Yugoslavia’s Comparative Historical Experience with the Policies of Alliance/Making and Neutrality/Non-Alignment

The twentieth century was marked by the formation of Yugoslavia: first the kingdom, then the republic. These two Yugoslav states differed in their internal organization, but also in the foreign political circumstances in which they were created, developed and disappeared. Therefore, they also differed in their approaches to foreign policy. However, by comparing their historical experience and foreign policy strategic conceptions – such as alliance-building and neutrality/non-alignment – the YEH research team observed similar patterns. Why did both the Yugoslav kingdom and the Yugoslav republic develop their foreign policy concepts from alliances to neutrality/non-alignment even though almost all internal and external factors that determined them were different? Research based on the analysis of regional alliances, non-aligned policy and the role of political and military factors in the creation of the foreign policy of the two countries will try to answer this question. From a scientific methodological and thematic point of view, the YEH project will contribute to the development of Serbian historical science by presenting new theoretical views, facts and interpretations, which could be useful to researchers of related topics within multidisciplinary projects. The team of researchers from the Institute for Recent History of Serbia expects to present the basic characteristics and essence of the Yugoslav experience with two foreign policy conceptions as the end result of the project. The researchers also hope that providing an answer to the main question posed in the framework of the project could be useful to Serbia in solving current foreign policy problems.

Apart from filling the "gaps" and analyzing unexplored events, phenomena and processes from the diplomatic and foreign policy history of the Yugoslav state, the results of the research should contribute to a deeper understanding of the foreign policy of the two Yugoslavias.