Adapting to Democracy: Reflections on 'Transition' in Serbia and the Western Balkans

This article aims to reflect on how we might best conceptualise political, economic and social change in Serbia and much of the rest of the Western Balkans today. The dominant paradigm through which this process has been understood has been one of democratic transition, albeit a transition that is an inevitably difficult, hesitant and long term process. The argument here is that while these democratisation approaches do offer some important insights about what is happening in Serbia, they also need to be treated with some caution. In particular, there is a danger that by accepting ‘transition’ as the primary framework through which we explain and understand change, we risk making a serious of misjudgements about the factors that actually constrain, limit and motivate domestic actors in transforming societies themselves.