On the Borders of the Croatian Welfare State: A Victim's Economy

Abstract

The dissolution of Yugoslavia was an immensely complex, difficult and violent turmoil, whose full implications, even after a decade and a half, are relatively well known and, at the same time, still in need of further explanation. Thus, when speaking of the collapse of communism, Alain Badiou's term „obscure disaster“ is pertinent as a designating term, a metaphor for the lack of meaning itself, for an absence further exacerbated by specific conditions in which socialism crumbled in former Yugoslavia. This obscurity is only reinvigorated by the latest set of problems with which the South-East European states are faced after the late-2000s global financial crisis. For our present needs it will be enough to state that Yugoslavia’s dissolution affected every aspect of social life; the unprecedented scope of this transformation, as well as its current inscription in ongoing „suspended“ histories of newly founded nation-states certainly adds something to this „obscurity“. Our aim in this paper is to provide a somewhat speculative account of post-socialist ideological constellation by focusing on a single discoursive aspect, which we identify as a certain distinctiveness of these spaces. Although only an aspect of a more wider conjuncture, it is our belief that this cluster is highly symptomatic, as it represents the crossroads between various discourses and processes that are fundamental for understanding the current “transitional” societies, or to be more precise, the places where these “transitional” societies fail to deliver on their promises. These range from the predominant depoliticized vision of the clash of the civilizations (Europe vs. Balkans, West vs. East etc.), the (still ongoing) dissolution of the welfare state, the complex changes in the institution of social and economic rights, profound metamorphosis of the public sphere, the rise of nationalist hegemonies, all to the neoliberal assault on the last remnants of the, by now, thoroughly „nationalized“ socialist heritage etc.