The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans: Causes and Effects

Jasmin Mujanovic will give a presentation on ‘The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans: Causes and Effects’ at this seminar organised by the UCL SSEES South-East European Studies Seminar Series.

Mujanovic's talk will be based on his newly published book, entitled 'Hunger and Fury: The Crisis and Democracy in the Balkans'.
The parliamentary regimes of southeastern Europe are in crisis. Left to teeter and wobble much longer, these regimes will dissolve entirely and with them, the tenuous peace that has held the Balkans together since the conclusion of the Yugoslav Wars (1991-2001). With Greece still on the brink of financial catastrophe, and Turkey in a headlong rush towards outright autocracy, all that stands between the prosperous, stable core of Europe and the chaos of Syria and Iraq is a string of economically stagnant and politically volatile polities wedged between the Adriatic and the Bosphorus. The heart of my argument however – both geographically and thematically – concerns the specific crisis of democracy in the states of the former Yugoslavia. The accession of Slovenia and Croatia to the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2013 respectively has been celebrated by policymakers in Brussels and Washington as definitive proof of the region’s fundamental transformation. Indeed, missives from the Union regularly remind the leaders of the region’s remaining prospective member states that the EU is the “only game in town.” On both points, this book contends otherwise.

The process of Euro-Atlantic integration (i.e. EU and NATO membership) in the Balkans has not significantly altered the structural dimensions of the region’s prevailing political and economic dynamics. Politically, the post-Yugoslav Balkan elite are still a band of oligarchs. They are survivors of the collapse of one-party rule and decidedly authoritarian in orientation, despite the proliferation of nominally competitive multi-party elections and parliamentary institutional arrangements across the region. Their economic policies, meanwhile, remain rooted in clientalism, corruption, and dispossession: a system that has elsewhere been referred to as “kleptocracy.” The coercive power of the state is still the primary means of accumulation for Balkan elites, allowing them to continue to govern as warlords even in an era of peace. Since 2012, however, in reaction to both to the bankruptcy of Western democratization efforts and the retreat of local elites from even nominal commitments to accountable and responsive democratic governance, a wave of new grassroots social movements – from Slovenia to Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) to Macedonia – has dramatically realigned politics in the former Yugoslavia. In their wake the essential cleavage of contemporary Balkan politics has become the determined attempt by insurgent mass movements to topple the entrenched, oligarchic elites of the region, who alone in the sea of former communist regimes in Europe successfully navigated the collapse of the Cold War order without ever actually losing.

Bio: Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist (PhD, York University) specializing in the politics of post-authoritarian and post-conflict democratization. His first book Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans (Hurst Publishers & Oxford University Press) examines the persistence of illiberal forms of governance in the Western Balkans since the end of the Yugoslav Wars. His publications also include peer-reviewed articles in top-flight academic journals, chapters in numerous edited volumes, policy reports for Freedom House, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, as well as popular analyses in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Al Jazeera, openDemocracy, and a host of other media. He has a prominent social media presence and has made appearances for international television and radio programs on Al Jazeera, CBC Radio, Huffington Post Live, Voice of America, as well as numerous Balkan media outlets. Originally from Sarajevo, he is currently a Fellow at the EastWest Institute and a policy consultant for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – Dialogue Southeast Europe office.

All welcome to attend, no registration required.