Participatory Democratic Innovations in Southeast Europe

Irena Fiket is a Senior Research Fellow and academic coordinator of the Laboratory for Active Citizenship and Democratic Innovations at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Her current research interests lie in deliberative democracy, citizens’ participation, democratic innovations, social movements and the Western Balkans.Čedomir Markov is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. His current research deals with the deliberative inquiry approach to audience-media relations, anti-press hostility and democratic innovations in hybrid regimes.Vujo Ilić is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. His research primarily deals with participation in political processes, from elections and democratic institutions to political conflicts and violence.Gazela Pudar Draško is a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Her fields of interest are deliberative democracy, participatory democratic innovations, social movements and gender.

• List of TablesList of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgments1 Why Do We Need Participatory Democratic Innovations in Southeast Europe?IRENA FIKET, VUJO ILIĆ, ČEDOMIR MARKOV AND GAZELA PUDAR DRAŠKOPART 1Context of the Participatory Democratic Innovations in Southeast Europe2 Social Movements, Active Citizenship and Democratic Innovation: An OverviewNENAD MARKOVIKJ, IVAN DAMJANOVSKI AND ZORAN ILIEVSKI 3 Participation, Responsiveness, Interaction: The Importance of Epistemic Checks-and-Balances for the Revitalization of Democratic InstitutionsANDRIJA ŠOĆ4 Political Participation in Southeast Europe: A Scoping ReviewVUJO ILIĆ AND ČEDOMIR MARKOVPART 2Social Movements and Civil Society Experimentation5 Towards the Democratization of Urban Planning: A Case Study of Three Deliberative Forums in BelgradeJOVANA TIMOTIJEVIĆ AND IVA ČUKIĆ6 Heterotopia, Social Movements and Democratic Innovation: The Case of AKC Metelkova Mesto in Ljubljana, SloveniaNATHAN SIEGRIST7 Enacting Resistance, Performing Citizenship: Trajectories of Political Subjectification in the Post-Democratic ConditionBOJAN BAĆA8 Agonist Reading of Social Movements in Illiberal Democracies: The Case of The Social Movement for Truth and JusticeJASMIN HASANOVIĆ, VALIDA REPOVAC NIKŠIĆ AND EMINA ADILOVIĆPART 3Towards Institutional Politics9 Yugoslav Self-Management as a Model of Participatory Municipal Governance? Local Communities in Belgrade in the 1980s MLADEN OSTOJIĆ10 Norming Participatory Practices of Movement Parties in Southeast EuropeIRENA FIKET, GAZELA PUDAR DRAŠKO AND JELENA VASILJEVIĆ11 Democratic Innovations in an Illiberal Landscape: Three Ideas from Hungary ESZTER KOVÁCS SZITKAY, DÁNIEL OROSS AND BOLDIZSÁR SZENTGÁLI-TÓTH IndexList of Tables4.1 The geographic focus of the articles about political participation in SEE 2010–20225.1 Overview of design elements of the three deliberative forums10.1 Internal party democracy index for Zeleno–levi front and MOŽEMO!10.2 Comparison of members’ rights in the statutes of Zeleno–levi front and MOŽEMO!10.3 Organizational structure of Zeleno–levi front and MOŽEMO!10.4 Decision making of Zeleno–levi front and MOŽEMO!11.1 Topics and questions of National Consultations11.2 Transformation of National Consultation from deliberative practice to plebiscitary instrumentList of ContributorsEmina Adilović is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Social Science Research, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her area of interests include information and communication sciences, cultural studies, narratology, knowledge organization, content analysis and digital publishing. From 2015 to 2019 she worked for several publishing houses and as a theater producer. Since 2022, she has been employed as an external associate at the International Burch University (IBU). She won the “Kemal Bakaršić” Award for activism in helping the users of public library services become information literate. Emina has published various scientific articles and research in monographic and serial publications. Bojan Baća is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, and a Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Montenegro. His research on civil society, social movements, and contentious politics has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed outlets, including Sociology, Antipode, International Political Sociology, Europe-Asia Studies, among several others. His current research examines the relationship between grassroots and elite expressions of populism during turbulent times and, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the intersection of populism, pseudoscientism, and conspiracism in the digital public sphere. In recognition of his contributions to the field of postsocialist studies, Baća was awarded the 2022 Routledge Area Studies Interdisciplinarity Award.Iva Čukić graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Belgrade where she also obtained her PhD in urban planning. The areas of her research include urban planning and urban commons, which she pursues through intersecting academic and practice-based perspectives. In 2011, she co-founded the collective Ministry of Space, which aims to contribute to the democratic and just development of cities. Čukić actively works with the community – supporting local initiatives in their efforts to address spatial issues and contribute to socio-political change in line with the principles of social justice. When it comes to her academic career, Čukić is engaged as a guest lecturer and/or researcher at many Universities in Europe and abroad such as TU Berlin, ETH, MIT, Oxford, etc. She is a member of the Advisory board of the Faculty of Applied Arts in Vienna, the board of the Guerrilla Foundation in Germany, the board of the Trag Foundation and the Chair of the board of Jelena Šantić Foundation, both in Serbia. Ivan Damjanovski (PhD) is a Professor at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. Currently, he also serves as Chair of the Institute for Political Science, Media, and Communication at the Faculty of Law. He is also an associate researcher at the think-tank Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” – Skopje. He has previously been engaged as an academic guest at the Center for Comparative and International Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH). His research and academic interests are focused on democratization, Europeanisation, EU enlargement, differentiated integration, EU integration theory and ethnic identity politics.Irena Fiket is a Senior Research Fellow and academic coordinator of the Laboratory for Active Citizenship at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Her current research interests lie in deliberative democracy, citizens’ participation, democratic innovations, social movements and Western Balkans. She published a book on those topics, in addition to numerous book chapters and articles in journals such as Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, PACO- Partecipazione e Conflitto, Italian Political Science Review, Javnost – The Public, European Union Politics, and others. She has been involved in numerous international research projects and was the academic coordinator of Jean Monnet Network ‘Active Citizenship: Promoting and Advancing Innovative Democratic Practices in The Western Balkans’.Jasmin Hasanović is a Senior Teaching Assistant at the Department for Political Science at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His area of expertise emphasizes political philosophy and critical political theory, social and political movements, as well as the relations between arts and politics, cyberpolitics, and geopolitics. He is engaged in courses on Basics of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Theories of Democracy and Human Rights, Geopolitics, International Security and Energy Security. Currently, he is working on his PhD thesis on the epistemological and ontological problem of the idea of emancipation in contemporary political theory.Vujo Ilić is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Central European University in Budapest. His main areas of interest include participation in political processes, from elections and democratic institutions to political conflicts and violence. He has received several awards, including Central European University’s Award for Best Dissertation in 2020 and an award from the Association for the Study of Nationalities for the best doctoral paper in 2016. His articles have appeared in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Contemporary Southeastern Europe, Serbian Political Thought, and Philosophy and Society. He has also contributed chapters to several books, including Undermining Democracy: Processes and Institutions in Serbia 2010-2020. Vujo is also a Policy and Research Advisor at the citizen association Crta, where he is developing election observation and survey methodology and conducts its annual Citizen Engagement survey.Zoran Ilievski (PhD) is a tenured professor at the Political Science Department at the Faculty of Law at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He has worked on a number of research projects with the University of Graz, LSE, European Academy of Bolzano and the University of Zurich, as well as leading a number of EU research and teaching projects in the framework of TEMPUS, FP6, FP7, and the Swiss SCOPES program. Since 2008 he led institutional development projects at his Faculty. The initial project established the first MA program in the country on EU Institutions and Policies taught in English, while the latter established the first joint degree program in the country, together with the Universities of Graz, Zagreb, and Belgrade, focusing on Southeast European studies. He is leading the Southeast European Office of the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace. He has published on topics of comparative ethnic conflict management, international relations and European integration.Eszter Kovács Szitkay obtained her law degree in 2017 from the University of Pécs Faculty of Law. After working as a junior associate at a law firm, she started her PhD studies in 2019 at the University of Public Service Doctoral School of Law Enforcement; her research topic is access to justice. Since 2020, she has been a junior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Legal Studies, and from 2021 she is an assistant editor for Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies. Besides her PhD studies, she takes part in the following research projects: “Legal approaches to operationalize nationality and ethnicity” (in this project she is also a research assistant) and “Potential risks and opportunities in the regulation and application of Artificial Intelligence” (134962 and 138965 Hungarian National Research and Innovation Grants and the Artificial Intelligence National Laboratory Program). She has domestic and foreign publications – a few are forthcoming – in Hungarian and English (some with András L. Pap), and was also a co-editor of an edited volume. In 2022, she was a visiting short-term scholar at the New York University School of Law with two of her colleagues. Her research interest include access to justice in its theoretical and practical aspects, conceptualization of race and ethnicity, law enforcement, and democratic innovations.