Author: Christine Mason (Austin, TX, USA)
I participated in a course held through the Fondacija Mirovna Akademija in summer of 2020 titled, "Resisting Nationalism and Populism: Lessons from the Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina." In addition to learning about how to define nationalism and populism, feminist peacebuilding, local activism, and the role of international organizations in Bosnia, I learned about researching the workplace as a potential site of resistance and peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the course, Dr. Jasmin Ramović presented his research about solidarity aspects of worker self-management in the former Yugoslavia and how the peace framework in Bosnia and Herzegovina is missing key elements of the self-management system that, in the past, protected the working class and fostered interethnic collaboration and community development. In this essay, I will present additional research on the Yugoslav self-management system and solidarity economy, an overview of economic changes that led to war in the 1990s, the consequences of neoliberal, capitalist policies resulting from the Dayton Agreement of 1995, and through the example of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the need for international peace plans that counter all forms of violence, inlcuding economic violence, and consider local history and context when constructing peace plans.
Since the war ended in 1995, BiH continues to be divided by ethnicity and ethno-nationalist political elites use fear and coercion to maintain their rule over what is considered a failed state. In 2013, 18 years after the Dayton Agreement was passed, youth unemployment in BiH was 50% and poverty was at 19%, and from 2000-2010 and in 2012, BiH saw a negative GDP recorded, all of which led to mass protests in 2014 (Pugh 2016, 184). In light of these statistics, it seems that a reassessment of peacebulding initiatives in Bosnia is overdue. In this essay, I will attempt to address the following research questions: How did aspects of Yugoslavian self-management help build solidarity among ethnic groups in Bosnia before the war? Why is the workplace an important site for buiding interethnic cooperation? In what ways did privatization based on market capitalism lead to continued structural violence, rather than bring peace to the Balkans? i.e. Why was self-management not considered in the Dayton agreement?
Yugoslavian Self-Management and Solidarity
After the Second World War, Yugoslavia created its own style of socialism, and worker self-management was a key feature. Yugoslav economists generally believed in self-management considering it a better alternative than the centrally planned model present in other socialist countries (Estrin and Uvalić 2008, 672). However, according to Marković, self-management via workers’ councils was introduced not as the result of the workers’ movement, but rather as a byproduct of the conflict between the Yugoslav Communist Party leadership and Stalin (Marković 2011, 108). Regardless, its establishment allowed for a system based on solidarity, from Engels' idea that the socialist economy should be based on a socially planned regulation of production in accordance with the needs of both society as a whole and of each individual (Uvalić 2018). The creation of a capital market would imply an extension of the rights of economic organizations at the expense of society as a whole, therefore Yugoslavia created a movement following neither unrestrained capitalism nor harsh communism and workers' participation in decision-making was an important means for providing checks and balances, for example, on managerial power (Uvalić 2018).
Workers' councils succeeded in what was possible at the moment: they achieved a partial redistribution of power between the bureaucracy/technocracy and the working class (Marković 2011, 117). It was a form of democracy within the workplace, primarily through workers' councils. The councils were made up of elected members of the workforce and all workers in the enterprise had the right to vote (Ramović 2018, 175). However, this exercise in democracy mainly existed in the workplace, since Yugoslav society had never developed the type of democratic political culture necessary for self-management (Marković 2011, 110). Workers' councils were an essential means of building solidarity within a diverse population. "There is a different dimension to conflicts in multi-ethnic workplaces as participation in workers’ councils offered opportunities for colleagues of different backgrounds to take a common stand against a director’s decision and in doing so bridge identity-based divisions between them" (Ramović 2018, 180). The Yugoslav idea of ‘brotherhood and unity’ was used to deal with differences between ethnic groups in the country, and the workplace was the space which contributed to the policy the most (Ramović 2018, 182).
Yugoslavia was the world's first solidarity economy, and by 1975, it was the fastest growing economy (Bateman 2013). The workers' movement in Yugoslavia ensured self-protection of the working class, which extended into the community (Lowinger 2009, 120). Through the establishment of “workers' universities," companies provided educational opportunities for workers and youth as an investment in the company's future (Ramović 2018, 180). Contributions to community development by building sports facilities and theatres and establishing hiking clubs and community musical orchestras helped to overcome ethnic divisions (Ramović 2018, 182). The principle of workplace solidarity within the self-management system influenced communities by providing opportunities for workers to socialise and to connect along lines other than their ethnic identity, deepening relationships within and outside the workplace
(Ramović 2018,180). Overall, the self-management model transformed decision-making processes, ushering in a more democractic and collective method of solving problems while building and maintaining productive relationships across ethnicities. It is possible that self-management could have influenced Yugoslav society on all other levels, preventing the extreme ethnic divisions that led to the civil wars in the 1990's. But not everyone in Yugoslavia accepted the self-management model.
