Table Of ContentSocial Movements in the Balkans
From Slovenia to Turkey, social movements and protests have shaken the political
systems of Southeast Europe. Confronting issues such as austerity, the provision and
privatisation of welfare, public utilities and public space, corruption, bureaucratic
inefficiency, environmental concerns and authoritarian tendencies, these revolts
have also served as conduits for broader social and political discontent. Although
they have contributed to the defeat of unpopular policies and practices and the
fall of governments, perhaps their most significant impact has been in creating
dynamic political and social actors and contributing to the realignment of the
political space.
This volume sheds new light on the wave of protests and emerging social
movements. Placing individual protests in a wider context, it highlights connections
between different social movements and discusses parallels with similar
movements from recent history. The contributors include both well-established
scholars and up-and-coming researchers who engage with both activist and
academic perspectives to identify the similar and varying dynamics of protests
and the governments’ responses to them.
Building upon studies of social movements, the book will be of interest to
scholars examining political dissent, protests and mechanisms of mobilisation in
the region.
Florian Bieber is a professor of Southeast European History and Politics at the
University of Graz, Austria.
Dario Brentin is a university assistant at the Centre for Southeast European
Studies at the University of Graz.
Social Movements in
the Balkans
Rebellion and Protest from
Maribor to Taksim
Edited by Florian Bieber and
Dario Brentin
First published 2019
by Routledge
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© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Florian Bieber and Dario Brentin;
individual chapters, the contributors
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authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
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Contents
ContentsContents
List of tables and figures vii
List of contributors viii
Introduction: social movements and protests in Southeast
Europe – a new tragedy of the commons? 1
DARIO BRENTIN AND FLORIAN BIEBER
1 Divided they stand: peace building, state reconstruction
and informal political movements in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
2005–2013 9
HEIKO WIMMEN
2 Maribor’s social uprising in the European crisis: from
antipolitics of people to politicisation of periphery’s
surplus population 30
GAL KIRN
3 The ‘stronger state’ and counter-democracy: Bulgarian
street protests, 2012–2013, in the accounts of participants 48
VALENTINA GUEORGUIEVA
4 The spaces of social mobilisation in Greece 66
KOSTIS PLEVRIS
5 At the crossroads of cultural and ideological
exchange – behind the visual communications
of 2012–2013 Slovene protests 79
KSENIJA BERK
vi Contents
6 Social media and the ‘Balkan spring’ 96
ŽELJKA LEKIĆ-SUBAŠIĆ
7 ‘Missing the forest for the trees’: from single-issue protests
to resonant mass-movements in Greece, Turkey and
Bosnia-Herzegovina 113
CHIARA MILAN AND LEONIDAS OIKONOMAKIS
8 Are the Balkans different? Mapping protest politics in
post-communist Southeastern Europe 131
MARIUS I. TATAR
9 The international context of mass political unrest in the
Balkans – conceptual issues and perspectives 158
MARK KRAMER
Index 188
Tables and figures
List of tables and figuresList of tables and figures
Tables
8.1 Protest participation in Europe 2008; regional variation in a
comparative perspective 135
8.2 Dynamics of petitioning and demonstrating in SEE, 1998–2008 137
8.3 Explaining the signing of petitions in post-communist SEE
(Exp (B) logistic regression coefficients) 152
8.4 Explaining participation in lawful demonstrations in
post-communist SEE (Exp (B) logistic regression coefficients) 154
8.5 The measures 156
Figures
8.1 Trends of protest participation in post-communist SEE, 1995–2008 136
8.2 Quality of democracy and protest activity in SEE Europe (2008) 138
8.3 Economic development, quality of democracy and protest
activity in SEE (2008) 139
Contributors
List of contributorsList of contributors
Ksenija Berk is an independent scholar and critic from Ljubljana (Slovenia). She
holds a PhD in Aesthetics and MA in Historical Anthropology of Visual Arts.
Her research interests are history of design in the Balkans, design and politics,
visual culture of protest movements, dissent, social design and the politics of
the street. She has a particular interest in understanding how design and mate-
rial culture work as agents of social and political change and how they help us
develop critical thinking on our values, ideas and processes.
