Serbia’s Turbulent Democratization

Abstract

Since the late 1980s Serbia has travelled a long way, from communist authoritarianism to democracy and then back again below a democratic threshold. Its hesitant transition from communism was part of the wave of regime change in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union amidst the global ‘third wave’ of democratization in the last quarter of the 20th century. While the legacy of Yugoslavia’s tolerant and decentralized communism provided more favourable conditions for democratization than in the Soviet bloc, the breakup of Yugoslavia and concomitant nationalist violence resulted in a hybrid regime that mixed democratic procedures with authoritarian rule, and in the country’s international isolation. Massive demonstrations in October 2000 ended non-democratic rule and launched a vibrant democracy in the European continental model, which lasted a decade and a half. A slow decline of democratic institutions began in the early 2010s and accelerated once the coalition of refurbished old-regime parties returned to power, culminating in a return to a hybrid regime in 2015–2016, which continues until today. Overall, Serbia experienced democracy for roughly half of the post-communist period, while the other half was consumed by political struggles under non-democratic rule. This trajectory largely reflects political development in the wider region, although the swings from authoritarianism to democracy and back to a hybrid regime were more dramatic in Serbia