
Serbia

Serbia is classified as a hybrid regime by the Global State of Democracy Indices (GSoDI). It was formerly one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). As Slobodan Milošević came to power, he introduced a nationalist and populist agenda aiming at the increased power of Serbia over the other constituent republics and the two autonomous provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina), leading to the Yugoslav Wars and the breakup of Yugoslavia. Since mass protests (known as 5th October) toppled Slobodan Milošević’s authoritarian government in 2000, Serbia has been a parliamentary democracy, but has suffered democratic backsliding between 2013-2019, and underwent a partial democratic breakdown in 2020. This slide in democratic performance has largely been driven by declining scores in Clean Elections, Free Political Parties, Civil Liberties and Effective Parliament. Serbia is an upper-middle-income country, and an official candidate for European Union membership.
In the post-Milošević era, the main political cleavage has centered on the question of EU accession and Serbia’s close relationship with Russia, as well as the legacy of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. For Serbia, fighting effectively ended in 1999, following the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) bombing campaign against Yugoslavia (including Serbia), aimed at forcing Milošević to stop the military campaign in Kosovo. The latter was placed under the UN administration and declared independence in 2008, which Serbia does not recognize. At the time, Kosovo was the country’s southernmost province and simultaneously the spiritual heartland of Serbian Orthodoxy, but largely populated by Kosovar Albanians. After 5th October, the pro-West, anti-Milošević coalition governed for roughly a decade, and made progress in arresting war criminals, apologizing for war crimes in Srebrenica and Vukovar and pursuing EU membership. But these efforts also faced nationalist backlash, most violently seen in the 2003 assassination of Zoran Đinđić – Serbia’s reformist Prime Minister – at the hands of mobsters with ties to a Milošević-era special forces unit. Ultimately, economic stagnation after the global financial crisis (by one measure, real incomes in 2013 were no greater than incomes in 1971) drove dissatisfaction and swept the nationalist opposition to power in 2012. In the decade since, Aleksandar Vučić – Milošević’s former Minister of Information – has consolidated power and established his party (the SNS – Srpska Napredna Stranka) as the only game in town. However, the pro-West parties and the nationalists who have governed since 2012 take similar positions on the issues which define these main cleavages. The pro-West parties steadfastly oppose recognizing Kosovar independence, along with the nationalists, and the nationalists are now pro-EU (a position previously held only by the pro-West reformers). Vučić is widely understood to run the country as President, even though the Constitution establishes the Prime Minister (currently Ana Brnabić) as chief executive. Pro-government media dominates the landscape, and independent outlets are often subject to outright intimidation. Elections are generally representative, but voting has been marred by irregularities, including physical intimidation, and in 2020 the opposition chose to boycott entirely. In the judicial arena, practices have been aligned with EU requirements, but the system continues to be subject to political pressure.
For the next decade, Serbian politics is liable to be shaped by its relations with Kosovo, EU accession, and the emergence (or not) of a credible challenge to Vučić and the SNS. In the first two areas, there has been little sign of movement. The Brussels Agreement – designed to normalize relations with Kosovo – remains to be fully implemented. Additionally, Serbia has continued to be Russia’s ally despite the war in Ukraine, and for the first time, a majority of Serbs now oppose joining the EU. In the domestic arena, concerns over environmental, quality of life, and corruption issues have increasingly driven political opposition and mass-mobilization. Whether these sentiments will translate to meaningful and consistent gains for opposition parties remains to be seen. In recent years, democratic decline has manifested in the GSoDI sub-attributes for Clean Elections, Free Political Parties, Civil Liberties and Effective Parliament. Looking ahead, these are likely to remain key indicators, along with those for Judicial Independence, Media Integrity and Absence of Corruption.
Monthly Updates
December 2022
Rada Trajkovic, a prominent Kosovo-Serb politician and fierce critic of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, was detained by the police at the Serbian border leaving Kosovo. She was recently appointed as an adviser to Nenad Rasic, a Kosovo Serb politician who took the post of the Minister of Communities and Returns in Kosovo. Trajkovic has called for the preservation of the Serbian community’s presence in Kosovo, for coexistence and reconciliation. She accused the Serbian president of trying to threaten her and for “criminal actions” against Kosovo-Serbs. Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti condemned Trajkovic’s detention as a “typical retaliation against law-abiding Kosovo-Serbs.”