Despite the plethora of forms of political organization with which history is littered, the modern age comprehends, in essence, only three forms in which power may be organized: confederalism, federalism, and unitarism. The first can be dated to ancient times, with the Delian League in ancient Greece as perhaps the earliest example and the Swiss Confederation (1291-1848, with a brief interruption during the Napoleonic period) as the most enduring and best known example. Under confederative arrangements, member units retain absolute sovereignty over their respective territories, and even the forms of government of the confederal units may be heterogeneous (as was the case in the Swiss Confederation). Confederacies, by laying claim only to unified and coordinated foreign policy, scarcely amount to more than well-developed alliances.

Unitarism—which rejects any division of power, and, instead, concentrates authority in a single, unitary central government—is of similarly ancient vintage. Pharaonic Egypt and ancient Babylonia were unitary states, as was the Roman empire. So, too, have been most polities throughout history.

Federalism, however, is a distinctly modern phenomenon, unknown before the establishment of the American federal state in 1787. It was viewed then as a compromise between the unitary principle (which was unacceptable to most of the state delegates) and the confederative principle, which had proven unworkable in its pure form, embodied in the Articles of Confederation that had provided the constitutional basis for the North American Confederation during its brief six-year existence. The bicameral legislative structure that provided the underpinnings for the nascent system itself represented a compromise between the concept of representation proportional to population (the Virginia Plan, a de facto kind of unitarism) and the concept of equal representation for each federal unit (the New Jersey Plan, which reflected confederal ways of thinking).¹ Federalism is also a compromise in the sense that, although federal states permit the federal units autonomy in administration, the states have always demanded that their units adopt the same form of self-government. This feature applies as much to the Soviet and Yugoslav cases as to the American.

The U. S. was the only federal state until 1848, when confederal Switzerland followed the American example and adopted a federal constitution. Argentina followed suit in 1853, Mexico in 1857, Venezuela in 1864, Canada in 1867, Germany in 1871, Brazil in 1891, and Australia in 1900. Today, half the population of the world lives under one federal system or another. The popularity of federalism must be ascribed to its unique suitability as a mechanism for coping with problems that have only recently become so serious as to pose impediments to the establishment of modern political order. The reasons for adopting a federal order can be subsumed under three general categories: (1) traditional, which means simply that people who have traditionally enjoyed self-rule and who think of themselves as different or as having different interests from other groups with whom they share a common state may desire autonomy in order to safeguard their distinct culture and interests—the U.S. and Switzerland have this origin, and the establishment of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina was similarly inspired by the distinct culture and group consciousness of Vojvodina’s Serbian population as well as by the presence of the Hungarian minority; (2) economic/geographic, where differences of economic interest (e.g., one region may be highly industrialized, another largely agrarian) or the presence of geographic barriers that produce impediments to communication and transportation dictate a decentralized arrangement—as was the case in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil; and (3) ethnic/religious, where the presence of linguistic, religious, racial-national, or other cultural differences, inflamed by the political awakening associated with modernization, militates against the imposition of a unitary political order.

Nineteenth-century federalism was a liberal construct, premised on the Madisonian argument that the division of power afforded the surest protection against tyranny. Nineteenth-century liberalism created what has been called dual federalism, which comprehends federation and federal unit as discrete, disjointed elements presiding over autonomous realms and not impinging on each other’s domain. Dual federalism was appropriate to the nineteenth century and met the needs of that period. The growing demands placed on government, however, which generally meant the tumescent growth of central government, created a “crisis of federalism,” in which federal states chose either to curtail the powers of the federal units and evolve in a unitarist direction or to seek a new solution for extracting themselves from untenable circumstances. The alternative conception that was generated came to be known as cooperative federalism and designates a system in which the isolation of the federal units from each other and from the federal government is viewed as unworkable, leading to a style of political management that depends heavily on cross-jurisdictional cooperation. Cooperative federalism entails two basic elements—cooperation between the federal units and the federal government and cooperation among the federal units themselves.² Of these two, the second is without question the more important. Indeed, one might say that mutual consultation and the coordination of policies among the federal units outside the framework of the central government is the keynote of cooperative federalism. Cooperative federalism is, therefore, a new type of federalism, a strain adapted and appropriate to the conditions of the twentieth century.

