Serbian Political Elite Research Articles

Sites of the Memory of the Serbian Nation in Kosovo and the Place of Kosovo in the Collective Memory of the Serbs

Drawing on the conceptual framework of sites of memory and collective memory, the study examines Kosovo as a crucial site of Serbian national memory, focusing on the historic Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Through a qualitative analysis based on primary and secondary sources, it addresses the question of why, when, and how Kosovo became a prominent part of the Serbian collective memory. In this regard, the study explores the contribution of the Serbian Orthodox Church, historical narratives, myths, monuments, memorials, songs, poems, and other cultural expressions in both achieving and maintaining Kosovo's distinctive position within the collective memory of the Serbian nation. Moreover, the study explores Serbian perceptions and socially constructed images related to Kosovo, the Battle of Kosovo, and the national heroes central to this significant event. Finally, it scrutinizes the resurgence of the Kosovo narrative for political objectives orchestrated by Serbian political elites, with particular attention given to the influence of Slobodan Milosevic.

Discursive Practices of Serbian Cultural Intelligentsia and Production of Socio-Political Crisis Through and within the Union of Writers of Yugoslavia during 1985

In her work and on the basis of archival material, the author presents and analyzes the discursive practices of writers gathered in the Union of Writers of Yugoslavia, and articulated through the work of its governing bodies – Congresses, Assemblies, and the Presidency – throughout 1985. Namely, that year, at the 9th Congress of Writers in Novi Sad, one part of Serbian writers, gathered in the Association of Writers of Serbia, opened and actualized the so-called Kosovo issue within the Union, by constructing uniformly structured, and persistently repeated ideological narrative about the endangerment and persecution of Serbs in Kosovo, claiming that it was – genocide. The paper presents and summarizes the main features of the aforementioned congress, which indicate that the Yugoslav socio-political crisis of the early 1980s deeply affected the Union during 1985 and that it revealed deep conceptual divisions among Serbian and other writers in Yugoslavia. The dividing line was built around the rejection of the 1974 Constitution and the denial of national-cultural and republican identities and borders within Yugoslavia, on the one hand, and their defense and plea for them, on the other. The text seeks to clarify what the concept of freedom of literary creation and politicization of literature, which was advocated and defended by the Serbian cultural intelligentsia at the 9th Congress, essentially meant, as well as to point out that the period of the 1980s was marked by the ambition of writers to affirm themselves as significant socio-political factor through criticism of dogmatic and repressive political authorities of socialist selfgovernment. The author then focuses on the work of the Literary Union Presidency during 1985, and on the discursive practices of some Serbian writers, gathered in the Association of Writers of Serbia and the Association of Writers of Kosovo, articulated through The Open Letter and other letters of the UKS administration, which insisted on further opening of the so-called Kosovo issue and made serious accusations against the Albanian administration of the Kosovo Writers' Association. This encouraged the continuation of the crisis production process within the Union. She concludes that behind all of these discursive efforts was a concrete goal of recentralizing the federal literary organization, mastering the Kosovo literary association and discursively supporting the Serbian political elite, which at the same time, at the federal political level, insisted on opening and resolving the so-called Kosovo issue and the issue of unity of the Serbian federal and state unit within Yugoslavia. The author started from the hypothesis that (war) violence, specifically that in Kosovo, against Albanians, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was conceived, among other things, in the words of the Serbian humanistic intelligentsia, which produced discursive/ideological knowledge through which interpreted the past and present of the national community and which aimed to encourage national mobilization and homogenization and put them at the service of a certain political project – the recentralization of the Yugoslav state, of Serbia, strengthening and unification of the imagined and scattered Serbian national-cultural society in Yugoslavia. Through the aforementioned discursive knowledge, a stigmatic image of the barbaric Albanian Other was built, which served to legitimize his exemption from the legal order, i.e. the imposition of a state of emergency and the normalization of violence in Kosovo throughout 1990s. Given that the aim of this paper was to give a meticulous overview of a conjuncture episodes in the work of the Union of Writers of Yugoslavia during 1985 and discursive strategies that would lead to its disintegration in the continuation of the process, and since this topic is still largely subject to politicization, the author let the sources “speak” in the text to the greatest extent possible.

