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Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990. By Susan L. Woodward. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. 443p. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.
Valerie Bunce, Cornell University
This is a book that has been long in the making; not surprisingly, it is also long in the telling. The wait and its weight, however, are worth it. This is an important study, not just because of the arresting interpretations of postwar Yugoslav economic and political evolution, but also because of what it says about three issues of broader interest. One is the surprising similarities, as well as the more often-noted differences, between Yugoslavia and other socialist states. Another is the central role of elite ideas and governmental capacity in shaping the economic policies of states. The final issue is the considerable impact of the international system on the domestic affairs of small, vulnerable states with relatively open economies.
Woodward's concern in this book is with two interrelated issues. The first is explaining the causes and consequences of sizeable and long-term unemployment in the former Yugoslavia. This is of interest because a core tenet in the theory and practice of socialism is the abolition of unemployment. The second is using the issue of unemployment as a means of gaining insight into the evolution of socialist Yugoslavia-from the founding of the regime toward the end of World War II to its collapse in 1989-90.
Woodward's main argument can be put succinctly. Unemployment reflected the dissonance between elite ideology and elite capacity. Put more concretely,...