'great man' theory claptrap...same analysts proposed and supported US economc/military aid to Yugoslavia after its withdrawal from Soviet bloc in '50s...US fostered 'Tito's' reintegration into international capitalist market and corresponding chronic inflation tied to inflationary environment of western economies as well as growing foreign debt burden related to need for importing western goods and technologies (I pointed this out in previous post)...
re: national question, who said it been answered?...in fact, Yugoslavia's 'market socialism' offers explanation for 'post-communist' situation...
unemployment was a problem in Yugoslavia by 1970s and it grew worse in 1980s (2.% in 1953, 5% in 1963, 10% in 1973, 15% in 1983)...figure would have been higher except for migration of hundreds of thousands of Yugoslav workers to West Germany, Sweden, & Switzerland in search of jobs...poorest regions and unskilled working class bore brunt of rising unemployment, increasing already present inequalities among social strata and ethnic groups of country...
marketization meant return of large-scale umemployment, a big price paid for dropping central planning planning capacity of political system...
related to above: an effect of Yugoslavian political decentralization (particularly after 1974) was to revive natonalist rivalries in 6 republics and 2 autonomous regions (I noted this in previous post as well)...in north, Slovenia & Croatia did well economically...in south, Serbia, Macedonia, & Kosovo fared poorly...each republic gave priority to its own interests, and increasingly the Yugoslavian federal gov't became unable to manage separatist ethnic forces that divergent levels of development exacerbated...
1990-91 elections in various republics resulted in ethnic-nationalist victories, new nationalist leaders of more well-to-do and Catholic republics of Slovenia and Croatia announced intentions to 'join the West' by seceding from poorer republics (declaring unilateral independence)...Milosevic, elected earlier under Socialist (ex-Communist) banner of Serbian nationalism, refused to accept Croatia's independence in its then-existing borders...Michael Hoover