User blog:Pacificus Viridis/Was Yugoslavia sustainable, or was it doomed all along?

Something I've been wondering for a while is whether Yugoslavia could have avoided dissolution. I know that the causes of the breakup included ethic tensions, disagreements on whether the structure of the state should be unitary or federal (which largely paralleled the ethnic divisions), increasing economic problems, economic disparities between the member states, the erosion of the local communist party's monopoly on Yugoslavian politics, the death of Tito, and ultimately the rise of Milosevic. I also know that ethnic tensions played a role in the temporary dissolution that occurred during World War II.

In general, it seems like ethnic tensions, ideological differences that ran along ethnic lines, and economic disparities between different parts of the country plagued Yugoslavia thoughout its history and were ultimately major factors in the country's disintegration. Could those problems have been resolved though? Was there any way to balance the Croats' and Slovenes' desire for autonomy with the Serbs' vision of a unitary state? Could Serbia's relative economic weakness have been remedied or at least moderated?

Another important question is whether Yugoslavia could have survived as a liberal democracy, or whether it could only have been held together by an authoritarian regime. Prior to World War II, Yugoslavia was ruled by a powerful monarch; after the war, it was ruled by Tito, who of course was a dictator; and Tito's death was the beginning of the end of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia never had a democratic period in its history.

 Pacificus   Viridis  06:35, January 22, 2013 (UTC)