Book review of Serbia's transition: towards a better future.

• Author: Estrin, Saul
• Position: Book review

Book review of Serbia's transition: towards a better future

Milica Uvalic

It is long overdue for us to have on the shelves a serious book on transition in the former Yugoslavia (Serbia) to join the dozens of volumes on Russia, Poland, and Hungary. It might be remembered that in the 1950s through the 1970s, Yugoslavia was a beacon of market socialism in a sea of centrally planned socialist regimes, and moreover one with a unique economic system of its own, founded on workers' self-management of enterprises. Moreover, the system had seemed for a long while to work, so that Yugoslavia entered the transition era with many of the attributes of a market economy missing in its socialist neighbours including an orientation of trade to Western Europe and the new emerging markets; ostensibly decentralised market-type processes for internal resource allocation and a relatively high standard of living. One might have expected in 1989 both that Yugoslavia would have clear advantages in the transition process over highly bureaucratic planned neighbours, and also that the almost forty years of relative independence from Moscow would have generated institutions with some durability through the reform process. In fact,, for reason largely associated with the political demise of the Yugoslav federation, neither proved to be correct. Uvalic charts with great care the murky waters of Serb economics and politics in this troubled era, and helps us enormously in understanding why.

In fact, the book is much more than just a recounting of the facts of Serbia's unhappy recent past. It is special because Uvalic has a command of the big picture yet a mastery of the detail. I have tried to keep up to some extent on transition and on former Yugoslavia, yet I was learning things on every page. Moreover, the story itself is a fascinating one. As noted above, Yugoslavia started as a front runner in transition, yet went backwards first for 10 years. Even after reforms finally started, things in some ways jumped forward but at a deeper level they actually went much slower. Milica gives a clear explanation as to why, highlighting external constraints, not least the negative attitude of the world community and EU in the 1990s. Indeed, she places more emphasis on this than other observers. But she also highlights the role of wars and internal factors, more often political than economic. Yet through this careful sifting of the facts and the data, Uvalic is also able to tell a...