On understanding the non-alignment in Yugoslav theorisation of international relations

In: Međunarodni problemi: International problems, Band 70, Heft 2, S. 125-146

Abstract

The paper contributes to the historiography of the domestic science of
International Relations, observed through its processing of the nonalignment
in the socialist Yugoslavia period. The author has analysed the relevant
academic literature that deals with the nonalignment as a concept, a movement
and an interplay of social relations. Initially, the paper presents a short
sketch of the development of the science of International Relation within
Yugoslav social sciences, and then the development of the part of the IR
science that had nonalignment as its object. The author has shown the strong
threads of the Marxist approach to the International Relations in the
analyses of the nonaligned movement and its genesis, but also flexibility and
eclecticism in the analyses of various related topics. The author has also
displayed a wide focus of such a science on the analysis of the role of
internal factors in defining the foreign policy and of the importance given
to the historical experience and subjectivity in action, which are
characteristics of more contemporary theories like constructivism and
liberalism. In that sense, the author concludes the theoretical production of
that era should be evaluated in more detail, in light of the actual state of
play in the science of International Relations.