A Just Future for Serbia? The Potential and the Limits of Resistance to Authoritarianism

Contrary to expectations, the historic mobilizations in Serbia persisted uninterrupted over the summer. They continued not only in major urban centers but also in smaller towns. In this article, feminists and researchers from Albania and North Macedonia, respectively, Gresa Hasa and Lura Pollozhani, take a critical look at the potential and limits of this relentless resistance to authoritarianism.

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In recent weeks, the streets of several cities in Serbia have become battlegrounds between anti-government protesters, state security forces, and pro-regime groups mobilized to provoke unrest. Hundreds of demonstrators have been detained, and dozens more are reported injured. Regime-backed enforcers have deployed various pyrotechnic devices and on at least one occasion, an individual affiliated with the Military Police Special Operations Detachment ‘Cobras’ was observed waving a firearm and discharging it into the air to intimidate protesters in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city after Belgrade. Meanwhile, police and gendarmerie troops have either facilitated the actions of these groups or directly engaged in the use of brutal physical force against citizens, including threatening female student protesters with sexual violence.

What began as student-led protests following the collapse of the newly renovated railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024 gradually expanded to include broader segments of society. For the past nine months of uninterrupted demonstrations against systemic corruption and the regime of Aleksandar Vučić, protesters have engaged in peaceful gatherings and acts of civil disobedience, including occupying universities, blocking streets, and marching on foot across the country and in EU capitals such as Brussels and Strasbourg to draw attention to their cause.

Regime change against the interests of Western partners

The increasingly nervous regime is confronting its most severe legitimacy crisis to date. Rather than instilling fear, its repeated response of intensifying repressive measures has backfired by strengthening unity and fueling further mobilization. Contrary to expectations, demonstrations have persisted uninterrupted over the summer, not only in major urban centers, but also in smaller towns. According to the Center for Research, Transparency, and Accountability’s (CRTA) latest survey, 61% of the population of Serbia supports the students in their campaign against corruption and their broader calls for systemic reform. Speculations about regime change have circulated repeatedly in recent months, particularly given that these demonstrations are not ordinary protests but historic mobilizations. To date, they have surpassed in scale even the protests in the year 2000 that ultimately led to the fall of Slobodan Milošević.

However, it is important to note that Vučić still has significant external legitimacy from Serbia’s Western partners, especially the European Union (EU). Key EU member states, such as Germany and France, have geostrategic and economic interests in Serbia, including access to raw materials. On July 19, 2024, Serbia and the European Commission (EC) signed an EU-lithium agreement in the presence of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Scholz praised the deal as a step toward EU integration while ignoring Serbia’s accelerating democratic backsliding and resistance to the agreement. His successor, Friedrich Merz, holds the same position.

Over the past nine months, Serbia has witnessed numerous high-profile visits amid ongoing student protests, yet EU officials have largely remained silent about the situation on the ground. Only recently did Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos tentatively break her silence and neutrality, acknowledging that the demands of the student movement closely align with EU standards. However, she has so far failed to follow up with any concrete measures to support that statement.

Maintaining cohesion within the coercive apparatus

Vučić’s appeasement effectively reinforces his position as international actors continue to view him as a stabilitocrat capable of preserving domestic and regional order. This external recognition is a key factor in delaying potential regime change. On the one hand, it strengthens the loyalty of the political and corporate elite within Serbia. On the other hand, it enables the regime to secure economic and diplomatic resources that can be used to sustain patronage networks and fund repression of protesters.

In this regard, the potential for regime change is largely limited to domestic dynamics. The government’s growing reliance on violence and repression carries the inherent risk of a backlash. Sustained harm against protesters could reach a tipping point, heightening public outrage and increasing pressure on demonstrators and pro-regime actors alike. In such a scenario, the regime’s vulnerabilities are most pronounced within Vučić’s own support networks. Even minor breaches, such as police or security forces refusing to carry out orders or individual actors defecting from patronage arrangements, could quickly shift the balance of power.

In other words, the regime’s survival depends on maintaining cohesion within its coercive apparatus. Any cracks in this structure could accelerate the transition to a new regime. However, since these relationships are fundamentally transactional, defections are unlikely as long as material or political benefits continue to flow to elite loyalists. Expecting them to act out of moral conviction would be naive.

Opposition within and without ‘the opposition’

Unfortunately, no matter how important these dynamics are, they are insufficient to guarantee sustainable change. In Serbia, it is important to note that the opposition and the student movement do not currently constitute a unified front. Disillusioned with the existing political parties, students have refused to align with them, instead proposing their own list of candidates in calls for early elections. In the short term, this approach appears promising as it brings new faces into a political arena where most parties – including those in the opposition – are mired in allegations of corruption and abuse of power. However, sustainability in the long term remains uncertain, particularly if individuals with limited or no political experience are entrusted with governance responsibilities in an already politically fragile context.

