Call for Contributions – Edited Volume on the 2024-2025 Serbian Protests

Protests and New Democratic Imaginaries in Serbia

In late 2024 and early 2025, Serbia witnessed one of the largest protest movements in its recent history. What started as a commemoration for victims of a tragic incident quickly grew into a mass mobilization led by students, reshaping political debates in the country and beyond. The occupations, blockades, protests, boycotts, and strikes over the following three months brought attention to the dormant potential of grassroots movements to invigorate democracy and civic engagement.

This student-led social movement was characterized by broad participation, resulting in some of the largest protests in Serbian history and introducing novel organisational and mobilisation strategies. It raised critical questions about the contestations of political power, accountability, and the rule of law in Serbia and the region. Additionally, it reignited debates about the feasibility of political change through social movements and the role of domestic and international political actors in the wider struggle for democracy.

More specifically, beyond its immediate political demands, the student movement has signalled a potential shift in the perception of politics. By rejecting traditional political structures and hierarchical leadership, the movement has challenged the ruling establishment as well as the very notion of representative politics, even as it demanded a return to functional democratic institutions in the face of rising authoritarianism.

This edited volume brings together diverse scholarly perspectives on the 2024–2025 Serbian protest movement. We encourage submissions from various disciplines, including political science, sociology, international relations, history, anthropology, law, cultural and media studies. By examining multiple dimensions of the movement, the volume will offer a comprehensive understanding of the events, their origins, and their broader social and political implications.

Potential themes include, but are not limited to:

• Historical context of protest movements in the Balkans
• Examination of protest demands and the evolution of the movement
• Similarities and differences with previous protest movements in Serbia
• Corruption, accountability and the rule of law through the lens of the movement
• Comparisons with protest movements elsewhere in the Balkans or the wider region
• Deliberative and direct democracy perspectives in the student movement
• Online and offline mobilization strategies
• Relations with different civil society networks and other political actors
• Government responses and implications for democratic governance
• Positions of international actors, particularly the EU
• Protest dynamics and collective identity formation
• Role of art, music, visual, and creative expression in protest mobilization
• Traditional and new media coverage, narratives, and counter-narratives
• Participation of minority communities and issues of intersectionality
• Influence of transnational interactions and networks of solidarity

Submission Guidelines

The volume is co-edited by Florian Bieber (University of Graz, Centre for Southeast European Studies), Gazela Pudar Draško (University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory), and Vujo Ilić (University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory)

Our editorial team combines expertise in Southeast European studies, social movements, and democracy. The co-editors will review abstracts and invite full manuscripts from selected authors, who will participate in the writers’ workshop. Chapters accepted after peer review will undergo final revisions before publication.

The editors will provide clear and supportive feedback to help contributors refine their chapters. This will be especially important given that proposals and chapters could be revised during the writing process to adapt to ongoing protests and movement developments.

The edited volume will be submitted to Routledge, a globally recognised academic publisher of social sciences and humanities. It will be considered for inclusion in the Southeast European Studies series, a leading forum for the scholarship on Southeastern Europe.

If you have any questions regarding the scope or suitability of your topic, please do not hesitate to contact editors at the email address: contributions@ifdt.bg.ac.rs.

We look forward to receiving your proposals!