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Abstrakt:
This article proposes an approach to ethnopolitics in the Balkans based on the law of uneven and combined development. It assumes a significant role of economy (and control over economy) in social and political development of a society across the ages. Subsequently, the ethnopolitics of the Balkans should be perceived through the prism of historic development of the political solutions to arising economic questions. In effect, we recognize several models of cultural division of labour. These models provide varying levels of economic (in)dependence of minorities from state-authorities. Our claims, however, are based on the conviction that these institutions and models are focused mostly on meeting demands of the minorities’ leaders, not necessarily of the minorities themselves. Consequently, political and economic interests took precedence over human rights and democratic values.
