless ethnic and religious wars from June 1991.
Suffering from a unique blend of ultranationalist and leftist "revolutionaries" based on an ill conceived pseudo-nationalistic scheme, Serbia ushered in the post-cold war era under extremely unfavourable circumstances. It was unconvincing to witness former or active communists leading the ultranationalist movement, and this subsequently led to a dictatorship based, inter alia, on elements of moral destruction.
Administrative structures become surprisingly resilient to change, largely due to a loyalist, not merit-based, personnel policy, isolating Yugoslavia from European trends. However, the country’s cultural heritage, history, education, basic values and proximity to Europe will inevitably merge to produce the desired synergistic effects. It is hoped that in the near future Yugoslavia will return to a place in Europe where it belongs by its tradition and interests.
The re-Europeanisation of Yugoslavia’s public administration programs will be one of the most important steps towards this goal. Once the obsolete political regime is removed, it should be relatively easy to introduce and proceed with Europeanisation. It might be a faster process than in some other countries in the region because of the political and economic cooperation with the West from l948 to l987, the level of basic education and the presence of many open-minded, western trained specialists who did not flee the country in the last decade.
Paradoxically, the academic community, despite the oppressive Law on Universities, is still virtually free in maintaining and developing its training programs and curricula in public administration and related areas. Time, however, is not on Yugoslavia’s side as the theory-reality gap grows deeper each day.
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