The Yugoslavs claimed to have created, within the context of their self-managing socialism, a cooperative federal system.³ “Contemporary Yugoslavia is no longer a classic federation,” wrote Edvard Kardelj in 1971.

Nor can it be a classic confederation, but rather a socialist, self-managing community of nations, which to a great extent introduces simultaneously an essentially new category in interethnic relations. The independence of nations in such a community grows greater than in classic federations and confederations, but at the same time the processes of integration are opened wider in all areas where the common interest of the nations and working people is made manifest and where the conditions for equality are assured.⁴

In such a system, federation and confederation may be, in fact, anomalous. Stane Kavčić told Politika in 1968 that the question of federation or confederation was inappropriate, since these are bourgeois concepts representing political arrangements that arise in capitalist systems.⁵ But if it was neither a classic federation nor a confederation as such, Titoist Yugoslavia nonetheless blended elements of both. This, in fact, was the view articulated by most participants at a symposium on federalism held in Novi Sad early in 1971.⁶Yugoslav cooperative federalism was said to depend on the pivotal role played by interrepublican cooperation. The validity of the Yugoslav claim to have generated an advanced form of cooperative federalism is one of the propositions to be examined in the course of this study. Ultimately, I will argue that the Yugoslav claim was justified, and this conclusion will be harnessed to the theory spelled out in Part I to infer a tight analogy between Yugoslav cooperative federalism and the nineteenth-century balance of power as realized in the Concert of Europe. But, as we shall see, this cooperative federalism contained within itself the seeds of its own transformation into a confederation, with all the associated risks.

Marxism and Federalism

The transplantation of federalism to a Marxist-Leninist system posed an ideological hurdle insofar as Marx’s writings are unmistakably hostile to federalism. Marx and Engels believed that the interests of the proletariat would be better served in a unitary state than in a federal system, and the Eighteenth Brumaire, for one, is replete with praise for the efficiency and progressiveness of centralized power. Marx was convinced that decentralization could only serve the interests of regional bourgeois elites. He argued that centralization would create the preconditions for its own transcendence and, thus, for the withering away of the state. In opposition to the liberal democrats who were backing federation, Marx told the Communist League in 1850 that “the workers must use their influence not only for the one and indivisible German republic, but for a decisive centralization of force within it in the hands of the state power.”⁷ Similarly, Engels, despairing of federalism as costly, unwieldy, torpid, and corruptible, held that “the proletariat can make use only of the form of the one and indivisible republic. “⁸

Lenin originally preserved the hostility of his German mentors toward federalism. He was categorically opposed to it and wrote, in a letter to S. Shauman in 1913, “We are in principle against federalism—it weakens economic links, it is an unsuitable model for any state.”⁹ Stalin echoed these sentiments in an article of March 1917 entitled “Against Federalism.” Reiterating the Marxist maxims about the preferability of centralism, Stalin concluded: “federalism in Russia does not and cannot solve the national question; . . . it merely confuses and complicates it with quixotic ambitions to turn back the wheel of history.”¹⁰ Up to the very eve of the October Revolution, Lenin considered the right of secession a sufficient guarantee for the composite nationalities of the Russian empire. State and Revolution, written shortly before the Bolsheviks came to power, represents a turning point in Lenin’s thinking on this subject. Although he still noted that federalism was in general “a hindrance to development,” he insisted that it might represent “a ‘step forward’ in certain special conditions” and that “among these special conditions the national question appears prominently.”¹¹

