The disintegration of the Titist regime (1986-1989)

Abstract

The shift that occurred in Yugoslav politics between 1986 and 1989 is essential to understand the process of disintegration of the State that took place in 1991. Theoretically it could be framed as a conjuncture due to the way in which it occurred and its consequences. Once again, a process of institutional redefinition of the regime and a change of pace in the dynamics of the Cold War converged at the same moment, definitively altering the nature of politics in Yugoslavia.
The process of internal redefinition was articulated around the constitutional debate and the economic crisis, and generated new disagreements between the possible alternatives for the future and the person or nationality that should lead that process. Unlike previous critical junctures, in the mid-eighties, the range of opportunities was radically different since with the death of Kardelj (1979), Tito (1980), Bakarić (1983) and other political leaders who had founded communist Yugoslavia, the regime had completed the generational change, ending a historical cycle. Between 1968 and 1971, the regime's inability to reach a definitive solution to the question of succession had already been demonstrated. However, then Tito was present and had sufficient authority to, at least, create a transitional solution – that of the rotating Presidency –, but after his death in 1980 the solution to the problem of succession became the everything cannot be postponed.