Using Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia to predict the outcome of the dissolution of states

Factors that lead to internal conflict and civil war

Datos Bibliográficos

ID22182879
AutoresThomas Kennedy (0000-0001-8024-1522, McGill University,Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Thomas J Kennedy (McGill University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen3
Número1
Páginas1-10
Fecha de publicación2020-03-09
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOpen Political Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2543-8042 • E-ISSN: 2543-8042
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/openps-2020-0001
OpenAlexW3010902413
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas10

During the process of the dissolution of countries, there exist multiple critical junctures that lead to the partition of the territory, where the different groups cannot find a consensus on who rules and how to organize the government. The outcome of these crossroad decisions and political dynamics, who are often set-up centuries ago, either lead to conflict or relative peace between the nations and peoples who express opprobrium towards each other. The most recent cases of the divorce of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia have many similitudes and are therefore appropriate to attempt to theoretically analyze the essential difference between these two types of partitions. The Yugoslav situation led to War between the nations of Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Serbia, with an estimated 140,000 citizens of the former Yugoslav Republics killed, while the Czechoslovak case led to an innocuous settlement of differences and the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who joined the European Union ten years later and saw zero casualties. It is worthwhile to study the relationship between the dissolution of states and conflict using the Czechoslovak and Yugoslav cases for three main reasons. First, the similitude of the two instances enables one to identify variables that bring the outcome of having either peaceful relations or conflict between divorcing nations. Second, it is possible to compare the opposing disposition of variables with other countries that faced dissolution at one moment in history. Third, the sources and research for the two events are extensive, but very seldom put into conflict, since the causes for dissolution in both instances seem patent and explicit, contrasting significantly in scope and depth. This paper may be an occasion to disprove the notion that unworkable forces were at play here and demonstrate that the situation could have skewed in either direction, even though those structural forces are what lay the groundwork of the situation devolving into conflict

Business · Czech · Internal conflict · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Spanish Civil War · Territorial integrity · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics