Facing protests in Serbia: patterns of new competitive authoritarianism

Abstract

Recent literature suggests that the competitive authoritarian regimes emerging in the twenty-first century are more subtle and nuanced in comparison to the old regimes of the 1990s. Aiming to understand these differences in greater depth, this article explores how new competitive authoritarian regimes react to mass protests. The article focuses on the case of Serbia, a country where protests have been widespread both during the old regime of the 1990s and the current regime. Analysing five protests waves in the past decade, we were able to identify three dominant strategic interactions of the regime with the protests, all of which contrast significantly with those employed by the old regime. First, in contrast to protest bans and oppression mechanisms used by the old regime, the new regime tends to allow, and strategically ignore protests. Second, while in the past police violence was widespread, there is an apparent police absence from the protests nowadays. Finally, there is a clear difference in the ways the two regimes portray the “Others”. While in the 1990s the international enemies were clearly identified and explicitly evoked, the new regime tends to make vague and contradictory claims about diverse but unspecific international and regional enemies behind protests.