The Role and the Positioning of the Left in Serbia’s “One of Five Million” Protests

Abstract

The political and economic crisis that followed the Great Recession (2008) created an impetus for mass mobilisation across Europe, protesting austerity measures or demanding more democracy. In Serbia, the protests organised under the slogan “One of Five Million,” which broke out in late 2018, were not framed as “economic” but solely as “political.” This paper explores the socio-historically embedded opportunities and barriers for the political articulation, mobilisation and institutionalisation of left-wing movements and organisations in Serbia by focusing on their role in the “One of Five Million” protests. We demonstrate that despite greater prospects for the rise of the Left, stemming from the global economic crisis and the adverse socio-economic outcomes of the post-socialist transformation in Serbia, an unfavourable discursive opportunity structure still presents a significant impediment for the development of left-wing political parties and movements.