Čedomir Markov is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. He holds a PhD in Journalism and Mass Communication from Korea University. His research focuses on diverse topics in the field of political communication, primarily those concerning the role of source perceptions, media repertoires and discussion networks in information gathering and processing. In his current projects, he deals with the deliberative inquiry approach to audience-media relations, anti-press hostility and democratic innovations in hybrid regimes. His work has appeared in international peer-reviewed journals including Journalism, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Journalism Practice. Nenad Markovikj (PhD) is a tenured professor at the Political Science Department at the Faculty of Law at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He has a wealth of teaching experience as well as a mentoring experience of PhD and MA theses students. He has a vast experience in managing international projects and research experience including SCOPES, Open Government Partnership, and Horizon 2020 projects. Experience in the NGO sphere – board member and researcher in the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” – Skopje (IDSCS). He is founder and member of the Macedonian Political Science Association (MPSA) as well as former head of the department of political science at the Law Faculty “Justinian I.” He has published numerous articles and book chapters in political theory, social capital, political philosophy, nationalism, civil society, and political culture/myth.Dániel Oross, PhD political scientist, graduated from the Institute of Political Science of the Eötvös Loránd University in 2009 and received his doctorate from Corvinus University of Budapest in 2015. Since 2011 he has been a Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Science of the Centre for Social Sciences. He was a member of the Steering Committee of COST Action (CA17135 BE) Deliberative Constitution-making since 2018, served as Vice-Chairman in 2022. He is an editorial member of the Studies in Political Science and the Bibó Review of Law and Political Science. He gained teaching experience as lecturer at the Political Science Section of István Bibó College, and as a Fulbright Fellowship lecturer at Hartwick College (Oneonta, NY, USA). His research topics include democratic innovations, political participation, youth policy.Mladen Ostojić completed his PhD at Queen Mary, University of London, in 2012. His doctoral research focused on transitional justice and democratization in Serbia during the 2000s. He was a research fellow at Central European University in Budapest in 2012-2013 and at New Europe College in Bucharest in 2014, and worked as a Lecturer at Goldsmiths College in London in 2017. Besides doing research, he has been working as a consultant in the field of decentralization and local governance for state institutions and development agencies in the Balkans and West Africa. His current research interests focus on participatory and direct forms of local governance. His contribution to this volume is based on research funded by the Open Society Foundation in Serbia within the program Serbia and Global Challenges: Towards More Fair and Democratic Public Policies.Gazela Pudar Draško is a political sociologist, Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. She has been engaged as consultant and researcher in numerous projects with international organizations. She serves as a member of President Biden’s Summit for Democracy Cohort for Deliberative Democracy and Citizens Assemblies. Her fields of interest are deliberative democracy, participatory democratic innovations, social movements and gender. She writes on social engagement, particularly intellectuals, participatory innovations and social movements.Valida Repovac Nikšić is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo. Her research focuses on political sociology and political theory. She published a book titled On Cosmopolitanism – Theoretical Debates. Nathan Siegrist is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Gothenburg. His research interests are located at the nexus of social movements, urban sociology and critical theory. Nathan’s PhD project seeks to investigate how urban movements connected to squats and “autonomous spaces” shape urban development in contemporary Europe. Drawing on social movement theory and critical perspectives on neoliberal urbanization, he focuses specifically on the interplay between co-optation and resistance in grassroots movements’ capacity to enact social change. For these purposes, he has a particular interest in current developments in Central and Eastern Europe. Andrija Šoć (PhD, University of Belgrade) is a Research Fellow at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy. His research focuses on an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary political challenges, where he combines conceptual analysis and empirical perspectives. The topics of his papers pertain mainly to deliberation, participation, institutional and interpersonal trust, voting, civic education, the notion of truth in politics, and the critical debates on research methodology and research design. He has also written a book on Kant and a number of papers pertaining to German idealism. He taught MA courses on these topics at the Charles University in Prague in 2021 and 2023. He also taught undergraduate courses on German Classical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade for nine years.Boldizsár Szentgáli-Tóth is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies and also a researcher at the National University of Public Service, Eotvos József Research Centre, Research Institute of the Information Society. He obtained his PhD degree in February 2019. The topic of his thesis was the constitutional case law related to the legislation with a qualified majority. His dissertation was also published as a volume by the Eötvös Publisher and the English version is forthcoming. He has published several articles in different constitutional law fields, in Hungarian, English, and Spanish and in domestic and foreign (Portugal, Romanian, Spanish, Slovakian, Slovenian, and Austrian) volumes and reviews. He also edited a book together with Nora Chronowski from the latest constitutional dilemmas of the principle of democracy. He took part in several research projects, including OTKA No. 128796. led by Nóra Chronowski from the normative content of the principle of democracy. He has published as an author or co-author almost 130 academic pieces. At the same time, while he