Internal Threats to Self-Management
The Yugoslav political elite never accepted the concept of self-management mixed with democratically organized central planning (Marković 2011, 117). Starting in the 1970s, policies were enacted to limit worker self-management and to dismantle Yugoslav-style socialism. Economic collapse began in the 1970s when communist and nationalist elites opted for fragmented integration into the capitalist system (Pugh et al. 2004). In 1974 and 1976, formal measures were introduced to reduce worker self-management into the tiniest units and democratic operation of individual enterprises was lost as a result of political actions resulting in productivity plummeting as individual commitment and collective effort began to collapse (Bateman 2013). The new “market socialism” benefitted managerial strata more than it did self-managing workers because CEOs, executive organs and informal centers of power rather than workers' councils regained some of the authority previously reserved for the state (Marković 2011, 127). This weakening of self-management correlated with growing interethnic conflict, both inside and outside of the workplace.
This weakening of the self-management system continued into the 1980s, culminating in the passage of the 1988 Enterprise Law through which workers' rights were to be gradually reduced in proportion to the reduction of social property. The privatization of forms in social property was to lead to the gradual abolition of self-management, inversely proportional to the increase of private capital (Estrin and Uvalić 2008, 686; 690-691). According to Lowinger, “BiH presents perhaps the most drastic example of the transition in Yugoslavia from a counter movement based in class solidarity across ethnicities to one based on violent warring for nationalist supremacy” (Lowinger 2009, 104). Prior to the outbreak of civil war, enterprises’ social property was to be replaced by private property through privatisation, and this property change would automatically entail the reduction and eventually abolition of workers’ decision-making rights, inversely proportional to the increase of private capital (Estrin and Uvalić 2008, 686).
In the cities of Mostar and Tuzla there were no signs of extreme nationalism in the 1980s, but strong solidarity and unity as workers and Yugoslav citizens. Despite the economic crisis that lasted through the 1980's, surveys showed that solidarity among workers continued almost right up to the breakout of war in Croatia in 1991(Ramović 2018, 177). During Ramović's research interviews, respondents shared that they remained in touch with their colleagues of different ethnic backgrounds, even after the war (Ramović 2018, 183). Therefore, real and convincing displays of brutality by representatives of one ethnicity against the members and symbols of another was needed to uproot the memory of “brotherhood and unity” and pave the way for ethnic-based claims to statehood (Lowinger 2009, 109). Throughout the 1980s, workers suffered from unfair policies that took away their economic self-determination and the solidarity they had built over decades. Narratives of the war in BiH as constructed by the media and politicians focused largely on ethnic hatreds and failed to factor in the stuggles for economic control between the working class and elites (Pugh et al. 2004, 146). Solidarity had to be weakened in order to 'divide and conquer' ethnicities into submission, a consequence of the growing capitalist aims of Yugoslav elites, supported in part by international organizations.
External Threats to Self-Management
Challenges also appeared from outside Yugoslavia in the form of economic maladjustment under the pressures of international trade relations and demands of external creditors, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) (Pugh 2018, 151). Several IMF-sponsored austerity programs were implemented in 1981 that led to an economic crisis in Yugoslavia, rendering a domestic distribution of resources untenable in the 1980s, resulting in wage freezes and rising unemployment (Uvalić 2018; Pugh 2018, 151). Precarity, as a result of growing unemployment and the reduction of workers' councils was growing before the violence, sanctions and blockades of 1992 (Pugh 2018, 156). Essentially, the workplace was turned into a battleground before the streets were.
The Dayton Agreement and its Failures
After nearly four years of brutal ethnic war, in December of 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed by the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, and drafted in part by representatives from the United States, the European Union, and Russia. While it brought an end to active war, there is debate about whether it brought peace, i.e. an end to interethnic conflict and division. The agreement offers far-reaching ‘consociationalist institutions’ based on power-sharing, decentralisation, ethnic vetoes, and proportionality, which anchored the power of ethno-national voices in legislative and executive institutions, and multiplied political platforms for the application of ethno-national principles, which fueled the war (Hronesova 2015). The Dayton framework itself was less a permanent settlement than an uneasy ceasefire and left in place the same political forces responsible for Bosnia's descent into war (Donais 2002, 2). Cartographies of ethnic space eclipsed a considered analysis of the economic challenges that needed to be addressed (Pugh et al. 2004, 146). Peacemakers could not overcome the contradiction in preserving multiethnicity by dividing the country into ethnic territories and institutionalizing a weak central state; drawing and redrawing maps became a preoccupation that squeezed nonethnic solutions out of contention (Pugh et al. 2004, 20). Additionally, within the framework, the focus on capitalism and the free market was viewed by international neoliberal peace architects as a direct route to peace and democracy in BiH, but it only recreated the economic conditions that led to war in 1992. Ignorance of pre-war governance and focusing on socialism as only a “failed system” by international intervenors influenced peacebuilding initiatives (Ramović 2018, 174). According to Pugh, the general prescription for peacebuilding economies is derived from the neoliberal vision of 'corporate peace'; the potential for more cooperatives and state production, let alone the ideological anathema of worker [self-management] was rejected as incompatible with subsidized capitalism (Pugh 2016, 175; 182).