Although Soviet federalism was compromised by a refusal to extend the principle to the Communist party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)—as enshrined in a resolution of the Eighth Party Congress (1919) that the central committees of the Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania had no legitimate basis on which to stake out autonomous realms—it nonetheless quickly became a point of doctrine. Surprisingly, in the early years after the left wing of the Serbian Social Democratic party broke off and reconstituted itself as the CPY, the party, as we have seen, snubbed the Soviet example. It was only in the wake of the adoption of the popular front policy at the Comintern’s Seventh Congress (July-August 1935) that the CPY abandoned its program of seeking to break up Yugoslavia into small national states and began to move in the direction of an endorsement of federalism itself.¹²

It is true, of course, that Yugoslav Marxism was not married to the federal principle. Hamdija Pozderac, former president of the Bosnian republic’s skupština, for example, cautioned that “federalism ... is not a final ideal, but [merely] a necessary step in the process of the socialist development of a multiethnic state, in the process of its withering away.”¹³ Yet, at the same time, federalism remained an integral component of what Kardelj called “the pluralism of self-managing interests,” the Yugoslavs were convinced that federalism necessarily entailed democratization, and they made an articulate defense of federalism in a Marxist state.¹⁴ But, faithful to their dialectical view of history, they refused to imbue political forms with absolute value. “Federalism is not the culmination of political history and the ideal condition of relation among nations and people in the future. . . . Every idealization and absolutization of federalism is [therefore] antihistorical and unscientific, and in practice may betray a proclivity toward utopianism.”¹⁵ What the Titoists did claim for their system was what any good Marxist would wish to claim, namely, that the existing system of cooperative federalism was the most advanced political arrangement possible for the given level of the evolution in the organization of modes of production. Whether it would speed its own dissolution when the time was ripe for the introduction of a more progressive order—the sort of expectation that might sprout forth on the basis of The German Ideology—or whether federalism was a permanent feature of the Yugoslav political landscape remained a point of contention. The issue was connected to the overall policy adopted vis-à-vis the national question. On the one hand, if the nationalities would disappear in time, as Baisa Špadijer, for example, has argued, then the basic rationale for federalism was of transitory relevance.¹⁶ Gazmend Zajmi, on the other hand, contested the notion that the nationalities would necessarily wither away and disputed the legitimacy of connecting this notion with the Marxist concept of the withering away of the state.¹⁷ And, if the nationalities of Yugoslavia would not dissolve in time into a larger group and their separate consciousness would not wither away, then Yugoslav federalism, it followed, was also permanent.

The Chamber of Republics and Provinces of the Federal Skupština

The focal point of interrepublican cooperation and the chief arena for interrepublican controversies was the Federal Assembly (Skupština), in particular, the Chamber of Republics and Provinces. The 1974 constitution described the Skupština as “the highest organ of government within the framework of the rights and responsibilities of the federation” (Article 282). Working through consultation and mutual agreement among the republics and provinces, particularly through the republican skupštinas, it served as the most important policy-making governmental institution in Yugoslavia. Under the 1974 constitution, the Skupština passed the Yugoslav social plan and the federal budget, discussed and set basic internal policies and foreign policy, was ultimately responsible for amendments to the federal constitution, and figured prominently in the determination of developmental policy and foreign trade relations.¹⁸

The forerunner of the contemporary Chamber of Republics and Provinces was the Chamber of Nationalities, established in 1946 within the framework of a bicameral legislative structure. The federal structure in this period was pure façade, and the Chamber of Nationalities had no real decision-making capacity. It was little surprise that, under the Basic Law of 1953, the Chamber of Nationalities was swallowed by the Federal Chamber and an independent Chamber of Producers was set up. This was entirely consistent with the ideological expectation of the day that the republics would wither away (producing a fully centralized state) before the state itself would disappear. The 1963 constitution, however, reorganized the Skupština as a pentacameral body and, in the waxing struggle between the centralist forces and the rising nationalist forces allied with nascent technocratic interests, the Chamber of Nationalities proved to be not only the logical arena in which to press for reform but also the key to political reform. De facto federalization of a de jure federal state demanded, above all, the invigoration of that chamber in which the federal units enjoyed representation. The turning point came in April 1967 when the first of forty-one amendments changed the system of election to the Chamber of Nationalities and broadened its rights and autonomy. For the first time since 1953, the Chamber of Nationalities met separately, in its own right. Amendment 8, passed the following year, eliminated the Federal Chamber, once the linchpin of the legislative system, and the Chamber of Nationalities, reconstituted as the Chamber of Delegates of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces, became the body with basic responsibility for legislation. About this time, a demand was also raised in various quarters that Kosovo and Vojvodina be represented by their own delegations in the Chamber of Nationalities rather than through wings of the Serbian delegation—a demand granted by the end of the year.¹⁹

