Yugoslavia (WFAC)

Yugoslavia, officially the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian: Федеративна Република Југославија; Croatian, Slovene and Bosnian: Federativna Republika Jugoslavija) is a federal parliamentary republic in the Balkans made up of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. In addition, it includes two autonomous provinces within Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina.

After initially siding with the Eastern bloc under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito at the beginning of the Cold War, Yugoslavia pursued a policy of neutrality after the Tito–Stalin split of 1948, and it became one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. After the death of Tito in 1980, rising ethnic nationalism in the late 1980s led to dissidence among the multiple ethnicities within the constituent republics. Between 1989 and 1991, under the leadership of Ante Marković, Yugoslavia underwent economic reforms, including stabilization of currency, privatization, limited trade liberalization as well as political reforms, transferring Yugoslavia into a liberalized democratic federation. These reforms were supported economically and politically by the European Community and Czechoslovakia.