The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges in Post-Yugoslav Censuses

900 Social Science Quarterly
polarized contexts, like Kosovo). For example, Slavic Muslims in the Sandžak region are
more likely to identify as Bosniaks and Bosnian speaking in Serbia than in Montenegro.
The key difference is that Bosniaks in Serbia have been more marginalized by the state,
while Bosniaks in Montenegro have been more successfully integrated into state structures.
Similarly, within Croatia, the congruence of the number of Serbs and Serbian speakers is
greater in polarized, postconflict settings than in regions that did not experience the war. 10
Self-identified Yugoslavs in socialist Yugoslavia have mostly disappeared, but in settings
where ethno-national polarization was limited, they were not easily absorbed into the
national identities of the postwar and post-Yugoslav states. In these circumstances, they
appear to have rather opted out of these identities through choosing not to provide
their national identity, and indicating regional or other nonnational identities. With the
exception of Bosnia, individuals are unable to choose a state identity that is not congruent
with the ethno-national identity. As a result, the identification with a state that was possible
with Yugoslavs is no longer possible.
This article has two implications for the study of nationalism. First, the study of censuses
provides a fruitful site of research, as they are an instance where categories are imposed,
negotiated, accepted, and rejected. Second, considering the significance of censuses, they
remain understudied in deeply divided societies where census results shape political competition
and influence potential conflict.
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10 Thus in Vukovar the ratio between Serbian speakers to Serbs is 22.07 percent to 34.87 percent, whereas
in Vrbovsko (a town close to Rijeka in the Gorski Kotar region largely uneffected by the war), it is 1.26–35.22
percent.