The Hot Vojvodina Summer Of 1988: Did Vojvodinians Seek to Overthrow Their Government?

Abstract Several watershed events preceded the dissolution of Yugoslavia. One of these was the toppling of the Vojvodina autonomist leadership in October 1988. This was preceded by a series of rallies throughout Vojvodina in the summer of 1988, which may have seemed like a spontaneous affair and the work of “ordinary citizens.” It was called “the antibureaucratic revolution.” However, these rallies, including a standing group of demonstrators, continually and always referring to the grievances of Kosovo Serbs, turned out to be supported by the Serbian political elite centered in Belgrade. The elite, still headed by the Serbian Communist Chief Slobodan Milošević, gave thrust and coordination to efforts to organize the rallies. The Vojvodina leadership was toppled for their alleged “failing to understand the plight of Kosovo Serbs.” The overthrow was, further, with a view to achieve the Serbian elite’s pet project, the “united Serbia”—that is, doing away with Vojvodina’s and Kosovo’s autonomy. Written sources (including recollections by Yugoslav leaders of the time) and written sources are considered in research on the events.

Kosovo Russia Serbia

Kosovo is neither the object nor the target of Russian influence operations. The purpose of delegitimizing Kosovo is to enhance and solidify the alliance between Russia and Serbia and the Serbian minorities across the Balkan region. Russian influence operations support the Serbian political elite by using Russian diplomatic levers and connections. Other Russian influence operations target the public, specifically influential Serbian groups in the right-wing opposition, in the military, and not least through the Orthodox Church throughout the Balkan region. The result is a high level of support for Russia among the Serbian population. This makes it extremely difficult for the Serbian government to make agreements with the EU or NATO and entraps Serbia in an alliance with Russia.

The evolution of Belgrade's position on the Kosovo issue after 2008

This article examines the evolution of Belgrade's official position on the Kosovo issue. The author explores such aspects as the importance of Kosovo in the historical consciousness of the Serbian political elite, the stages of the current attitude towards Kosovo on the part of the Serbian leadership, as well as the significance of historical events on the Kosovo for modern Serbia. The object of the study is the Kosovo crisis, the subject is the vision of the presidents and senior officials of Serbia of the fate of Kosovo. Special attention is paid to the historical stage of the formation of national ideas among Serbs and Albanians, in which the battle on the Kosovo field played a key role. Studying the positions of the presidents and senior officials of Serbia on Kosovo allows to track the process of folding the current position, and also allows to see the trajectory of the formation of attitudes towards Kosovo. The main conclusion of the study is the idea that the struggle for Kosovo in Serbia is a central national idea that serves as a unifying principle and builds patriotism around itself. A special contribution of the author is the systematic tracking of the evolution of Belgrade's position on the Kosovo issue. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the article consistently and constructively describes the approach of various Serbian presidents to the problem based on their speeches, statements and actions in the international arena.

Aporije postojanja i djelovanja visokog predstavnika u pravnom i političkom sistemu Bosne i Hercegovine

The appointment of Mr. Christian Schmidt as the new high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina met with great opposition from the Serbian political elite in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is supported by Russia and China. The key problem lies in the process of appointing Mr. Schmidt. According to Article I paragraph 2 of Annex 10 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH, the high representative should be appointed in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council. Of the eight high representatives, in the period from 1995 to 2023, six were appointed with the consent given by the appropriate resolution of the UN Security Council after the appointment was made by the Steering Committee of the Peace Implementation Council, and the seventh should have received this consent, but the resolution was not was adopted. Only one high representative was not appointed with the consent of the Security Council, and there was no draft resolution to give that consent. Considering that Mr. Christian Schmidt was not appointed with the consent of the Security Council given by the corresponding resolution, his challenge is justified. Despite this, there is disagreement about this position, because the US, the UK and France believe that the high representative was appointed legally without a resolution, while China and Russia dispute this position. High representatives intervened in the legal system of BiH and the entities, often through the adoption of laws and their amendments at the level of BiH and the entities, and the adoption of amendments to the constitutions of the entities. Of course, such behavior is controversial and the question has been raised as to whether the high representative has normative competences. By analyzing Article II and Article V of Annex 10, which the high representative used as a legal basis, we can conclude that his competences are not of a normative character, and by interpreting this annex it is not possible to arrive at such competences. Analyzing point XI/2 of the Conclusions of the Peace Implementation Council held in Bonn on December 9 and 10, 1997 (the so-called Bonn Powers), which the high representatives also refer to as a legal basis, it is evident that there is no authorization to enact laws either amendments to entity constitutions. Normative powers of the high representative would be contrary to the First Protocol of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, because the democratic principle of the sovereignty of the people requires that laws should be adopted by a body elected by the people. In addition, it would be contrary to Annex 4 - the Constitution of BiH and the constitutions of the entities, according to which the parliament is the body that enacts laws and amends the constitutions.

