Cultures of Democracy in Serbia and Bulgaria: How Ideas Shape Publics by James Dawson

Author:James Dawson [Dawson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, History & Theory, Political Ideologies, Nationalism & Patriotism, Peace, World, Russian & Former Soviet Union, Public Policy, Social Policy
ISBN: 9781472443083
Google: a9kVBgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 30154972
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Between Politics and the People: Local Context, Education and Media Environments

In order to understand how the everyday public sphere emerges, it is first necessary to consider the educational, media and local contextual factors that mediate between the business of elite politics that has been described so far and the discussions of my informants in Niš that follow. Niš (population: 255,000) is a city with an industrial reputation that thrived as an electronic goods centre in the former Yugoslavia, while still supporting an urban culture whose participants were keen to distinguish themselves from those who came to live in the city from the surrounding small towns and countryside. If one is to characterize the city in relation to the cultural divide between ‘urban cosmopolitans’ and ‘peasant urbanites’ that much of the literature on Serbian social divides over the last several decades highlights (Simić 1973, Gordy 1999, Bougarel 1999, Jansen 2001, 2005), it is certainly fair to say that Niš has weaker cosmopolitan credentials than do the capital Belgrade (pop. 1,659,000) or its more upwardly-mobile rival for the symbolic claim of being ‘Serbia’s second city’, Novi Sad (342,000). Following the collapse of the town’s industrial base, the population has been kept stable by in-migration from the rapidly depopulating South of Serbia, which has compensated for the exodus of Nišlije to Belgrade and the West. Unemployment is higher and average wages lower than the than the national average.24 From a sociological perspective, Niš is also notable for its relatively large Roma population, officially numbering just 7,000 but almost certainly many times larger.25

The recent political history of the town is obviously of relevance in this section. When Milošević’s SPS resorted to rigging elections in 1996, they did not consider that it might be necessary to do so in Niš, a city which had come to be regarded as a ‘Red Fortress’ on account of its solid support for the ex-communists during the country’s short democratic history (The Fall of Milošević, BBC 2002). However, the SPS actually lost to the DS and its coalition allies in Niš, leading to a botched attempt to belatedly rig the vote. The resulting demonstrations and publicity thus spread outwards from the unlikely epicentre of Niš, a fact that leads many townspeople to continue to identify proudly with these anti-regime protests. Considering that Milošević was forced out a few years later after fresh rigged elections in 2000, the refrain that ‘the Revolution started in Niš’ is still often heard from the generation that took part in those protests. Of course, other recent historical events have also left their imprint on the memory of the town. Niš was one of the cities that suffered significant civilian casualties during the NATO bombardment of Serbia in 1999. At the time of the fieldwork, Niš municipality was administered by a DS-led coalition, although the 2008 local election results had shown an almost even split between nationalist and democratic bloc parties. In sum, Niš presents a historical political context with both notable nationalist-authoritarian and liberal democratic credentials.

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