Open Dialogue Research Journal
The morning after Aleksandar Vucic’s surprise defeat, Serbian voters still did not know who would replace him. The movement that ousted him, Student List, won 53% of the vote in a snap election that Vucic himself had called in response to protests over alleged government corruption. The group is expected […]
The synchronicity with which Joey Mannarino, Valentina Gomez, Javier Negre and Weronika Rogowska suddenly started speaking is hard to miss. These were not isolated comments about Serbia. The same set of talking points, nearly identical formulations, the same framing: the Student List is a leaderless construct; the protests involve “Bosnian […]
On Sunday night Aleksandar Vucic, the populist and nationalist who has dominated Serbian politics as prime minister or president since 2014, stood before television cameras and conceded defeat. “It is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won,” he said. Within moments, tens of thousands of […]
Serbia has reached a point where the familiar order is no longer working. More than twelve years of dominance by the Serbian Progressive Party and Aleksandar Vučić ended with his own acknowledgment of defeat. According to the preliminary count, the “Student List” has secured an absolute majority in parliament with […]
“This is not an ordinary election victory; this is an avalanche that has wiped out an authoritarian regime and entire political scene.” Nebojša Vladisavljević, University of Belgrade, BBC News, October 26, 2026 When the flagging intelligentsia and jaded reformists retire to their offices of despair and forget that better days […]
Aleksandar Vučić gave an interview to Ksenia Sobchak in a strange position. He is no longer president, but not yet prime minister. The constitution does not allow a third presidential term—that is the whole reason for the “swap.” Putin, during their last conversation, did not ask “why are you leaving,” […]
On 8 October Kirill Budanov spent about twenty hours in the Bulgarian capital. His meeting with Prime Minister Rumen Radev stayed confidential at Budanov’s request. The next day former Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov posted a photo of the two of them. The government had to admit it. On 14 October […]
Hashim Thaçi went from commanding an armed independence movement to serving as Kosovo’s president, and that same trajectory has recently concluded with a 25-year prison sentence for war crimes committed during the very conflict that made his political career possible. The verdict from the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague […]
The European Commission for the sixth time since December 2021 issued a recommendation to open negotiating Cluster 3 for Serbia, covering competitiveness, inclusive growth, and access to the EU single market. In its information note of July 3, the Commission stated that Serbia had met key requirements: it repealed controversial […]
On the twenty-seventh of August, Trebinje buried one of its own. The column moved slowly, VRS veterans in formation, alongside them mothers and widows. At the memorial in Priedor by evening there was no room left for candles: people placed them directly on the stone. In Zvornik portraits and flags […]
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