This fourth case study brings us into the late twentieth century and the processes of state disintegration and reformation in the former Yugoslavia. Through the events in the former Yugoslavia – particularly in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 and more recently in Kosovo during the late 1990s – the world is now familiar with the euphemistic term ‘ethnic cleansing’. The practices covered by this term highlight how pathological homogenisation is still an attractive strategy for some would-be state-builders. This is particularly so in the absence of democratic institutions and, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia, such strategies may be directed at staving off democratic change. Ironically, the principle of self-determination, born with the democratic revolution and now a structuring principle of the international system of states, can be seen at its most awry and destructive in the former Yugoslavia. As Robert Hayden notes, ‘[t]he logic of “national self-determination” in Yugoslavia not only legitimates homogenisation of the population but has also made that process so logical as to be irresistible. The course of the war has followed this logic of establishing the nation-state by eliminating minorities.’ Such readings of national self-determination are of course at odds with international standards of human rights and legitimate statehood and I trace the tensions in the international system in more detail in chapter 6. In this chapter I focus on attempts to eliminate significant sections of the population from areas of the former Yugoslavia in the name of national homogeneity.