yugoslavias implosion

orders. In retrospect, however, the 1974 Constitution was an avantgarde
instrument: It foresaw the development of complex communities
such as the European Union. As Kalypso Nicolaïdis, director of
the European Studies Center at Oxford University, has commented,
a constitution such as that of the European Union “appeals to a political
philosophy of its own—transnational pluralism—rather than to
some extended notion of the nation-states.” 491 To understand the eu
as a democracy, one must depart from mainstream constitutional
thinking and make three conceptual shifts: such a democracy seeks
the mutual recognition of all the members’ identities rather than a
common identity; it promotes a community of projects, not a community
of identity; and it shares governance horizontally, among
states, rather than vertically, between states and the union. 492
The Serbian nationalists were not prepared to make the effort
required to create and maintain so complex a community. In 1991,
the eu-sponsored Hague Conference proposed the reorganization
of Yugoslavia as a loose federation of states in which civil rights for
minorities would be guaranteed. Serbia did not accept this last -ditch
effort to preserve the state framework of Yugoslavia.
Instead of seeking a solution through negotiation and consensus,
Serbia spent the last decade of the twentieth century waging war to
restructure the Balkans—to wrest control of the territory of the former
Yugoslavia. Serbs believed that by reverting to pre-Communist,
antidemocratic traditions, they could turn the clock back and refashion
Yugoslavia on the self-image of a historically victorious power.
Serbia continued to pursue this agenda in the early twenty-first century—though
admittedly by more peaceful and diplomatic means,
such as the activities of the spc, which operates as a para-political
organization; administrative measures designed to prevent the
491 Kalypso Nicolaïdis, „We, the Peoples of Europe . . .“, Foreign Affairs, vol . Nov-Dec 2004, p . 97–110
492 According to Kalypso Nicolaidis, the EU is neither a union of democracies nor a
union as democracy; it is a union of states and peoples—a “democracy” in the
making . Foreign Affairs, vol . Nov/Dec 2004, “We, the Peoples of Europe .”
285
ChApter 4