Under a standing rule of the Chamber of Nationalities, legislation could be initiated on the proposal of any group of eight delegates. In effect, this meant that any republic could avail itself of this prerogative, but the autonomous provinces could not, since the former were represented by eight delegates each and the latter had only five delegates. The second-class standing of the autonomous provinces was, however, rendered purely formal by a subsequent change that, while leaving the procedural rule intact, permitted each republic to send twelve delegates to the Chamber of Republics and Provinces (CRP) and each autonomous province, eight. Amendment 38 (passed in 1971) required the concurrence of the federal units (or of their appropriate organs) before the federal Skupština could pass the Yugoslav social plan or other laws affecting the Yugoslav economy. Yugoslav federalism was increasingly becoming a “contract and participant interrepublican system,” in which decision-making power emanates from the periphery rather than the center.²⁰

Article 286 of the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 outlined the prerogatives, powers, and responsibilities of the CRP as they were until the system disintegrated between 1989 and 1990. Under this article, the CRP, with the assent of the assemblies of the republics and provinces (1) passed the Yugoslav social plan; (2) established policy and passed legislation in the areas of the monetary system, foreign trade, credit and other economic relations with foreign countries, tariff protection, social control of prices of products and services, the fund for the more rapid development of the less developed areas, and the federal budget; (3) decided on the establishment of federal funds and the incurring of federal obligations; (4) ratified international agreements that would require alterations in legislation in areas within its jurisdiction; and (5) determined the expenses of the federation each year. Autonomously, the CRP (1) passed laws concerning temporary measures; (2) established, on the recommendation of the presidency of the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ), the sources and amount of credits and other obligations to be undertaken in connection with national defense and state security; (3) mediated in conflicts of jurisdiction between federal organs and republican or provincial organs; (4) ratified international agreements that required alterations in republican or provincial law; and (5) approved the extension of mandates of delegates to the Skupština.

Delegates to the Chamber of Republics and Provinces were chosen by the republican and provincial assemblies from among their own ranks, and continued, during their terms of office at the center, to retain their seats in the assemblies that they represented. Delegates were not mere “transmission belts” for the policy positions of their respective federal units, but were empowered to play a “creative role” in lawmaking.²¹ The delegates played this trustee role, however, only in the initial drafting stages. In the later stages of legislative bargaining and negotiation, each delegation acted as a bloc, and each delegate was required to adhere to the policy position agreed on by the delegation as a whole and determined in consultation with the home base, the republican skupština.

Any republican delegation or working body of the CRP, the skupština of any federal unit, or the federal Executive Council (SIV) was permitted to propose legislation. On certain questions that the republican skupština considered of categorical importance, the delegation was usually not allowed to deviate from the official platform without consulting its skupština. Quite often, however, the assemblies of the republics and autonomous provinces authorized their delegations to act in their name with regard to approving draft legislation (as is permitted under Article 300 of the constitution).

