Internal Crisis of Compound Polities: Understanding the EU’s Crisis in Light of the Ex-Yugoslav Federation’s Failure

Abstract

The paper draws on a particular conceptual framework for the interpretation of the current European Union (EU) crisis. Famously, the EU has been classified as an organization existing in between or beyond the modern state and international organizations. The constitutionally undefined political aim of the EU contributes mostly to its vague classification. Nevertheless, the escalation of the Eurozone crisis has revealed the inherent relation between the politically unfinished design of the EU and the inability of its actors to confront the major social and economic challenges of today. This paper argues that this systemic failure of the EU replicates another historical example, the Yugoslav federation. Beyond substantial differences between the two, there is an important similarity. They both have, embedded in their very nature, the character of an unfinished political construction. Furthermore, both the EU and Yugoslavia followed the same path from an emancipative process of federalism to an existential crisis, both moving from legitimate to very questionable polity.