Vladimir Unkovski-Korica works on twentieth-century Yugoslav and European history. His initial focus was on the socio-political, economic, business, and diplomatic history of Yugoslavia during the Cold War. He is currently researching the impact of the rise and fall of Yugoslavia on the British left, from the Second World War to the Kosovo War. He is more broadly interested in the history and legacies of communism, non-alignment, anti-imperialism, development, and de-colonisation. 

Just a MacGuffin? Yugoslav Self-Management, the British Trade Unions and the Origins of the Alternative Economic Strategy in the long 1960s 

This is a work in progress – an early draft of a book chapter for a book I am single-authoring on the British left and Yugoslavia from WWII to the Kosovo War. A major theme in the book will be differing conceptualisations of socialism. My interest in this chapter is how far the Yugoslav model of industrial democracy (workers’ self-management) was taken seriously by the trade unions, key institutions in the British labour movement of the time, especially seeing as industrial democracy was a part of the Alternative Economic Strategy around which the British left coalesced in the 1970s. This chapter will rely on TUC papers, personal archives and memoirs of key figures in the British labour movement, etc. 

Series Convenors: 

Sara Bernard, CEES, University of Glasgow, sara.bernard@glasgow.a.c.uk 

Taras Fedirko, Social Anthropology and Migration, University of Glasgow, taras.fedirko@glasgow.ac.uk 

The CEES Seminar Series is kindly supported by the Macfie Bequest. 

For more information and to confirm attendance, email Taras Fedirko

First published: 1 January 2025

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