Books by Ljubica Spaskovska
Papers by Ljubica Spaskovska
Nationalities Papers, 2020
This article explores the role of Yugoslav self-managed corporations in the global economy, with ... more This article explores the role of Yugoslav self-managed corporations in the global economy, with a particular attention to the late socialist period (1976–1991). Guided by a vision of a long-term integration of the Yugoslav economy into the international division of labor on the basis of equality and mutual interest, by the late 1970s the country’s foreign trade and hard currency revenue was boosted by a number of globally oriented corporate entities, some of which survived the demise of socialism and the dissolution of the country. These enterprises had a leading role as the country’s principal exporters and as the fulcrum of a web of economic contacts and exchanges between the Global South, Western Europe, and the Soviet Bloc. The article seeks to fill a historiographic gap by focusing on two major Yugoslav enterprises (Energoinvest and Pelagonija) that were based in the less-developed federal republics—Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. The article also investigates the transnational flow of ideas around the so-called “public enterprise,” its embeddedness in an interdependent global economy, and its visions for equitable development. Finally, the article explores these enterprises as enablers of social mobility and welfare, as well as spaces where issues of efficiency, planning, self-reliance, and self-management were negotiated.
Labor History, 2018
The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to c... more The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication Ljubica Spaskovska University of Exeter 'Constructing a better world'?-Yugoslav investment construction in the 'South', labour mobility and the pursuit of collective self-reliance, 1950-1990
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011
Nationalities Papers, 2020
This article explores the role of Yugoslav self-managed corporations in the global economy, with ... more This article explores the role of Yugoslav self-managed corporations in the global economy, with a particular attention to the late socialist period (1976–1991). Guided by a vision of a long-term integration of the Yugoslav economy into the international division of labor on the basis of equality and mutual interest, by the late 1970s the country’s foreign trade and hard currency revenue was boosted by a number of globally oriented corporate entities, some of which survived the demise of socialism and the dissolution of the country. These enterprises had a leading role as the country’s principal exporters and as the fulcrum of a web of economic contacts and exchanges between the Global South, Western Europe, and the Soviet Bloc. The article seeks to fill a historiographic gap by focusing on two major Yugoslav enterprises (Energoinvest and Pelagonija) that were based in the less-developed federal republics—Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. The article also investigates the transnatio...
CEU eTD Collection Statement of Copyright Copyright in the text of this thesis rests with the Aut... more CEU eTD Collection Statement of Copyright Copyright in the text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author.
The views expressed in this publication cannot in any circumstances be regarded as the official p... more The views expressed in this publication cannot in any circumstances be regarded as the official position of the European Union
Nonalignment is often reduced to a few pictures of iconic leaders, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Gama... more Nonalignment is often reduced to a few pictures of iconic leaders, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Josip Broz Tito. Its fading significance in the waning days of the Cold War has longmeant a neglect of the ties, be they economic, political, social, or cultural, that underpinned the Non-Aligned Movement. Furthermore, a Western-centric view of globalization has often ignored the linkages that bound countries within the Global South with one another and the ties of non– Western European countries, like Yugoslavia, with former colonies. These global blind spots have also been reflected in the case of Yugoslavia, as nonalignment and Yugoslavia’s global role tended to be reduced to the encounters and agency of a small elite circle of politicians and diplomats, along with a tendency to approach the entire spectrum of global engagements through the lens of “Titoism.” This approach led to a simplified view of the complex Yugoslav institutional setup, the downplaying of the ...
Contemporary European History
The article examines Yugoslavia's and by extension the Non-Aligned Movement's relations w... more The article examines Yugoslavia's and by extension the Non-Aligned Movement's relations with the Middle East, reflecting more broadly on the developmental hierarchies and inner divides between the oil producing and non-oil producing countries within the Movement. The ‘energy shocks’ of the 1970s had a dramatic impact on non-OPEC developing countries and sowed long-lasting rifts in the non-aligned/developing world. The article embeds these events within the debates about the ‘New International Economic Order’ (NIEO), economic decolonisation and the nationalisation of energy resources in the 1970s, but also seeks to provide a longer-term overview of the economic and political relations that non-aligned Yugoslavia sought to forge with the Middle East, in particular with other non-aligned partners such as Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Kuwait. New forms of Cold War developmental multilateralism emerged as a consequence of the energy crisis – the supply of Arab oil to areas which had tra...
Manchester University Press
The first chapter maps the wide, decentralised youth infrastructure of the League of Socialist Yo... more The first chapter maps the wide, decentralised youth infrastructure of the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia (SSOJ) as a form of public space which accommodated both mainstream and ‘alternative’ politics and cultures, outlining some of the major debates which occurred within its strictly speaking political/institutional core, as well as in its peripheral sites, i.e. its media and cultural realms. It also offers an overview of the history of the institutional youth sphere, focussing on certain crucial events, such as the events of 1968 and the 1974 reorganisation of the youth organisation which resulted in the disappearance of the Student Union(s) as separate body. It shows how a process of negotiating new forms of youth activism (in the youth press), of questioning of inherited traditions and creating venues for democratisation of the youth organisation were made possible by the advancement of a new young political, media and cultural elite which generally sought to target the...
