Legislative Recruitment and Political Change in Yugoslavia

Abstract

Recent turmoil in Yugoslavia convinced the leadership of the need to change legislative recruitment goals to favor women, youth, workers, and nonprofessionals. Empirical aggregate analysis of the background of Yugoslav federal and republic legislators indicates that these recruitment goals were implemented. Analysis of the political career paths of individual legislators from 1967 to 1974, however, reveals that the changes in legislative recruitment patterns only benefited political novices. Legislators with good political contacts continued to have more successful careers than legislators coming from those groups favored by the new recruitment goals. The reason for the difference between recruitment criteria and determinants of career advancement is due to the Yugoslav nominating and electoral process.