Review: Agriculture: Legitimacy in International Relations and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209805300419 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
of
autonomy
to
the Serbian
minority. The
EU
did
insist
upon
changes
in
Croatia's
constitution
to
give
more
protection
to
minority
rights
as
a
condition
of
recognition,
but
not
nearly
enough to
make
Croatian
Serbs
content
to
be
part
of
Croatia.
Harder
bargaining
might
have
been
possible.
Although
he
tries
to
be
fair,
Libal
obviously
came
to
have
little
use
for
Serbia.
His
repeated
use
of
the
term
'Serbian
war
of
conquest'
to
describe
the
post-Yugoslav
civil
wars
illustrates
his
point
of
view.
When
he
says
that
the
Serbs
wondered
why
Croats
or
Bosnians
could
secede
from
Yugoslavia
in
the
name
of
self-determination
and
they
could
not
secede
from
Croatia
or
Bosnia,
he
gives
them
no
answer
except
to
say
that
the
international
community
had decided otherwise.
The
first
part
of
this
book,
based
on
the
author's
personal
experi-
ence,
is
a
valuable
contribution
to
study
of
the
issues.
The
analysis
of
the
general
progression
of
events
that
follows
presents,
quite
forcefully,
one
of
a
number
of
possible
views.
As
he
would probably
be
the
first
to
admit,
it
is
not
the
only
possible
view.
LEGITIMACY
IN
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
AND
THE
RISE
AND
FALL
OF
YUGOSLAVIA
John
Williams
Basingstoke,
London,
and
New
York:
Macmillan
&
St
Martin's,
1998,
x,
22
0pp,
US$69.95
The
theme
of
this
book
is
legitimacy
-
how it
is
earned
and
how
it
is
lost
by
states
and
other
actors
in
the
international
galaxy.
Williams'
book
illustrates
the
perils
and
rewards
of
making
a
book
out
of
a
PhD
thesis.
Much
of
it
is
intensely theoretical,
laced
with
learned
references
to
various
authorities
whose
names may
be
household
words
in
acad-
eme
but
will
mean
little
to the
general
reader.
The
first
section
of
the
book
discusses
different
conceptions
of
legit-
imacy,
and
builds
a
theoretical model
of
the
Western
concept.
Subse-
quent
sections
analyze
legitimacy
in
the
Yugoslav
context
at
various
times,
dividing
the
factors
into
'The
States
System'
(which
the
author
seems
to
accept
for
the
purposes
of
his
analysis,
but
reluctantly),
'Lib-
eral
Political
Ideas,'
and
'Liberal
Economics.'
The
last
is
perhaps
sur-
prising
as
an
element
of
legitimacy,
but
no
doubt
reflects
the
recently
adopted
orthodoxy
that
to
be saved
a
country
must
have
not
only
a
democratic
system
of
government
but
also
a
free-market
economy.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Autumn
1998
795
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