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The rebirth of democratic imagination in Europe: the case of Serbia in a historical and present day comparative perspective

With the return of geopolitics there has been a return to uncertainty and volatility. The full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine (preceded by the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 which ended with the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the occupation of part of the Donbas region) has upended the European, Western and global security order. In addition for the past several decades there has been a rise in societal inequalities in Europe and the United States, leading to a mistrust in mainstream politics and mainstream political parties. The ensuing rise of populism, identitarian politics and nationalism has led principally to the growth of support for far right parties coupled with the erosion of democracy. Democratic backsliding is being witnessed in a number of countries. The blossoming of democratic dynamics after the fall of communism in Europe (epitomized by the fall of the Berlin) had reached its peak in the early 2000s to then fall under the different subsequent crises; financial (2008), migration (2015), Russian militarism (2008, 2014, 2022). This individual project seeks to understand whether within this overall dynamic of erosion of democracy we are witnessing, in Serbia a rebirth of democratic imagination. The now ten months long student led, civic protests, with the widespread appearance of direct democratic institutions could be a harbinger of a revival of democracy, in a similar and opposite way in which the fall of Yugoslavia was a harbinger of populist politics in the early 1990s when the “end of history” was being proclaimed.

Funded by:           Open Society Foundations (“OSF”)

Duration:              September 2025 – August 2026

Project Lead:        Ivan Vejvoda