Florian Bieber is a professor of Southeast European History and Politics at the
University of Graz, Austria, director of the Centre for Southeast European
Studies at the University of Graz and coordinator of the Balkans in Europe
Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG). He was previously a lecturer in East Euro-
pean Politics at the University of Kent, UK. He received his MA in Political
Science and History and his PhD in Political Science from the University of
Vienna, as well as an MA in Southeast European Studies from Central Euro-
pean University (Budapest).
Dario Brentin is a university assistant at the Centre for Southeast European Stud-
ies at the University of Graz. He is also currently completing his PhD thesis
at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College
London, working on the topic of sport and national identity in post-Yugoslav
Croatia. He obtained his MagPhil in Political Science and Eastern European
History at the University of Vienna. He has taught at the University of Vienna
and has since been a visiting lecturer at the University of Copenhagen and
University of Brighton.
Valentina Gueorguieva is an associate professor at the Department of Cultural
Studies of the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Okrhidski’ (Bulgaria). Her
research interests are in youth cultures and social movements, and political
anthropology. She authored a number of academic publications, as well as pop-
ular readings. Recently, she published the research monograph The Multitudes
of Discontent (2017, in Bulgarian), based on her anthropological fieldwork on
protest movements in Bulgaria 2009–2013.
Gal Kirn works at the TU Dresden as an open topic fellow. He holds a PhD in
political philosophy from the University of Nova Gorica (2012). He was a
Contributors ix
researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (2008–2010) and a
research fellow at ICI Berlin (2010–2012). He received a fellowship at the
Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart (2015) and was a postdoctoral fellow of
the Humboldt-Foundation (2013–2016). He has been teaching courses in film,
philosophy and contemporary political theory at the Freie Universität Berlin
and Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. Kirn published Partisan Ruptures and
Contradictions of Market Socialism in Yugoslavia at Sophija (2014) and is a
co-editor (with Marian Burchardt) of Beyond Neoliberalism: Social Analysis
after 1989 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He is also the editor of Post-Fordism
and its Discontents (JvE Academie, B-Books and Mirovni Inštitut, 2010).
Mark Kramer is the director of Cold War Studies at Harvard University and a
Senior Fellow of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Originally trained in mathematics, he went on to study International Relations
as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and an Academy Scholar in Har-
vard’s Academy of International and Area Studies. He is the author of many
books and articles about a wide variety of topics.
Željka Lekić-Subašić is a TV journalist and producer, currently working as the
head of the ERNO (Eurovision News Exchange for Southeast Europe) Coordi-
nation Office in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and as the assistant profes-
sor at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Department for Political
Science and International Relations. She holds a PhD from London Metro-
politan University, MA from La Sapienza University in Rome and bachelor’s
degree in journalism from the Faculty of Political Science, Sarajevo Univer-
sity. She is the winner of the 2014 Dr. Erhard Busek – SEEMO Award for Bet-
ter Understanding in Southeast Europe.
Chiara Milan is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Humanities
and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, where she is part of the Centre
on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) research team. She holds a PhD in
Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI) and
in fall 2016–2017, was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Southeast European
Studies of the University of Graz (Austria). Since 2010, she has conducted
extensive research on the dynamics of mobilisation and collective action in
the Yugoslav successor states, with a specific focus on Bosnia-Herzegovina.
She also investigated grassroots initiatives in solidarity with refugees along the
Western Balkans route and in Austria in the context of the 2015–2016 so-called
refugee crisis. Her main research interests include contentious politics, urban
grassroots movements, nationalism and migration. She has published articles
in international peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited volumes on the
dynamics of mobilisation in the Yugoslav successor states.
Leonidas Oikonomakis holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the
European University Institute (EUI), is a researcher affiliated with the Cen-
tre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at the Scuola Normale Superiore
and is currently teaching at the Department of Sociology of the University of
Crete. His research and teaching focuses on Latin American politics, social
