"Historical Roots of the Yugoslav Conflict," by V.P. Gagnon, Jr.

Part 8

Conclusion

Conflict along ethnic lines was due to a confluence of factors. Parts of the political elite at the central, republic and local levels were motivated to resist radical reform and were willing to undertake costly strategies to prevent it. The institutional structure at the federal level prevented the reformists' popularity from translating into control over the federal decision-making organs and gave conservatives in Serbia time to undermine that republic's reformists. The national basis of the federal units provided an alternative ideology for political discourse, giving the conservatives the opportunity to appeal for mass support. The army's privileged position and its ideological and power interest in maintaining the socialist system gave it interests congruent with the Serbian conservatives, and the national makeup of its officer corps opened it to inclusion in the nationalist discourse. The war has thus been one between federal units, driven by conflict over the structure of power within each republic. To win the conflict and preventing radical change, parts of the elite have shifted the focus toward ethnic claims and have purposely undertaken strategies that created first the image and then the reality of an ethnic or national conflict.

In retrospect, an early intervention to prevent or moderate this conflict would have had to deal with the fears of conservatives throughout the country about the effects of radical reform, as well as the concerns of the Yugoslav army. It would thus have had to address the most basic issues that arise when domestic structures are undergoing deep and rapid change. If this had been done, then the real grievances of Yugoslavia's various nations could perhaps have been addressed without being instrumentalized, exacerbated, and cynically manipulated to the point of violent warfare.

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