Neoliberal Intervention
Critics called out democracy promotion as simply a form of capitalist influence, particulary in the post-Communist world of the 1990's. Jahn's 2007 overview about liberal diplomacy denied the idea of honest interest and instead supported the assumption of liberal interventionism being a structural component of international powerplay (Pospisil 2017, 4). Ideological biases may influence how and with whom peace plans are constructed and implemented. The Dayton agreement includes provisions for the direct involvement and interventions of a series of international actors such as NATO, OSCE, and the United Nations. These and other foreign agencies have been directly or indirectly involved in Bosnian post-war policy-making without nurturing the development of a democratic political culture (Hronesova 2015).
The very same reforms introduced by the Dayton framework and postwar reconstruction enabled nationalist (and later non-nationalist) political parties to grab hold of state-owned companies, services, and institutions (Kurtović 2014, 98-99). As a result of forced privatizationsnegotiated by international intervenors and politicians in BiH, former state enterprises were allowed to run down, any worthwhile assets were stripped, and the property sold cheaply toshadow boards in return for donations to the dominant nationalist party (Pugh et al. 2004, 174). A popular perception post-Dayton was that the communist leaderships were merely replaced by new 'kleptocracies' (Pugh 2018, 164). As stated earlier, socialist-style self-management, withsome exception, led to increased interethnic cooperation and community building. Attacks on the system prior to the 1990's, and the inability - or unwillingness - of the Dayton peace architects to acknowledge its potential and reinstate the solidarity-building aspects of self-management were a failure at informed and impartial peacebuilding. "The role of the workplace is particularlyimportant when discussing the everyday dimension in conflict-affected contexts as many ethnically mixed neighbourhoods become deprived of ‘the other’ through ethnic cleansing. This leaves the workplace as one of the few remaining spaces for interaction between conflicting groups as the pursuit of livelihood" (Ramović 2018, 186). And as a place in which to focus peacebuilding efforts. Post-war research by Pickering finds that the workplace is the space with the most potential for rebuilding interethnic cooperation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Ramović 2018, 172).
"If workers are able to influence the activities of the company where they work, this can curtail the negative effects of changes which an employer might pursue, and provide some sense of agency, especially in terms of shaping the economic aspect of their everyday. If these factors are in place and are functioning then the workplace can foster dignity for workers, which increases a sense of attachment to that workplace, and consequently the potential for long-term relationships between workers" (Ramović 2018, 187-188).
By May 2000, the majority of already privatized companies belonged to nationalist parties (Donais 2002, 7). Longtime companies like Dita, which had employed generations of workers in BiH, were at risk:
“During the war, Dita was busy helping troops, citizens and refugees. However, instead of praise, celebration and compliments, someone took it into their heads to set about destroying and killing Dita. To obliterate it. But, to what end?...Dita can and must continue to work in order to build and rebuild this afflicted country” (Busuladžić 2014, 11).
Everyday Resistance
But workers resisted, drawing on the legacy of Yugoslav self-management. Workers at ITAS in Croatia, after having witnessed a failed privatisation, fought in court to annul the privatisation deal and to regain control over the firm. The workers from ITAS had to look into their past to revive the ways in which they fought for their rights in socialist Yugoslavia and to build on them, according to the requirements of the new economic environment (Ramović 2018, 187). Additionally, since the 2014 protests in BiH – primarily begun by workers affected by bankrupt privatizations and high unemployment - solidarity is re-emerging among workers, war veterans, and civil society groups to combat collusion among politicians, media and employers. They are inspired by class conflict with elites but also anger at an economic model directed from outside (Pugh 2018, 163).
Conclusion
In this essay I have presented research on Yugoslavian self-management and the formation of democratic-style workers' councils which built solidarity among ethnic groups in Bosnia before the war, and in some cases, relationships built in the workplace remained after the war. The workplace is an important site for building interethnic cooperation since it allows for collective decision-making that can benefit the entire enterprise and the community. The fact that workers' councils lasted for forty years is in itself evidence that the project had some positive sides that should not be underestimated (Marković 2011, 107). Additionally, since the workplace is not explicitly dedicated to promoting interethnic cooperation, this status allows them to serve that end under the radar, which makes them all the more effective (Pickering 2007, 116).
After the war, forced privatization based on market capitalism and austerity measures reimplemented by the international community lead to continued economic violence, rather than bringing peace to the Balkans. The peace architects' failure to incorporate solidarity-bulding aspects of worker self-management into the peace framework has had devastating economic effects, and, in essence, recreated conditions of economic instability that preceded war in 1992. It could be argued that peace frameworks should include prescriptions to reduce or remove all forms of violence, including forms of economic violence, like poverty and unemployment. In order to become more reflexive and effective, peace architects should consider every tool at their disposal, including elements of any system that may facilitate progress towards peace. Bosnia and Herzegovina is caught in between the demands of globalists and provincialists; perhaps the workers, veterans and civil society groups will continue to rebuild solidarity with public strikes and protests across ethnicities, and create a middle ground.
Works Cited
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