Contemporary European History
The 1975 World Conference on Women marked the beginning of the United Nations Decade for Women. T... more The 1975 World Conference on Women marked the beginning of the United Nations Decade for Women. The conference report, written soon afterwards, underlined that ‘the issue of inequality that affects the vast majority of women of the world is closely linked with the problem of under-development which exists as a result not only of unsuitable internal structures but also of a profoundly unjust world economic system’. This type of holistic and more radical understanding of (under)development has usually been lost in mainstream accounts of the history of development as a colonial endeavour or as a Western-imposed set of values and templates rooted in modernisation theory. A recent wave of scholarship, however, has sought to recover the agency of the ‘Global South’ in the history of internationalism and development, uncovering the plurality of internationalisms and the variety of political imaginaries that shaped twentieth-century ideas of development.
East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures
This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Fer... more This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak The article traces certain mnemonic patterns in the ways individuals who belonged to the late-socialist Yugoslav youth elite articulated their values in the wake of Yugoslavia’s demise and the ways they make sense of the Yugoslav socialist past and their generational role a quarter of a century later. It detects narratives of loss, betrayed hopes, and a general disillusionment with politics and the state of post-socialist democracy that appear to be particularly frequent in the testimonies of the media and cultural elites. They convey a sense of discontent with the state of post-Yugoslav democracy and with the politicians—some belonging to the same generation—who embraced conservative values and a semi-authoritarian political culture. The article argues that an emerging new authoritarianism and the very process of progressive disillusionment with post-soci...
Labor History, 2018
With the onset of decolonisation, the newly independent and
non-aligned countries forged transnat... more With the onset of decolonisation, the newly independent and
non-aligned countries forged transnational alliances within the
United Nations that have represented the collective interests of
the developing world in the realm of economic cooperation and
development for more than fifty years. This paper situates Yugoslavia’s
global role and its labour force mobility in the South within a broader
story about economic and technical cooperation in the non-aligned
world, the project of ‘collective self-reliance’, and the endeavour to
‘democratise’ international economic relations. These occurred within
a framework of nesting hierarchies, both at the global and at domestic
level and were not directed at a radical transformation of the existing
‘transnationalised economy’, but rather at the redefinition of the
nature of the economic relations/hierarchies in place and reflected
an aspiration to partake in the international division of labour and
economic exchange as equal partners. The paper also addresses the
specificities of the migrant labour experience that accompanied these
projects, with workers internalising some of the postulates of socialist
self-management and Yugoslav construction companies acting as
vehicles for the export of the self-managing welfare state abroad.
The Yugoslav Chronotope -Histories, Memories and the Future of Yugoslav Studies (Published as Cha... more The Yugoslav Chronotope -Histories, Memories and the Future of Yugoslav Studies (Published as Chapter 15 in: Florian Bieber, Armina Galijaš and Rory Archer, Eds. Debating the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (London: Ashgate, 2014).
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Books by Ljubica Spaskovska
Papers by Ljubica Spaskovska
non-aligned countries forged transnational alliances within the
United Nations that have represented the collective interests of
the developing world in the realm of economic cooperation and
development for more than fifty years. This paper situates Yugoslavia’s
global role and its labour force mobility in the South within a broader
story about economic and technical cooperation in the non-aligned
world, the project of ‘collective self-reliance’, and the endeavour to
‘democratise’ international economic relations. These occurred within
a framework of nesting hierarchies, both at the global and at domestic
level and were not directed at a radical transformation of the existing
‘transnationalised economy’, but rather at the redefinition of the
nature of the economic relations/hierarchies in place and reflected
an aspiration to partake in the international division of labour and
economic exchange as equal partners. The paper also addresses the
specificities of the migrant labour experience that accompanied these
projects, with workers internalising some of the postulates of socialist
self-management and Yugoslav construction companies acting as
vehicles for the export of the self-managing welfare state abroad.
non-aligned countries forged transnational alliances within the
United Nations that have represented the collective interests of
the developing world in the realm of economic cooperation and
development for more than fifty years. This paper situates Yugoslavia’s
global role and its labour force mobility in the South within a broader
story about economic and technical cooperation in the non-aligned
world, the project of ‘collective self-reliance’, and the endeavour to
‘democratise’ international economic relations. These occurred within
a framework of nesting hierarchies, both at the global and at domestic
level and were not directed at a radical transformation of the existing
‘transnationalised economy’, but rather at the redefinition of the
nature of the economic relations/hierarchies in place and reflected
an aspiration to partake in the international division of labour and
economic exchange as equal partners. The paper also addresses the
specificities of the migrant labour experience that accompanied these
projects, with workers internalising some of the postulates of socialist
self-management and Yugoslav construction companies acting as
vehicles for the export of the self-managing welfare state abroad.
Čini se da su antiratne inicijative marginalizirane u dosad objavljenim historijama jugoslavenskih ratova, u sociološkim studijama društvenih pokreta u centralnoj i istočnoj Europi, kao i u globalnim naporima da se razumiju kompleksne epizode političkog sukobljavanja. Imajući to u vidu, Opiranje zlu se pojavljuje kao važan korektiv i nudi izvanrednu, višeslojnu analizu povezanih oblika aktivističkog organiziranja i njihovih odnosa s politikom, kulturom i društvom u (post)jugoslavenskom kontekstu.
Paul Stubbs, Refleksije o značenjima antiratnog aktivizma