has also presented the outcome of his researches several times in Hungary and even elsewhere in Europe more than thirty times. He was invited to participate as a speaker at the X. World Congress of Constitutional Law (Seoul, June 2018) and at the 2018 African Congress of Constitutional Lawyers (Botswana, October 2018). Jovana Timotijević is a researcher and activist with a background in architecture, gender studies and political theory. Her work intersects these areas, focusing on both democratization of spatial policies, and spatialization of democracy and social justice. She has been involved in research projects and educational programs in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture (Belgrade), Technische Universität (Berlin), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, IZK Institute for Contemporary Art (Graz), etc. Aside from being a member of the Ministry of Space Collective, she is currently working on her PhD thesis at the Faculty of Political Sciences on the spatial reading of radical democratic theory.Jelena Vasiljević is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Her background is in political anthropology and citizenship studies. Her expertise and research interests include theories of citizenship, citizenship transformations in the post-Yugoslav states, memory politics, civic engagement, and social movements in Southeast Europe. Presently, she is primarily interested in theories and practices of solidarity. She was a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, working on an ERC project on citizenship transformations in the former Yugoslav states (CITSEE) and a Research Fellow at the Centre for South East European Studies, University of Graz. She is currently involved, as a national coordinator, in a Horizon 2020 project EnTrust. Enlightened trust: An examination of trust and distrust in governance – conditions, effects and remedies. She is the author of the award-winning book The Anthropology of Citizenship (in Serbian, 2016), and her articles have appeared in Nations and Nationalism, Citizenship Studies, East European Politics and Societies among other journals. She was an expert member of The Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG).AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to acknowledge the support and funding of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Programme in making this book possible through the project “Active Citizenship: Promoting and Advancing Innovative Democratic Practices in the Western Balkans.”

In the ever-evolving global landscape, where traditional forms of participation no longer suffice to meet the demands of complex democratic processes, this edited volume serves as an invaluable resource. Its insightful exploration of the challenges faced by democracies, particularly in regions like Southeast Europe grappling with autocratization, resonates deeply with our mission to foster democratic development worldwide. By delving into the potential of civil society and social movements as agents of democratic innovation, this volume not only sheds light on the complexities of modern democracy but also offers practical insights for navigating and rejuvenating it in challenging environments. The case studies focus on Southeast Europe, including Hungary, providing real-world examples that provoke essential discussions and inspire innovative approaches. For anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of democratic innovation and its critical role in sustaining and renewing democracies, this book is an indispensable resource.Tiago C. Peixoto, Senior Public Sector Specialist, Chair of the World Bank’s Community of Practice for Citizen EngagementThis timely edited volume sheds light on the emergent landscape of participatory and deliberative democracy in Southeast Europe. By focusing on a region where such democratic tendencies have been sparse, this volume pioneers an exploration of Southeast Europe’s democratic awakening. In an environment where citizen mobilization has gained momentum, seen through the rise of social movements and grassroots civic initiatives, the book highlights the symbiotic relationship between the citizens’ dissatisfaction with unresponsive institutions and the potential for democratization. The book tackles the rarity of efforts to institutionalize deliberative institutions in Southeast European countries, where such democratic innovations remain largely uncharted territory. Building on the practices observed within the vibrant social movements scene, the book explores the potential transformation of these practices into institutionalized mechanisms for voicing citizen needs. In an era marked by the ominous spread of autocracy, this book offers a ray of hope and insight into the power of democratic innovation as a potent antidote to crisis.Vedran Džihić, Senior Research Fellow at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip), and Executive Board member of the Institute for Democratic Engagement Southeast EuropeThis book delves into the challenges facing democracy in challenging contexts with autocratizing tendencies and explores the potential for democratic innovation and renewal. In particular, it discusses the limitations of traditional forms of participation and examines how civil society and social movements can play a pivotal role in revitalizing democracy. The case studies included in this book offer valuable insights into the complexities of democratic processes, making it relevant to your interest in Southeast European contexts and the potential for civic engagement in hybrid regimes. The book provides a comprehensive overview of Southeast European context and offers a scholarly perspective on the dynamics of democracy and its challenges, making it a valuable read for political scientists exploring the intersection of democracy, social movements, and political innovation.Stefania Ravazzi, Associate Professor in Political Science, Department of Culture, Politics, and Society, University of Turin