Gow, AJW; (1992) Legitimacy and the military: a theoretical perspective on the expansion of the Yugoslav People's Army's political role in the 1980s. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Yugoslav civil-military relations is a function of the interaction of regime legitimacy and military legitimacy. The political and military legitimacy of post-war Yugoslavia was based on themes of national liberation, socialist self-management and a decentralised communist model. In 1971 decentralisation led to a crisis in which regime legitimacy was deficient. Deficiency was restored by the lending of military legitimacy based on its role in the regime's creation and its formal position in the political system to strengthen the federal arm of President Tito. Regime and military legitimacies were functions of each other. As Yugoslavia slipped deeper into crisis in the 1980s and without the late President's charismatic presence, the army was unable to repeat its role of the early 1970s. Social and political developments had debased the army's legitimacy as a political force. The multiple crisis also challenged the YPA's functional legitimacy. Its leading role in the defence system was weakened by technical inadequacies and diminished morale. The various threats to its legitimacy explain the military's growing voice in Yugoslav domestic politics in the 1980s. The seeming extension of its role from defence to non-defence issues was no more than apparent. The generals' concern for the welfare of society rested on an understanding of the effect the crisis of legitimacy had upon the YPA and upon Yugoslavia's wider defence capability. An accumulation of military actions and inactions, however, further dissolved both the regime's and its own legitimacy. As 1991 began, both regime and military required legitimacy renewal. The functional relationship between the two was evident: the military needed a legitimate regime to serve; but with the spectre of state disintegration increasing, regime relegitimation depended in considerable part on military restructuring and depoliticisation - that is, on military relegitimation.

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