Srbija između zapadnog individualizma i pravoslavnog kolektivizma

The paper discusses the problems that come with the contradictions between individualism and collectivism. Discussions about these contradictions are still present in academic circles today. In Eastern European countries, individualism became relevant after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Up to then, the collectivist spirit prevailed. By accepting neoliberalism, post-socialist Eastern European countries began economic reform, including further educational reform, health reform, cultural reform, etc. This reform also meant the transition from collectivism to individualism because modern neoliberal capitalism belongs to individualism, in which the main focus is on the individual as the largest consumer. The transition to neoliberal capitalism led to a considerable number of workers losing their jobs after the liberalization, deregulation, and privatization of the Serbian economy, resulting in the lifeless demographic image of Serbia, which worsens significantly yearly. Today, Serbia remains without a working-age population, which, in addition to young and highly educated workers, also consists of artisans of various occupations. For the Serbian political elites, the path to the EU does not lead to the question. We've been on that road for twenty years, and it doesn't seem like we've moved much since the beginning. According to the principle, "one step forward, two steps back."

Perception of the creation of a ‘Muslim state’ in intercepted telephone conversations between the serbian political elite 1991-1992.

During 1991, the security services of Bosnia and Herzegovina began to monitor the telephone conversations of high-ranking officials of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). These recorded conversations reveal part of the truth to the preparations for the war and the genocide that followed. Intercepted conversations also show the connections that Serbian officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina had with Belgrade, that is, with Slobodan Milošević and other officials of the Yugoslav leadership. These conversations were recorded until the beginning of the aggression, that is, until they left the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March and April 1992, by persons whose phones were tapped. This paper will deal with conversations that were recorded in the period from May 1991 to March 1992. One of the most common topics of these conversations was the issue of Islam, that is, the thematization of terms such as „Islamic Republic“, „Islamic Declaration“, „Islamic way of life“, „Islamic fundamentalism“, etc. The paper shows how the Serbian political elite used this terminology to instill fear in public opinion, but to a certain extent they also believed that an increased birth rate would lead to the establishment of a Muslim-majority state. For the purposes of writing this paper, research was done on primary sources, i.e. transcripts of intercepted conversations. The transcripts were used as evidence by the Prosecutor's Office of the Hague Tribunal during the trial of high-ranking Serbian officials. In addition to the research, sorting and analysis of the transcripts, this paper will also identify the most prominent participants in the conversation of the Serbian leadership. Also, given the aforementioned specificity of telephone conversations through their private nature, it is possible to dissect important topics in the conversations, which are often not military and political, and will contribute to finding additional answers. This makes these conversations even more important because they show a more intimate side of the genocidal strategist. Participants such as high-ranking officials Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Biljana Plavšić, Nikola Koljević, Momčilo Krajišnik, Dobrica Čosić and others, shows what and how those at the top thought in their private telephone conversations in those days in 1991 and 1992. On the other hand, through the conversations, one can see how well the SDS leadership managed the situation on the ground. Low-ranking figures who performed various political and social tasks such as Todor Dutin, director of the SRNA, Rajko Dukić, president of the SDS Executive Committee and a local strongman in Milići appear in the conversations; Vojo Kuprešanin, member of the Main Board of SDS and a key man in Krajina; Vitomir Žepinić, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Radoslav Brđanin, head of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, Zvonko Bajagić, a prominent member of the SDS in Vlasenica, Gojko Đogo, writer and essayist, a close friend of Karadžić, Momčilo Momo Mandić, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina and later wartime Minister of Justice of the so-called „Republic Serbian“,; Trifko Komad, head of Radovan Karadžić's Cabinet and member of the SDS Main Board and many others. Also, what is important to mention is the visible 'radicalization' of the participants in the talks. As the political situation on the ground worsened, hate speech and threats became more frequent and serious. This paper aims to further approach this important topic of intercepted conversations and to popularize its greater use in scientific research works. With the advancement of technology and means of communication, the primary sources for research are slowly shifting and taking on a new look. Thus, this paper also tries to analyze these intercepted conversations to give some insight into the complexity of understanding the genocidal intentions of the Bosnian Serb leadership.

