Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DISMAC-Y (State disintegration in the context of macroeconomic crisis - the case of Yugoslavia)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-09-01 bis 2021-08-31
The project State disintegration in the context of the macroeconomic crisis – the case of Yugoslavia (DISMAC-Y) was designed in a particular historical moment preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. The Eurozone financial and economic crisis, Brexit, the rise of Euroscepticism, nationalist voices, and right-wing parties, as well as a noticeable fall in public support for the European Union (EU), have brought concerns over the prospects of European integration to the top of the political agenda and academic discussions. DISMAC-Y aimed to bring new insights into these debates by advancing the existing knowledge on state (dis)integration processes. To do this, the project explored the process of state break-up in Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, Yugoslavia experienced a severe debt crisis ending not only in a systemic change (abolishment of self-management and social property regime to restore private property regime) but also a radical state transformation (disintegration, creation of new national states ending in a context of a violent conflict and wars). DISMAC-Y did not seek to provide yet another analysis of the causes of the Yugoslav state break-up. Instead, it sought to understand how the disintegration process happened and to study its mechanisms, and its phases. In addition, the project adopted an under-represented political-economic perspective and focused primarily on the political impacts of the (reorganization of) monetary arrangements (and conflicts around them) during the 1980s.
The work performed during the realization of DISMAC-Y can be divided into five core categories: 1) research activities, 2) teaching, 3) dissemination and communication of the results, 4) organization of the events, and 5) further training and education of the researcher. The initial working plans had to be adapted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several epidemic-related lockdowns, which limited traveling options, access to the archives and libraries, and prevented in-presence teaching, made the overall work much more demanding and complicated. Nevertheless, the researcher successfully readapted the initial plan and reached the research and training objectives.
The fact that Yugoslavia de facto lost its macroeconomic sovereignty at the outbreak of the debt crisis in the early 1980s is crucial in contributing to the state's disintegration. The dominant policy-making, partly imposed, and partly requested from international creditors, which combined austerity with market-oriented reforms and restrictive monetary policy, prolonged and deepened Yugoslavia's initial economic and social crisis. The crisis and limited policy maneuvering space intensified the conflicts on the vertical level (between the leaders and the population, especially workers) and the horizontal level (between the leaders of the federal units). The control over debt management, foreign currency, and central banking policies was especially prominent in the conflicts within the leadership. Overall, the project showed that (foreign) debt repayment and policies are not technical issues but deeply political processes shaped by the constant distributional conflicts and the share of the burden of the crisis.
DISMAC-Y did not produce any product or process that might lead to commercial activities and exploitation. Instead, the project results opened new avenues for further research in political and economic sciences and area studies. The results have been disseminated through different channels, including conferences, workshops, visiting lectures, and book monography. In addition, seeking to promote responsible research and innovation, DISMAC-Y paid particular attention to regular science-to-public communication. The communication about the project also took place through different channels: publication of press articles on other websites, participation of the researcher in an online talk show, interviews with the researcher in different media (daily journal, national media online portal, national radio, and television). The realized activities successfully promoted the researcher and her work, specifically among the interested public, but also in the Austrian academic sphere.
In recent years the research on the Yugoslav state break-up has mainly focused on specific factors contributing to the state disintegration, such as political elites, cultural characteristics, or political institutions. Political economist accounts have been relatively rare. In addition, despite many studies on the subject and rich empirical documentation, few scholars would situate the Yugoslav 1980s crisis into a broader historical context, regional and global trends, and/or approach it from a comparative perspective. DISMAC-Y project showed that a critical engagement with “crisis” economic policies and their contextualization with a broader 1980s “Global South” debt crisis and the emergence of neoliberalism under the rising international finance are necessary to understand the Yugoslav state disintegration project. A political-economic approach is especially insightful as it helps to understand the political impacts of monetary re-arrangements in times of crisis. The changes in this policy area have strong impacts on distributional conflicts. In the Yugoslav case, the centrifugal forces were mainly led by Republics´ leaders, who were unwilling to lose control over the achieved autonomy and the control over macroeconomic policy tools and economic resources, including foreign currency.
The project had significant impacts on several levels. First, regarding the development of social sciences, DISMAC-Y deepened our understanding of state disintegration processes by bringing forward the political (de)stabilizing effects of the debt crisis policy-making. It advanced the scholarship on the Yugoslav state break-up and provided a basis for further comparative analysis of the political disintegration process. Second, the project enhanced the researcher´s professional career by expanding her disciplinary and area study knowledge, publishing and teaching record, as well as academic and extra-academic networks, and language capacities. More broadly, DIS-MAC Y brought together and created potential for new interdisciplinary collaboration between the scholars of different universities in Austria and with the scholars abroad. Finally, the project successfully promoted women in science, especially in the field of political economy.
DISMAC-Y did not produce any product or process that might lead to commercial activities and exploitation. Instead, the project results opened new avenues for further research in political and economic sciences and area studies. The results have been disseminated through different channels, including conferences, workshops, visiting lectures, and book monography. In addition, seeking to promote responsible research and innovation, DISMAC-Y paid particular attention to regular science-to-public communication. The communication about the project also took place through different channels: publication of press articles on other websites, participation of the researcher in an online talk show, interviews with the researcher in different media (daily journal, national media online portal, national radio, and television). The realized activities successfully promoted the researcher and her work, specifically among the interested public, but also in the Austrian academic sphere.
In recent years the research on the Yugoslav state break-up has mainly focused on specific factors contributing to the state disintegration, such as political elites, cultural characteristics, or political institutions. Political economist accounts have been relatively rare. In addition, despite many studies on the subject and rich empirical documentation, few scholars would situate the Yugoslav 1980s crisis into a broader historical context, regional and global trends, and/or approach it from a comparative perspective. DISMAC-Y project showed that a critical engagement with “crisis” economic policies and their contextualization with a broader 1980s “Global South” debt crisis and the emergence of neoliberalism under the rising international finance are necessary to understand the Yugoslav state disintegration project. A political-economic approach is especially insightful as it helps to understand the political impacts of monetary re-arrangements in times of crisis. The changes in this policy area have strong impacts on distributional conflicts. In the Yugoslav case, the centrifugal forces were mainly led by Republics´ leaders, who were unwilling to lose control over the achieved autonomy and the control over macroeconomic policy tools and economic resources, including foreign currency.
The project had significant impacts on several levels. First, regarding the development of social sciences, DISMAC-Y deepened our understanding of state disintegration processes by bringing forward the political (de)stabilizing effects of the debt crisis policy-making. It advanced the scholarship on the Yugoslav state break-up and provided a basis for further comparative analysis of the political disintegration process. Second, the project enhanced the researcher´s professional career by expanding her disciplinary and area study knowledge, publishing and teaching record, as well as academic and extra-academic networks, and language capacities. More broadly, DIS-MAC Y brought together and created potential for new interdisciplinary collaboration between the scholars of different universities in Austria and with the scholars abroad. Finally, the project successfully promoted women in science, especially in the field of political economy.