What typological appellation is suitable for Tito's Yugoslavia: Response to Mihaljević and Miljan

Abstract

The main aim of the paper is to expose the counterfactual, scientifically unfounded and unscholarly statements by Mihaljević and Miljan in the paper “Was Tito’s Yugoslavia not Totalitarian?” We needed to treat the issues of (1) totalitarianism as a scholarly concept and a social construct, (2) the typological characterization of Tito’s Yugoslavia, where there is substantial agreement among scholars that consociation fits it; (3) the organization of security services in Yugoslavia of the period, (4) the role of the republics in conducting foreign policy, which increased steadily; (5) monetary policy and seigniorage which came about, of which our critics were completely unaware, (6) the issue of the political system’s dynamics (there were very substantial changes in the period 1945-1991) and (7) the issue of the political system’s legitimacy. We also noted a number of minor mistakes, errors, and omissions by the authors at issue. A general failure by the authors to achieve scientific objectivity and to master the notions necessary for analysis is found.

Keywords

• authoritarianism
• josip broz tito
• communism
• consociation
• federation
• political system
• totalitarianism
• unitarianism
• yugoslavia