doiSerbia

Results of democratic transition through the eyes of citizens of Serbia in 2005

Golubović Zagorka (Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju, Beograd)

In 2005 The Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory has undertaken a reputed interview (after the one done in 2001/2002, whose results have been published in Politika i svakodnevni život, 2003), based on identical methodology (in-depth interview and qualitative analysis) but on a reduced sample (30 interviewees) in six towns in Serbia. The objective was to examine how citizens see the circumstances in society today, five years after the October turn, and what conditions their attitudes towards: the policy of new democratic powers, of democratic parties and those of the ex-regime, as well as towards the problems they are confronted with, and whether the initial optimism has gone and why. The results obtained by this interview show that after five years of experience with democratic transition the interviewees are more critical regarding the actual democratic policy (especially of the second democratic Government), and more likely to forget the reasons created by the former regime as obstacles to a successful democratic transition. For this reason, disappointment has grown, and an initial optimism gives its place to pessimism, with vanishing of the hope in the possibility of radical democratic change. This makes it possible to give a chance to the Radical Party in a future election. But, in spite of current confusion among citizens produced by the examined state of affairs, as well as the ambiguities in certain attitudes, this inquiry suggests that the interviewees have provided a quite realistic evaluation of the actual conditions in Serbian society today, and that their criticism, which arises from disappointment, does not completely cancel a positive attitude towards democratic transition, since their criticism results from dissatisfaction with the unrealized democratic principles and values after October 5th.

Keywords: Serbia, citizens, democracy, transition, politics, criticism