Sarajevska politička elita i zavođenje šestojanuarskog režima 1929. godine

The introduction of the personal regime of King Alexander on January 6, 1929 caused different reactions among Serbian, Croatian, and Muslim political elites in Sarajevo, but there was no open resistance towards the regime. On the basis of available archival sources, it can be concluded that the introduction of the dictatorship in the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the region of Sarajevo, was approved by the majority of population and a certain number of political and public workers, regardless of their religion, nationality or political orientation. On the other hand, the leading figure of Yugoslav Muslim Organisation, Mehmed Spaho, officially approved the new regime, but also unofficially used every single opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with it. But unlike him, Dr Juraj Šutejex-member of Parliament and member of Croatian Peasant Party, who was considered a leader of that party in Bosnia and Herzegovina-was openly sceptical towards a new political state in the country. At about the same time, he was actively leading secret political action in consultation with the party leadership in Zagreb. When it comes to Serbian political elites in Sarajevo, they honestly supported the new regime and some of them even actively took part in the new political system.

Vojne klike u srpskoj strateškoj kulturi 20. veka

Throughout the entire 20th century, the Serbian strategic culture was "torn" by various discontinuities, from the state system, through foreign policy and ideological, to strategic and doctrinal orientation, and it can be said that discontinuity is almost its only constant. Nevertheless, the existence of military cliques can be considered to be one of the constants of the Serbian strategic culture. They followed the Serbian Army and influenced the political life of the Kingdom of Serbia. The dynastic coup of May 1903 can be taken as an example of their actions. After that, younger conspirators established the so-called Black Hand, whose leader was Colonel Apis, who was shot after the Thessaloniki process in 1917. The interwar period was marked by the action of the so-called White Hand, under the leadership of General Petar Živković, which was active until the assassination of King Alexander Karađorđević in Marseilles in 1934. The Second Yugoslavia even had a formalized "military clique" represented in the League of Communists, which was an integral part of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia at federal level, together with the republican leagues. Thus, the influence of the party on the military organization was secured, and the influence of the army in the society was also "secured" by its representation in the party forum at federal level. Consequently, the Serbian political elite welcomed the dissolution of the SFRY with perhaps the only constant in its strategic culture, and that is the reliance on the military in resolving political crises, which can be vividly presented by the statement of Slobodan Milosević: "We do not know how to work, but we know how to fight".

POLITIČKE PRILIKE U SRBIJI I NARODNI POSLANICI IZ OKRUGA KRAGUJEVAČKOG U NARODNOJ SKUPŠTINI SRBIJE 1908-1912. g.

The annexation crisis (1908-1909) deeply affected the national interests of Serbia and the political life in the country. In the period 1908-1912, in the conditions of a possible crisis, political pluralism, the influence of the army, increased foreign policy pressure for the recognition of the annexation, the Serbian parliament was in session and made important decisions. Despite the difficulties in Serbia, on the domestic, political and foreign policy level, liberal-democratic institutions were gradually established, which placed the Serbian state among the modern parliamentary democracies in Europe. The deputies elected in elections in May 1908 in Serbia represented the Serbian political elite, which formed during this period. Once again, it showed that the Serbian people are capable and mature and will respond to all external and internal challenges in difficult political decision-making moments to found a modern Serbian state.

