Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society under Milosevic and After

Preface

PREFACE S erbia continues to fascinate us, as few other countries have done. It remains a mysterious country—not because there are vast secrets there, but because it is the quintessential “Balkan” land if by “Balkan” we mean a land lying on the southeastern doorstep of Vienna and having a history of intrigue; because it occupies the twilight zone between democracy and authoritarianism; because it seems to be a land which hatches conspiracies and cabals; because it is a society important sectors of which are in denial: not just of the extent of Serbs’ responsibility for the war and for the atrocities committed in the course of that war, not just of ordinary Serbs’ complicity in the atrocities committed in Kosovo, and not just of the illegitimacy of the “Greater Serbia” project, but, for some people (as noted in chapter 10), of liberalism itself. A society in which denial is mainstream , in which nationalism still tends to be viewed as positive, in which there has been a sense of crisis in the air for most of the past century, is a society in which movement forward toward stable democracy can only be di‹cult. Among the Yugoslav successor states, Serbia remains the key. The attitude of the government of Serbia will aªect the future of Montenegro, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in obvious ways, as well as that of Croatia in less obvious ways. While Serbia may no longer have the military muscle it flexed in the early 1990s, it remains an important element for Balkan security. A stable Serbia can contribute to stability throughout the region, while continued political instability can send out ripples aªecting other societies. We are profoundly grateful to our volume contributors, for their professionalism , for their willingness to undertake revisions as needed, and for their patience during the review process. We also wish to thank Michael Duckworth, executive editor at the press, for his sensible advice; Stephen E. Hanson, director of the Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies Program at the University of Washington, who generously allocated funds to support a small symposium in Seattle in February 2002, at which two of the chapters published in this volume were presented; Sami Repishti for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of Frances Trix’s chapter; and Christine M. Hassenstab for assisting in the copyediting of this manuscript. We are also grateful to Ozren Xunec, editor of Polemos, for permission to reprint chapter 5 (which appeared originally in vol. 5 of Polemos, nos. 1–2, December 2002); and Helge Blakkisrud, editor of Nordisk Øst-forum, for permission to publish a revised, English translation of Kari Osland’s chapter (which appeared originally in vol. 16 of that journal [no. 2, 2002, pp. 5–18], under the title “Rettsaken mot Slobodan Milopevi_—et overblikk”). A portion of Dennis Reinhartz’s chapter was originally published in The South Slav Journal (vol. 23, Spring-Summer 2002, pp. 39–45), under the title “The Roma and the Wars of Yugoslav Succession ”; we are grateful to Nemanja Marveti_, editor of South Slav Journal , for permission to reuse this material. SABRINA P. RAMET Trondheim, Norway VJERAN PAVLAKOVI– Zagreb, Croatia PREFACE X SERBIA SINCE 1989 ...