Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts - Political Science Book on Constitutional Law & Conflict Resolution | Perfect for Historians, Political Scientists & International Relations Students

"Blueprints" is an extensive analysis of a largely overlooked and insufficiently studied aspect of Yugoslavia's break-up: the actual changes made to the legal order of the separate republics and the federation as a whole, and their consequences. One of the most important initial points made by Hayden is that the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974, which was effective until the country's demise, established a very complicated, decentralized and hard-to-govern federation. The ambiguities contained in many of this constitution's provisions facilitated later moves by various federal units (the republics) to justify as constitutonal their moves for greater sovereignty at the federation's expense. Hayden's consideration of the various constitutional structures established in the various republics after Yugoslavia's break-up forms the heart of this book. He argues that countries like Slovenia, Croatia, etc. can be characterized as exhibiting `constitutional nationalism,' since the predominance in the state of one ethnic nation is embedded in the very constitutional and legal order. Also interesting is his sharp critique of the constitutional fiction in place in Bosnia-Herzegovina and its `entities.' Perhaps the book's main weakness is that it fails to sufficiently emphasize that the constitutional disputes occurring in Yugoslavia just before the country's break-up were not occurring in a political vacuum; Hayden's argument seems to be that the Slovenes bear most of the initial responsibility for Yugoslavia's collapse because of the amendments to their republic constitution amounted to a unilateral derogation of the federal constitution. This fails to take into account Serbia's less than constitutional abrogation of autonomy in its provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, and even the federal republic of Montenegro. In the book's preface and introduction, Hayden attempts - rather unconvincingly - to explain away his lack of focus on Serbia, but this remains the primary weakness in his overall argument. Nevertheless, this is still a very important contribution to understanding Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav political and legal problems.