The Hybrid Discourse of the Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution

AbstractThis article investigates the discursive logic of the antibureaucratic revolution through discourse analysis of three Serbian dailies:Politika,Borba, andVečernje Novosti.We conceptualize this discursive logic as a “hybrid discourse,” employed by Slobodan Milošević’s faction of the political elite and by prominent Serbian press outlets in their discussions and reporting on the diverse Serbian protest movements of the day. The core of the hybrid discourse, as our analysis demonstrates, consisted of the symbolic interweaving of different types of citizens’ discontent in order to present them as one single demand for societal “reform” that resonated with the agenda of the Serbian political elite. We argue that the hybrid discourse and the antibureaucratic revolution itself had a structural role related to the crisis of systemic legitimacy in Yugoslavia. The hybrid discourse performed the operation of what we term the “reversing of the symbolic fixing of antagonism between the ordinary actors’ discontents and the structurally inevitable reforms,” introducing instead the discursive fusion of the two vocabularies.

„Putovati i stalno pomerati cilj”: Nemačka i srpski državni narativ o evro-integracijama

European integration process has been one of the dominant topics in Serbian political agenda ever since the regime-change and the restoration of democracy in 2000. Social and economic reforms related to that process are metaphorically represented in Serbian political and public discourse as the “European path” of Serbia. It is a variant of the “Path to Democracy” metaphor and the idea behind it is the assumption that democracy is the most moral form of government (Lakoff 1999). The EU and its political, social and economic system are presented as the best model for the future of Serbia and the EU influence is openly accepted by the Serbian political elite as an integral part of policy-making process (Stojic 2006). Since this complex political, social and economic transition, commonly referred to as “reforms” in political and public discourse, often implies painful changes for different groups of Serbian society, it is important to present it not only as a desirable and necessary but also as an inevitable process. This is accomplished by a careful choice of argumentative tools that the Serbian political elite apply to discursively construct the Serbian Euro-integration process (“the European path” of Serbia). This discourse is an important part of Serbian state narrative, since it explains relations with other states and determines directions of definition for both internal and external politics. Because state narratives are an effective tool for spreading state ideologies, it is important to analyze them in order to better understand the political discourse and the actions it motivates within a society. Therefore, I build on existing scholarship on two important elements of Serbian state narrative on the European integration process, the conceptual metaphor and the cognitive frame, to examine ways in which this narrative is used by political actors to promote their political agenda, namely, the social, political and economic reforms Serbia is obliged to carry out in order to join the EU. Special attention is dedicated to the new framing of Germany, presented and perceived in public as a state with the crucial role for the success of Serbian “European path”. The corpus is composed of statements of the current president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and media reports on his activities, covering the topic of European integration process and the role of Germany in it. This particular corpus is chosen because of the prominent role Aleksandar Vucic has played in Serbian politics in the last several years, serving the most important political functions of Deputy Prime Minister, Prime Minister and President-elect, which makes him currently the key policy-maker in Serbia. The chronological span of the corpus is the period from the rise of this politician to power in 2012 till 2017, when he became President-elect of Serbia. My analysis shows that this political actor: a) metaphorically constructs the European integration process as the “European path of Serbia”; b) presents Serbian-German relations through new cognitive frames, by strategically using the traditional Serbian narrative on Germans and their states. In doing so, he deactivates the well-established frame of aggression and threat posed by the Germans and activates the equally rooted frame of Germans as disciplined and hard-working people. Using the metaphor “Nation/ State is a Person”, where national mentalities correspond to personal characteristics of an individual, Vucic emphasizes positive characteristics of German mentality as the model that Serbs should look upon in order to be successful in their “European path”. The objective of this frame change is to further promote and justify the social, political and economic reforms carried out in the transition process of Serbia, since these reforms often prove to be harmful for numerous groups in the Serbian society (the so called “victims of transition”). The structure of the paper is as follows: I first present the key theoretical concepts (state narrative, conceptual metaphor and cognitive frame) and then apply them to the qualitative analysis of the corpus. Certain discursive patterns have been observed both in Vucic’s statements and the media coverage of his activities. Relaying on theoretical framework based on postulates of cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (which is interested in the ways language/ discourse contributes to the dynamics of power relations within a society), I offer possible explanations of meanings and functions of the observed discursive patterns. The results of the analysis confirm the importance of the strategic use of state narratives in political discourse as a part of the process of creation of new meanings and promotion of political agendas.

