engleski

The role of diaspora in the development of socialist Yugoslavia international relations

During the Cold War Yugoslavia pursued the politics of balancing between the two poles. The result was a dynamic development of its international relations under the influence of various factors. We claim that one of the factors important in the process were Yugoslavia's constitutive nations' diasporas. They comprised millions of emigrants all over the world, who developed a broad set of activities, in range from complete support to utter antagonism toward this socialist supranational state. These activities have been subject of numerous academic papers, but predominantly from the perspective of Yugoslavia's internal political and economy problems. This type of approach neglected to a certain degree the impact diasporas had on Yugoslavia's international relations. We assess this as particularly important, while the state seek to implement the policy of intensive long distance socioeconomic management of its diaspora. In doing so, Yugoslavia used strategies of building and engaging diaspora through educational activities and socialization in accordance with socialist principles on the one hand. On the other, individuals and organizations who actively worked against the state were surveilled and even executed. All of these activities understood the transnationalization of Yugoslav governmental power, while emigrants were approached as a matter of domestic politics, like they were not at the territory of other sovereign countries. We base the research on the analysis of the normative legal framework of Yugoslav policy toward emigration and emigrants, as well as the scrutiny of diplomatic relations and international agreements with countries where large emigrant communities lived.

Yugoslavia, diaspora, foreign policy, Cold War

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