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Student movements are forcing uncomfortable questions about governance.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
Protests in Serbia continued over the weekend, more than three months after they started. The demonstrations, primarily led by students, were sparked by the collapse of a newly reconstructed canopy at the Novi Sad railway station last November, resulting in the deaths of 15 people. Protesters accuse the government of corruption and negligence, and they demand full transparency in the construction process, the prosecution of the people responsible, and an end to what they describe as systemic state mismanagement. The movement has since expanded to include broader grievances against the administration of President Aleksandar Vucic regarding corruption, a lack of accountability and the suppression of dissent.
Despite government attempts to quell the unrest, the movement has grown only stronger. Beyond students, the demonstrations have received significant support from other groups, including professors, teachers, farmers and various labor unions – all of whom see the protests as part of a larger struggle against government corruption and mismanagement.
These are the largest protests in Serbia since the 1990s, and considering that they have been going on for months, the students and their supporters seem determined to continue their fight for justice. The movement has already resulted in the resignations of several government officials, including Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, two ministers and the mayor of Novi Sad, but protesters say these resignations are not enough. As protests persist, the Serbian government faces mounting pressure to address the demands of its citizens and confront the deeper issues of corruption and governance failures that have fueled this wave of unrest.
The movement has resonated with others in the Balkans. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, student protests erupted in Sarajevo on Feb. 10 in response to the government's perceived inaction following floods in October that left nearly 30 dead. Initially, many expected the authorities to investigate the causes of the disaster, particularly the role illegal quarrying plays in the destabilization of the nearby terrain. However, after months of inaction, lack of accountability, and no significant measures to prevent similar disasters in the future, public outrage boiled over, leading students and activists to take to the streets. Like their Serbian counterparts, protesters in Bosnia are demanding greater government accountability and stricter oversight of construction projects.
In Montenegro, protests erupted after a mass shooting left more than a dozen people, including two children, dead in January. These protests – also driven by students – are demanding accountability from top security officials. Demonstrators have called for the resignation of the interior minister and the deputy prime minister who oversees security matters. Protesters argue that the mass shooting was a consequence of a broken system, irresponsible actions by authorities and lax gun control. The movement has gained momentum, with thousands rallying in various cities throughout the country.
What’s unfolding is a challenge not just to individual leaders but also to the very foundations of the country's political systems. Protesters see the political elite – the government and the opposition alike – as corrupt, self-serving and incapable of ensuring even basic security for the population. In rejecting both, the movement raises a fundamental question about the future of governance in these countries: What kind of political system is equipped to address the challenges of contemporary society? This question is not unique to the Balkans. Throughout Europe, anti-establishment and populist movements are similarly questioning the legitimacy and effectiveness of traditional political structures, highlighting a growing crisis of representation and a broader struggle over how societies should be governed.
This crisis of representation and governance is part of a larger historical trajectory in which different models of democracy compete for legitimacy, even as nostalgia for the past shapes contemporary political debates. In many parts of Europe, there is a longing for the perceived stability and security of previous eras, be they socialist periods in former communist states or postwar welfare states in Western democracies. This sentiment often fuels both populist and authoritarian-leaning movements, which draw from historical narratives and sometimes reject post-Cold War consensus as they present themselves as alternatives to the liberal democratic order.
Though the Cold War is often remembered as a geopolitical struggle between the West and the Soviet Union, it was also an ideological battle fought between capitalism, represented by liberal democracy, and communism, embodied by popular democracy. Communism had never been rejected as fascism had been after World War II – communism was on the winning side, after all – so it survived, adapted and restructured itself in various forms. In China, it evolved into consultative democracy, a system in which the Communist Party remains the central authority but governance incorporates limited input from select social groups and expert consultations without direct electoral competition. In Russia, it took the shape of sovereign democracy, whereby elections exist but are tightly controlled by the state to maintain centralized power, ensuring that political outcomes align with the interests of the ruling elite. These alternative governance models have allowed authoritarian-leaning regimes to maintain legitimacy while sidelining the pluralism and political competition that define liberal democracy.
These models have shaped the political transition of Balkan states just as much as the liberal democratic model has. While Western European nations have long-standing liberal democratic institutions, Eastern European countries have undergone difficult transitions to establish their own systems of governance. Despite the challenges they faced, the countries that joined the European Union eventually built liberal democracies as a necessary adjunct of European integration. But in the Balkans, this transition has been far more complex. The wars of the 1990s delayed democratic development, leaving most countries struggling to consolidate their political systems and fully establish democratic governance.
The West has strongly supported the idea that liberal democracy is the best way to govern former communist states and develop stable and prosperous societies. However, as EU integration eludes the Western Balkans and the influence of Russia and China grows, alternative models of governance have gained traction, challenging the dominance of liberal democracy as the only viable path forward.
Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia have yet to fully establish themselves as stable liberal democracies; they often rank as flawed or hybrid regimes, depending on which international assessment you cite. These countries have pursued EU integration and received EU funding, but they have also maintained strong ties with Russia and China, both of which have sought to expand their influence in the region. China has done so primarily through investment and participation in infrastructure projects, while Russia has maintained political and economic connections. These overlapping influences have shaped the current political elite, which have learned to navigate and negotiate with every side possible as they consolidate power rather than learn to build a coherent and stable political system. With EU integration progressing slowly – and in some cases not at all – there has been little real pressure to undertake the democratic reforms other post-communist countries implemented. Instead, political leaders in the region have mastered the art of appearing to build liberal democracy – just enough to secure EU funding – while leveraging their relationships with China and Russia to reinforce their own positions of power.
Therefore, decades after the collapse of communism and the wars of the 1990s, these states continue to grapple with weak institutions and entrenched corruption, and their political elites are resistant to meaningful reform. The protests unfolding in the Balkans, then, are not just about governance failures; they represent a deeper social reckoning with the region’s unfinished business of democratization. In many ways, these movements are forcing a long-overdue confrontation with questions that have lingered since these nations first embarked on their post-communist transitions: What does democracy truly mean in this region? And can a system that has repeatedly failed its citizens be reformed, or does it need to be completely reimagined? While there are no clear answers yet, the very act of asking these questions – through mass mobilization and sustained protests – is already shaking the political landscape, potentially setting the stage for a period of uncertainty and potential instability throughout the region.
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