The protesting students belong to a generation that was raised in the shadow of Vučić’s propaganda machine. For most of them, Vučić has been either the prime minister or president of Serbia for as long as they can remember, and certainly since they developed a political consciousness. Their defiance of the regime has ignited hope across the country and the region. Confronting the only political order one has ever known is no small feat. For a moment, it seemed the students were succeeding. However, as the movement continued, it exposed the government’s vulnerabilities, as well as the students’ own vulnerabilities, where cracks have started to show.

This is precisely what the regime relies on – that the longer it endures, the more students will lose momentum. For this reason, every step forward is critical, so ultimately, it is the regime and its practices that falter and collapse. The state’s growing violence and arrogance in the face of demands for justice suggest its potential decline, while the students’ embrace of nationalist narratives indicates a significant misstep.

Why does this movement matter?

The students’ most hopeful achievement is their bottom-up practice of democracy and care. In deliberate contrast to the government’s centralized, arbitrary rule driven by the whims of a single figure, the students have fostered democratic environments where every voice carries weight and none dominates. By doing so, they have not only resisted, but also nurtured one another, weaving new bonds and identities into a shared collective. This kind of prefigurative politics was also exercised in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the student plenums, as well as in North Macedonia. These spaces opened alternative visions of what society could look like. The mobilization of students in Serbia created a vision for a new kind of Serbia, which is why they received support not only within the country but also from beyond its borders.

Through mass protests, the occupation of the streets further extended these practices of care. Students and citizens alike persisted and supported one another, even in the face of state violence. They demonstrated – and continue to demonstrate – that the Vučić regime is not untouchable. The regime’s growing anxiety as the protests outlasted the summer and head into a second autumn makes clear that it can be challenged. However, the presence of nationalist and far-right elements within the student protests, coupled with the movement’s considerable tolerance of them, especially as it has grown, reveals a fragility that could undermine the students’ democratic and inclusive ideals. This is because nationalism risks emboldening authoritarianism instead of dismantling it.

The danger of nationalism

The protest on June 28, which coincided with St. Vitus Day in Serbia – a symbolic date commemorating the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when Serbian forces clashed with the Ottoman army, an event that has historically influenced Serbia’s national identity – exposed these vulnerabilities further. The event’s dominant speeches emphasized Serbia’s claims over the Republic of Kosovo and promoted other territorial ambitions in neighboring countries, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The speeches also invoked far-right ideological figures, such as Nikolaj Velimirović, an early twentieth-century cleric whose work has become a touchstone for Serbia’s current ultra-nationalist and clerical-fascist movements. Yet nationalism is Vučić’s domain, and he is adept at playing that game.

Although there might have been reasons to tolerate nationalism and right-wing extremism at the start of the protests, such as strategic decisions to maintain unity against the regime, this cannot justify nationalism, rhetorical attacks against neighboring countries, or erasing the lived experiences of Serbia’s neighboring peoples. Perhaps this represents the true test of how far the students can go in challenging the system in which they were raised and the deeply ingrained narratives shaped by their upbringing. Unfortunately, it also reveals the enduring influence of context and propaganda on even the most motivated young activists.

Nationalism remains a pervasive challenge in the region, affecting nearly all movements. During North Macedonia’s Colorful Revolution (2015–2016), protesters strived to place citizens at the heart of the narrative despite certain limitations. This focus generated a new vision for the country and contributed to the end of the right-wing, nationalist VMRO-DPMNE regime (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity). However, the failure to institutionalize this vision may explain why VMRO-DPMNE returned to power.

The responsibility of society as a whole

This demonstrates that combating authoritarian parties, practices, and ideologies is not the responsibility of a single movement; rather, it is the responsibility of society as a whole – citizens collectively defending democratic values, pluralism, and the prospect of a just future. For this reason, acknowledging and criticizing nationalism within the student protests in Serbia is important beyond the movement itself.

Despite hopes for regime change and the challenges the student movement faces, both internally and in relation to an increasingly oppressive and authoritarian regime, the protests reveal the possibilities and limits of grassroots democracy. The protests demonstrate how citizens can challenge authoritarian power, nurture collective care, and envision a more just and inclusive society. However, they also expose the fragility of these efforts amid enduring nationalist narratives, internal divisions, and systemic constraints.

The success of these protests in promoting democratic values and shaping Serbia’s and the region’s political culture depends on protesters’ ability to resist nationalist rhetoric, cooperate with democratic actors within the system, anticipate cracks in Vučić’s circles, and commit to inclusive, citizen-centered politics that can translate grassroots mobilization into lasting institutional change. In this regard, the student movement is a test of Serbia’s ability to build a pluralistic, democratic future from the ground up.