The Influence of Politics on the Judiciary in Serbia: The Failed Reform of the Judiciary As an Example

The discussion on the impact of politics and politicians on the judiciary was evident in 1990 and the beginning of party pluralism in Serbia. Despite the existence of political consensus about necessity of judiciary reform, it is obvious that efforts of previous governments did not bring about much progress in this area. The modernization of the Serbian judiciary and enhancement of its efficiency have been the starting points of the judiciary reform since 2010. Although the main goal of the reform was an improvement of the situation in the Serbian judiciary, the the entire procedural framework of the judicial reform was and still is seriously criticized. The decision of the Constitutional Court of Serbia in July 2012 confirms that reform of Serbian judiciary was not conducted in a democratic manner. Judicial independence as one of the basic democratic principles is an important indicator of the political maturity of a society. It is clear that Serbian political elite did not have the courage to realize the political promises that they gave to their voters. Serbian society needs to work a lot on implementation of the fundamental reforms in order to fulfil the conditions for the full membership in the European Union.

Bieber, Florian; Galija, Armina and Archer, Rory (eds) Debating the End of Yugoslavia (review)

SEER, 93, 4, OCTOBER 2015 788 (although Lyons does not use the word) evoke the oft-cited Czech tradition of ‘Švejkism’. Overall, Adjectives of Democracy is a long and slightly uneven work, whose detailed and sometimes highly technical discussions of the statistical testing of public opinion can sit uneasily with broad-brush theoretical discussions of democracy and political behaviour; explorations of the political thought of Rosanvallon and others; and historically-oriented accounts of the Prague Spring. The Czech lands emerge, moreover, as an awkward case for the empirical testing of ideas about democratic indeterminacy in public opinion: ultimately, it is unclear whether the complex patterns of public opinion revealed should be read as an example of the inherent ambiguity of attitudes to democracy in many societies, or seen more narrowly as an account of the (transmuted) legacy of one country’s democratic tradition across different regimes. The richness of the book’s empirical findings and the originality of its Rosanvalloniantakeonpublicopinionresearch,however,morethancompensate for such flaws. Adjectives of Democracy will certainly be an important point of reference both for researchers concerned with the development of democracy in the Czech case and those seeking to ask more searching questions of the longerterm evolution of public opinion in East and Central Europe. UCL SSEES Seán Hanley Bieber, Florian; Galijaš, Armina and Archer, Rory (eds). Debating the End of Yugoslavia.SoutheastEuropeanStudies.Ashgate,FarnhamandBurlington, VT, 2014. xiii + 261 pp. Illustration. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. £65.00. Nationalism enjoys growing appeal in the present European timeframe. Post-nationalist formations like the European Union are being thrown onto the defensive as a result. Perhaps it is the apt moment for the appearance of a book exploring how academic scholarship has treated the dissolution of another experimental post-national entity, Yugoslavia, and subsequent wars in many of its constituent parts. In a short but incisive chapter, Eric Gordy indicates that since 1991 researchers have ‘concentrated overwhelmingly on the top level of institutions, especially political and military’ (p. 11). Elsewhere in this volume, there are at least two chapters in this tradition, a reassessment of Miloşević as a ‘saviour’ of the Communist regime and the attitude of Serbian political elites to the VanceOwen Peace Plan. Such studies are justified because, as Gordy himself is the first to admit: ‘the failure of the Yugoslav state was a massive failure of institutions at many levels and the violence that accompanied the failure was organized […] through institutions’ (p. 11). REVIEWS 789 But a number of authors contend that there is insufficient understanding of socialchangeandthewaysinwhichitcontributedtopoliticalandsocialdivisions. Rory Archer seeks to revive interest in the impact of social class on the microexperiences of war. He believes that phenomena like ‘eliticide’ in Bosnia and the impoverishment of the middle classes, have been explored but not sufficiently in relation to class structures. Armina Galijaš, for her part, makes a case for the study of everyday lives, Lebenswelt, or everyday structures, attitudes, codes and norms of life. The rapid development of rent-seeking and formation of criminal elites and their consolidation in the upheavals of the 1990s is a neglected area crying out for research (however exacting that might prove to be). Gordy believes that there are models available from Russia and Sicily which help to shed light on the uglier features of political and social change in post-1989 Southeast Europe. This timely-collection of good-quality essays on the state of scholarship in the post-Yugoslav sphere finds that too much of the scholarship is characterized by methodological shortcomings. Josip Glaurdić homes in on plentiful leftist critiques of international policies towards Yugoslavia and its successor states. He find that much of this ’scholarly work’ is characterized by ‘source selection bias, distortions of the record of events, and serious mistreatment of historical evidence’ (p. 26). Crude imperialist stereotypes were used to perpetuate hostility towards the role of assertive German diplomacy during the initial stage of the break-up of Yugoslavia. He finds that even the most cited scholarly book on the dissolution of Yugoslavia managed to display a high level of factual imprecision concerning key events. Glaurdic also pleads for care in assessing the body of work of The Hague Tribunal (ICTY). He points out that...

