Introduction

The creation of Yugoslavia was not motivated by economic or even social development, but its establishment was rather to serve the usual reasons of the state - above all security, but also equity. The latter, understood as the fulfillment of national – in the sense of ethnic – rights and objectives, was also the basis for its legitimacy. However, no durable agreement was ever reached on the constitutional framework of its national and Yugoslav legitimacy. In the pursuit of an equitable solution to its national issues, the country was in a state of perpetual crisis of legitimacy. This unfulfilled nationalism blocked its democratization and resulted in the adoption of misguided decisions, among others also in the domain of economic policy. Both the economic and political history of Yugoslavia consists of a series of ill-advised constitutional decisions and then intermittent attempts to implement necessary reforms so as to rectify these decisions.

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