From this point on, the delegations were responsible for coming to an agreement, since, except for emergency measures, all legislation required the assent of every delegation. Refore the process of mutual accommodation began in the CRP committees (odbori), however, the delegations met separately to review the positions of the other republican and provincial assemblies. Once that was completed, the process of usaglašavanje (literally, the harmonization of viewpoints) began in earnest, advancing by means of compromise, alliance formation, and logrolling. The principle of unanimity took its toll in the protraction of negotiations in controversial areas. The CRP Committee for the Monetary-Credit System, for instance, met eleven times between January 24 and March 9, 1977, to discuss the scope and conditions of economic assistance to Kosovo through 1980. SIV’s proposal was that, over the period 1977-80, Kosovo receive a grant of 400 million dinars. This proposal was initially supported by five delegations, namely, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia. At the beginning of March, Vojvodina switched ranks and also supported the SIV draft. The delegations of Slovenia and Croatia, however, insisted that the sum should be a loan rather than a grant. At the ninth session, the Croatian and Slovenian delegations jointly introduced a new proposal, which stipulated that the money be given as a loan, to be repaid over a twenty-five year period. Two further meetings failed to unite the parties around a common draft, and SIV finally intervened with a proposal that increased the amount of aid flowing to Kosovo (pacifying the bloc of less developed units) while specifying that the sum was to be a loan (thus offering some satisfaction to Slovenia and Croatia). The specific terms outlined a loan of 1.6 billion dinars (four times the original figure), to be repaid at 3 percent annual interest but without a fixed term for repayment. These terms were adopted by the CRP shortly after the Slovenian delegation, though still voicing discontent, backed down and accepted the compromise draft.²²

The Federal Chamber of the Federal Skupština

Whereas the Chamber of Republics and Provinces legislated in areas of economic policy, the federal Chamber—the other house of the bicameral assembly—independently legislated in areas of internal politics and foreign policy without the direct participation of the republican and provincial assemblies.²³ Decentralization, however, went so far (as we will see in the next chapter) that, in effect, the federal Chamber did not have a major role to play in policy making. It comes as little surprise, then, to learn that in the fall of 1971 the Yugoslavs even entertained scrapping the bicameral idea altogether and setting up a unicameral legislature: such an assembly would probably have functioned like an expanded CRP, since the republican delegations appeared likely to play the dominant role in this complex house.²⁴

The federal Chamber consisted principally of representatives of self-managing organizations and sociopolitical organizations (including the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia [SAWPY] and the veterans’ organization), but the republics and autonomous provinces also had delegations here that were obliged to hold to the positions of their respective federal units—thus replicating the pattern in the CRP. The delegates were apportioned so that there were thirty delegates from the self-managing organizations and sociopolitical communities of each republic and twenty from each autonomous province. Whereas the CRP operated on the basis of achieved unanimity, the federal Chamber carried decisions by majority vote—another clue to the lesser importance of this body in a system where every federal unit wanted a veto on important policy decisions.

The Interrepublican Committee System

Legislation passed in 1971 created a system of five interrepublican committees that dealt with various facets of economic policy. The five committees were for (1) developmental policy, (2) the monetary system, (3) foreign trade and hard currency, (4) the market, and (5) finance. Under the present arrangement, the rough outlines of legislation were usually established first in working groups and coordination bodies of the CRP and then passed on to the interrepublican committees to work out the details.²⁵

Between May 1974 (when the new constitution was adopted) and the end of 1976, the interrepublican committees held some 125 meetings and considered some 450 questions on various subjects.²⁶ The Interrepublican Committee for Market and Prices, for example, reached a concrete agreement about price policy in 1978; again, in the spring of 1980, the Interrepublican Committee for Planning and Development succeeded in hammering out a social compact (drustveni dogovor) to stimulate the development of private enterprise and increase production in cooperatives in Yugoslavia.²⁷

The SFRJ Presidency

Finally, the Titoist system created a collective state presidency, which served as the executive head of the complicated political apparatus that functioned after the death of Tito in May 1980. This collective body brought together delegates of the federal units (one per federal unit), who rotated annually in the office of “president of the presidency.” The members of the SFRJ presidency were responsible to the assemblies of their respective federal units, which in fact elected them, and therefore lacked a common vision.

By 1990, Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević had reduced Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo to mere satellites of Serbia, and, accordingly, controlled four of the eight votes in the collective presidency. Milosevic’s ability to produce deadlocks in the presidency at will was, however, only one symptom of the disintegration of the federal system, which was far advanced by the end of 1990.