The Political Dimension of Ante Marković's Reform Project. “We must develop democracy and a Third Yugoslavia.”
This article focuses on the political dimension of Ante Marković’s attempt to reform the federation of Yugoslavia during his mandate as prime minister between 1989 and 1991. While the literature about the crisis and dissolution of Yugoslavia has usually depicted Marković as the initiator of crucial reforms in the economic domain but having limited action outside of those measures, here the attention is devoted to his agency in the political domain, namely: 1) the attempt to redesign the institutional framework to restore the fundaments of Yugoslav statehood, 2) the introduction of a state-wide multiparty system that would recreate a supra-national demos, and 3) the reanimation of the historical and symbolic principles of democratic Yugoslavism. These initiatives brought the federal government and the political party led by Marković to overt conflict with substate republican leaderships and with nationalist forces.
Alfredo Sasso
Alfredo Sasso holds a PhD in Political and Social History from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and is currently a research fellow at Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa in Trento. He was a postdoc visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies of the University of Rijeka, at the Center for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz and at the Open Society Archives of the Central European University in Budapest. His research interests include political systems in (post)-Yugoslav area, history of late and post-socialism, nationalism studies, history of antifascism.