The author analyses some of the most characteristic chapters of risk management processes, resulting from significant differences in the ethnic structure of population and level of socio-economic development and divergent interests in the Yugoslav state that stem from it. The main emphasis lies on four hypotheses: (1) politics of decentralisation did not produce the intended effects, (2) the integration and disintegration were causally connected, (3) the national emancipation included also economic emancipation and (4) ethnic/regional strategies of benefit maximisation were tailored to the level of economic development and inclusion in international and local economic flows.