Impression management of a contested past: Serbia’s evolving national calendar

The basic argument outlined in this article is that the Serbian political elite has managed Serbia’s contested past through covering and cultural reframing rather than public acknowledgement. I show here that in the creation of a current Serbian calendar, as a state-sponsored practice, there is an extensive usage of impression management techniques which enabled a different reading of the calendar at both the domestic and international levels. It is further claimed that the calendar serves multiple functions and meanings: on the one hand, it tends to present Serbia as a democratic and progressive state, but on the other hand, it legitimizes a wide range of emotions at the local level. In other words, the new Serbian calendar is made both to meet European expectations and further Serbian interests to join the European Union, but also to allow wider audiences in Serbia to express feelings of animosity, injustice, and frustration as a means of settling historical accounts.

Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist Leadership and the National Question by Hilde Katrine Haug (review)

REVIEWS 929 his book with a discourse on why Gagarin chose to say ‘Poekhali! (Let’s go!)’ before being launched into space. I can’t think of anything else to say, and I’m not sure it’s like saying ‘Geronimo!’ in English. In any event, poekhali! Colby College, Maine Paul Josephson Haug, Hilde Katrine. Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist Leadership and the National Question. I. B. Taurus, London and New York, 2012. ix + 455 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £65.00. One can only admire Hilde Katrine Haug’s perseverance in researching and writingherstudyoftheYugoslavCommunistParty’schangingstrategytowards the national question; in addition to consulting a wide variety of secondary sources, she seems to have ploughed through hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of arcane and soporific party congresses and conferences, turgid ‘theoretical’ writings, often incomprehensible official documents, and longwinded speeches party leaders made over a fifty-year period. Unfortunately, there is not a lot new to show for such diligence: for the most part, the debates and discussions she describes are well known and have been covered in some detail elsewhere. Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia is thus a useful — if poorly written and edited — recap of the twists and turns of party debates and policies dealing with the national question in Yugoslavia. Descriptions of debates, including some long forgotten ones, are accurate, detailed, fair and multisided, and the author makes an almost heroic — albeit not entirely successful — attempt to explain and clarify Edvard Kardelj’s theories. Her discussion of the evolution of the thinking of Serbian political elites and intellectuals in the face of the special difficulties the republic faced in trying to govern itself with two autonomous provincesisparticularlyinteresting;heraccountoftheambiguitiesandchanges in where the locus of sovereignty was placed in the successive constitutions and amendments testifies to just how contested this question was. Nevertheless, the volume contains surprisingly little theoretical or causal analysis. Dr Haug accurately details the various forks in the road and who favoured one direction over another, but gives us little sense of why one policy or leadership choice was actually selected over an alternative. For example, Haug explains Slovene objections to ‘socialist Yugoslavism’ quite clearly, but why those objections led to the wholesale abandonment of federal attempts to develop a ‘Yugoslav’ civic identity that would reflect and complement — without replacing — the individual national cultures is not explained. Likewise, the policy and preferences of the ‘liberal’ Serbian leadership that came to power in 1968 are clearly and perceptively outlined. Quite unlike their counterparts in Croatia, Nikezić and Perović seemed to have the situation in SEER, 91, 4, OCTOBER 2013 930 Serbia under control and were carrying out exactly the measures demanded in the post-Ranković order. A good explanation for why they were so abruptly forced out in 1972 has never really been given — but none is forthcoming in this study, either. Dr Haug does suggest that quite a number of apparently arbitrary decisions, including this one, were made by Tito personally. It is easy to believe this was indeed the case, but she does not really attempt to find an underlying rationale to his choices at various key junctures. Similarly, the volume deals at length with the constitutional revisions of the 1960s and ’70s, but why they were initiated at all is never directly confronted. In particular, why decisions to give enterprises more autonomy and market forces greater sway in the economy also entailed transferring huge swathes of regulatory power to republic governments is never examined. But it was precisely the use (or abuse) of just such powers by the republics that sabotaged economic reform everywhere, exacerbating the economic problems the reforms were designed to address. In this regard, perhaps the volume’s most serious shortcoming is its failure to take serious account of Yugoslavia’s postwar economic performance, a factor inextricably interwoven with national and regional disagreements at every stage. Insofar as the attraction of socialism in a country like Yugoslavia was precisely its promise of rapid economic development and diminishing regional inequalities, the Communist Party’s initial claim that socialism ‘solved’ the national question was not so obviously implausible. And indeed, even in Yugoslavia, national tensions remained manageable as long as the economy was growing...

