Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T19:59:30.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Civil society in war-to-democracy transitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2010

Roberto Belloni
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, School of Politics International Studies and Philosophy Queen's University Belfast
Anna K. Jarstad
Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
Timothy D. Sisk
Affiliation:
University of Denver
Get access

Summary

In the 1980s Serbia, like all other Eastern European countries, witnessed a strong revival of civil society. Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and committees for the defense of different rights from freedom of expression to ecological protection were created – primarily among intellectual circles in Belgrade. In the second half of the decade many members of these organizations and groups began to move from demands for human rights and democratization to extreme nationalism which denied basic rights to members of other non-Serb national groups. Virtually all intellectuals and grass-root organizations supported Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power – identifying him as the champion of the Serb national cause. The outbreak of war in the 1990s, combined with Milosevic's controversial role in the protection of Serbs throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia split the emerging civil society. Non-nationalist opposition to the regime's wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo was dubbed the “other Serbia.” At the same time, however, extreme nationalist groups also criticized Milosevic, blaming him for having abandoned Serbs in Croatia and for having failed to support Serbs adequately in Kosovo – an area inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Albanians. The peaceful revolution of October 2000, ending thirteen years of Milosevic's rule, occurred because of a broad alliance among actors within civil society, including both nationalist and non-nationalist groups. The ouster of Milosevic, however, did not terminate the influence of uncivil, violent, and illegal groups – one of the legacies of the Milosevic era (Bieber 2003).

Type
Chapter
Information
From War to Democracy
Dilemmas of Peacebuilding
, pp. 182 - 210
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×