Playing politics in Serbia: Dare to go there

Accusing someone of 'being too political' in Yugoslavia 50 years ago could be interpreted as accusing them of anti-state activities, since the state was run by a communist party and political pluralism was not encouraged, to say the least. Since then, Yugoslavia has been through a violent state collapse and newly formed countries transitioned to capitalism and a multi-party system.

These transformations, however, did not go smoothly, nor did they bring peace and stability to the whole region. At present, Serbia is a country with unresolved territorial disputes, regional animosities are easily fueled in everyday political rhetoric, and it ranks low among European countries by macrosocial indices of income, corruption and freedom (Freedom House, 2023; International Monetary Fund, 2023; Transparency International, 2022). 

It should thus come as no surprise that public opinion polls constantly show a lack of trust, especially towards political institutions and political representatives.

When we recently asked people what they associate with 'politics' and 'politicians', the vast majority of answers were negative, especially for the latter. One could argue that institutional distrust and political cynicism are rising worldwide and that trends in Serbia merely reflect these global trends (Perry, 2021; Glatz & Eder, 2020). 

What might be specific to the Serbian context, apart from Balkan-flavoured associations in the answers ('lamb', 'tavern'), is their extremity and affective charge. Not only were politicians seen as corrupt and machiavellian, they were described in dehumanising terms, such as 'lice', 'parasite', 'tick', 'rat', and 'sleazebag'. As for competence, the political elite was seen as mediocre and uneducated, 'unscrupulous, unempathetic half-educated charlatans', 'illiterate' and their actions as 'revenge of underachievers'.

Such dissatisfaction does not provoke active political engagement; quite the contrary. It provokes  'boredom', 'lack of meaning' and even 'nausea'. There is more evidence to this: research shows that young people in Serbia are reluctant to engage with activism when the activism is labelled as 'political', and more ready to engage in any other form of civic action – around ecological, humanitarian, or minority rights issues (Milošević-Đorđević & Žeželj, 2017).

In this climate, actively distancing oneself from politics is seen as a moral duty. As a consequence, distancing can be a source of self-esteem and a social cue for evaluating others. These processes have already been described in other post-communist Eastern European countries. 

For example, Szymkow and colleagues (2003) reported that Polish participants evaluated their discussants as nicer and more intelligent when they criticised the political scene instead of communicating optimism, while the conversations critical of politics were perceived as more genuine and valuable.

Moreover, labelling someone or something as 'political' is often used as a rhetorical strategy to delegitimise people and ideas, even by politicians themselves. These strategies can be so-called 'semantic barriers' (Gillespie, 2008) since they preclude dialogue with alternative views and further contaminate politics in public perception. 

As an illustration, attaching 'political' to a message transfers the negative meaning of the term to what is said irrespective of its content, dismissing the need for further evidence. A negative meaning of 'political' often implies that a person is promoting an idea only to pursue personal benefits, leaving the burden of proof to the accused. 

Ultimately, even though 'being political' is no longer seen as an anti-state activity in today's Serbia, it is a phrase that is more used to close societal debate and demotivate activism rather than to promote it.

Iris Žeželj and Jovan Ivanović are in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Key sources

Freedom House (2023). Freedom in the World 2023. 
Gillespie, A. (2008). Social representations, alternative representations and semantic barriers. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 38, 375–391. 
Glatz, C., & Eder, A. (2020). Patterns of trust and subjective well-being across Europe: New insights from repeated cross-sectional analyses based on the European social survey 2002–2016. Social Indicators Research, 148(2), 417-439.
International Monetary Fund (2023). World Economic Outlook: A Rocky Recovery. 
Milošević-Đorđević, J. S., & Žeželj, I. L. (2017). Civic activism online: Making young people dormant or more active in real life?. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 113-118.
Perry, J. (2021). Trust in public institutions: Trends and implications for economic security. UN/DESA Policy brief. 
Szymków, A., Wojciszke, B., & Baryła, W. (2003). Psychologiczne funkcje narzekania [Psychological functions of complaining]. Czasopismo Psychologiczne, 9, 47–64.
Transparency International (2022). Corruption Perceptions Index 2022.