Imagining and managing the nation: tracing citizenship policies in Serbia

This paper explores the most salient features of the reshaping of the state–territory–nation triangle in Serbia over the last 20 years, through the lenses of citizenship regime. It looks at the ways in which the dominant political narrative in Serbia has imagined political community and accordingly managed its members. During the period of violent Yugoslav break-up and Milošević's rule, the Serbian citizenship regime was surprisingly ‘civic’, while post-2000 liberalisation has introduced ethnic elements which are likely to be further strengthened. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the specific goals of Serbian political elites to maintain control over population and territory in changing political circumstances. I will argue that the legacy of different attempts at defining the relation between the Serbian state and the Serb people, coupled with the wider context of Yugoslav conflicts and post-conflict developments in the region, led to an unconsolidated citizenship regime in Serbia with varying and contested conceptions about how to achieve congruence of state, territory and nation.

Serbia between East and West

AbstractThis article critically examines contemporary narratives which frame Serbian politics as a conflict between supporters of a pro-European Union (EU) policy and supporters of closer ties with Russia. Contrary to this narrative, contemporary Serbian political actors increasingly present policies and platforms oriented towards both the European Union and Russia. These developments reflect the contradictory legacies arising from the history of Serbian and Russian diplomatic relations along with the sometimes ambivalent implications of Russia's stance on the issue of Kosovo's independence, Serbian public attitudes towards Russia, and recent developments in Serbian-Russian economic relations. Given the long time frame for EU membership and the current impasse over issues like Kosovo and Serbia's potential NATO membership, Serbia's leaders currently enjoy the luxury of simultaneously deepening ties with both the EU and Russia. However, a future linkage between Kosovo's independence and EU membership and/or the possibility of Serbia's joining NATO will likely present Serbian political elites with mutually-exclusive choices bearing important implications for their relations with either Russia or the EU.

Explaining Difficult States

Why has Serbia’s path toward European integration been fraught with so much difficulty? This article explains Serbia’s reluctance to Europeanize by exploring why Serbian elites persistently refused to fulfill the European Union’s principal requirement—full cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal—even when it meant getting off the road to Brussels. The article offers a theoretical framework that incorporates domestic political identity, power of veto players, and competing elite strategies to explain how Serbian political actors used European Union norms and institutions to advance local political agendas. The article concludes that, instead of being a successful change agent that brought about policy shift in the areas of democratization and human rights, the European Union was used on many occasions by Serbian political elites to pursue strategies far removed from EU norms and standards.