end of World War II. The legal basis for the implosion of the Yugoslav state lay in
devolutionary measures contained in the Yugoslavian constitution promulgated in
1974, in response to calls for more autonomy from a number of the country’s prov-
inces, especially Croatia and Slovenia. The constitution allowed for the devolution
of political decision-making to the provinces, and established two “autonomous
regions” within Serbia, the politically dominant region of the country. The
constitution even contained provisions that would, at least in theory, allow individ-
ual provinces to secede from the Yugoslav Federation. Serbian leaders were
largely opposed to these reforms. Josef Tito, the dictator of Yugoslavia, held the
country together in the 1970s through the force of his will and by keeping the aspi-
rations of nationalists in the provinces in check, but on his death in 1980 strong
devolutionary pressures once again emerged. Kosovo, one of the autonomous
regions in Serbia, was demographically dominated by ethnic Albanians, many of
whom demanded recognition of the region as a province of Yugoslavia, a status
that would grant Kosovo the right to leave the country. Tensions over this issue
and the Serbian administration’s response to the Albanian demands led to Slovenia
and other republics eventually declaring independence by the early 1990s, and
subsequently to bloody civil wars that killed tens of thousands of people. By
2008 Kosovo itself had attained independence. Many would suggest that devolu-
tion in the 1970s in Yugoslavia set in motion the downward spiral of federal
authority, and the eventual collapse of the Yugoslav state.
Canada is a final example of a state that has used devolution in response to
demands for autonomy or outright independence. A number of regions in Canada,
a federative state, have in recent decades called for increased political devolution.
The most obvious case is that of Quebec, Canada’s French-speaking province that
is culturally distinct from the remainder of the country. The Parti Quebecois, a
French Canadian nationalist party, has taken the concept of devolution to the point
of advocating Quebec’s complete political independence. The Canadian
government responded in 2006 by declaring that Quebec is a separate nation, but
holds that status “withinunited Canada.” But Quebecrepresents only the best-
known controversy over devolution in Canada. The “territories” located in the
northern reaches of the country have in recent decades demanded increased home
rule and control of the natural resources within their boundaries. In response, the
Canadian government in 1999 established a new territorial unit, Nunavut, which
represented a large-scale devolution of authority to the native peoples of the region
by creating an enormous territory under their jurisdiction. The Canadian federal
government will eventually grant control over all of the territory’s natural
resources to the native people living there, an example of both political and eco-
nomic devolution. The crucial challenge that countries like Spain, Canada, and102 Devolution