Rural-urban differences and the break-up of Yugoslavia

Abstract

There has been widespread debate over the possible causes of the break-up of the former Yugoslav federation : but relatively little attention has been paid to the importance of rural-urban differences in this process. The central claim of the article is that the economic, political and social exclusion which some specific segments of the Yugoslav rural population came to experience in relation to the urban-centred “system” can be regarded as having played an important contributory part in the genesis and course of the struggles surrounding the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This broad hypothesis is explored through brief discussions of two case-studies, the Serb krajina in Croatia, and “Herceg-Bosna”. While expressly rejecting single-factor explanations of change, the author argues that in looking for explanations of the phenomenon of secessionism in these cases we need to take into consideration the profound state of economic depression into which these areas had fallen.