| Summary: | Thesis (M.A.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998. Political Science Bibliography: leaves 105-119 The thesis examines the Croatian secession from Yugoslavia in 1991 and the Slovak secession from Czechoslovakia in 1993. There are two objectives of this examination. First, the thesis seeks to determine why the respective secessions occurred. Second, the thesis attempts to discern why the Croatian secession was violent and why the Slovak secession was peaceful. In reaching the answers to the objectives, the thesis utilizes an explanatory approach rasher than a normative one. John Wood's theoretical framework on secessions is utilized to organize the analysis presented in this study. It is argued that the basis for the secessions of Croatia and Slovakia rests with the collapse of political institutions. The collapse of necessary political institutions in Yugoslavia in the former case and in Czechoslovakia in the latter case precipitated the secessions of Croatia and Slovakia. The Croatian secession was in large part the result of the dissolution of the Yugoslav Communist Parry, the re-pluralization of politics, and the re-birth of ethnically defined political entities bound by ethnically defined political agendas and ideals. The Slovakian secession can hardly be called a secession. It should be characterized as a dissolution of a bi-national state after a brief revisitation with democracy. The Slovakian secession was a product of a flawed federal constitution borrowed from communist ancestors, a disinterested populace and political elite, and the existence of a zero-sum game perception that was common in this bi-polar state. On the issue of violence, the thesis examines Robert Young's work on peaceful secessions. In this regard, the most salient issue in the Croatian case regarding the explosion of violence is the existence of a significant national minority within existing Croatian territory coupled with an equally threatening external presence of a nationalizing Serbia. The absence of a complex web of inter-ethnic relationships in the former Czechoslovakia created a suitable atmosphere for a peaceful dissolution.
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