AUTHORITARIANISM - RESEARCH ATLASAVtokratija

How the authoritarian system works in Serbia

General research connected to documented examples, findings, and sources from Serbia.

Start with a question→

100questions

20areas

148academic works

130Serbia sources

SIX ENTRIES INTO THE MATRIX

Which question do you want to start with?

Concrete questions are the starting point. The other 94 are available through the map of 20 areas.

22How can elections be unfair if no one stole my vote?What elections are for when they are not fair 62Why do people use connections even when they believe connections should not be necessary?Why people stay silent, adapt, and think they are alone 48What happens to institutions when people are hired and promoted mainly for political loyalty?How the system changes public administration and public services 33How does a court lose its independence while remaining independent on paper?How law, courts, and parliament are used 49Why do employees find it harder to say 'no' when their job or term continually depends on a new government decision?How the system changes public administration and public services 36How can an institution be captured if no one ordered every employee what to do?How independent institutions are neutralized and crises are used

MAP OF THE AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM

Twenty areas guide you through the system as a whole.

Select an area to see why it matters and which five questions it opens.

01How to recognize authoritarian rule and distinguish its forms5 questions 02How democracy disappears step by step5 questions 03Who really rules and what happens after the leader5 questions 04Why the police, military, and security services obey5 questions 05What elections are for when they are not fair5 questions 06How the ruling party and local networks hold the system together5 questions 07How law, courts, and parliament are used5 questions 08How independent institutions are neutralized and crises are used5 questions 09How money, jobs, and state assistance preserve power5 questions 10How the system changes public administration and public services5 questions 11How those in power shape what people can learn5 questions 12How digital surveillance and bad news change power5 questions 13Why people stay silent, adapt, and think they are alone5 questions 14Why people support the government and how power is justified5 questions 15How associations, unions, schools, and churches are controlled5 questions 16How the system punishes and intimidates without open violence5 questions 17How people organize and when protest changes power5 questions 18How an authoritarian system falls and what remains afterward5 questions 19How authoritarian rulers use support from abroad5 questions 20How democracy is defended and rebuilt5 questions

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WHY THIS AREA MATTERS

Who really rules and what happens after the leader

Authoritarian rule is not just one person. It depends on people, services, parties, and business circles whose support makes it possible to carry out decisions.

QUESTIONS IN THIS AREA

11Which people and groups does political power really rest on?12How does a leader share power with those around them, and why are rules necessary?13Why do those in power often choose loyal people instead of the best experts?14Why do governments create parallel services, overlap responsibilities, rotate personnel, and carry out purges?15What happens to the system when all power becomes tied to one person?

Research-based answerAUTLAS Research Base

What happens to the system when all power becomes tied to one person?

Confidence in the conclusionwell substantiated

key academic works5

linked Serbia sources10

Period199026

ANSWER FROM THE MATRIX

When all power is attached to one man, formal institutions are less and less resolving conflicts and more and more waiting for his decision. Associates do not know whether their position depends on rules or on current affection, so they have a reason to hide bad news, compete in loyalty and prevent others from gaining influence.

The biggest problem arises with inheritance: no one knows who can safely replace the leader, who will protect the old allies and whether the new top will respect the previous agreements. That is why the system can seem unique from the outside, and be fragile and full of fear from the inside. A power focused on one person can last for a long time, but its survival depends more on the health, assessment and mistakes of that person, while the peaceful change of the top is more difficult and dangerous.

SERBIA CASE STUDY

Example from SerbiaChecked 10 sources; 9 manufacturers

10 related sources; 9 groups of evidence producers; domestic NGOs/research producers: 1

Both Milosevic and the current government in Serbia were strongly personalized, but none of them rested on just one man. After October 5, the election conditions and the top of the government were changed, but parts of the security networks, party patronage and informal rules continued to influence the state. That is why the departure of a personalized leader can open a change, but also leave the successor an apparatus that has been taught to listen to the top instead of the rules.

How the finding is separated in the matrix

01Established fact

Transition and security sector studies show a rapid electoral turnaround in 2000, but uneven reform of police, services, administration and other institutions in the years that followed.

02Our interpretation

“The more decisions there are about one person, the more dependent the system is on them in the short term, but in the long term, the more decisive are the people, the networks and the rules that can survive their departure.

03Does it show the same process?

Yes the historical experience of Serbia shows both the possibility of a rapid decline of the leader and the slowness of the change of the deeper system.

04Important caveat or alternative explanation

The current system is not the same as Milosevic’s, and the future shift cannot be equated with 2000. The historical example serves as a mechanism of inheritance, not for predicting the outcome.

LIMITS OF THE CONCLUSION

What the general answer does not allow us to conclude

The power of one man does not have to fall quickly, just as collective rules do not guarantee peaceful change. Much depends on people around leaders, services and external support.

GENERAL RESEARCH BASE

Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.

A01

review more research

Meng, A., Paine, J. i Powell, R. (2023), „Authoritarian Power Sharing“, Annual Review of Political Science 26: 153–173.

Contribution to this answer: Meng, Paine and Powell show how power-sharing institutions can limit a leader only as long as allies have the real ability to implement a deal. When this ability weakens, the space for personalization grows.

How the authoritarian system works in Serbia

Which question do you want to start with?

Who really rules and what happens after the leader

How the finding is separated in the matrix

Meng, A., Paine, J. i Powell, R. (2023), „Authoritarian Power Sharing“, Annual Review of Political Science 26: 153–173.

Meng, A. (2020), Constraining Dictatorship, Cambridge University Press.

Brownlee, J. (2007), Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization, Cambridge University Press.

Geddes, B., Wright, J. i Frantz, E. (2018), How Dictatorships Work, Cambridge University Press.

Svolik, M. W. (2012), The Politics of Authoritarian Rule, Cambridge University Press.

Ejdus, Filip. 2010. Democratic Security Sector Governance in Serbia. PRIF Report No. 94. Frankfurt: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. ISBN 978-3-942532-04-4.

OSCE/ODIHR. 2001. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Republic of Serbia: Parliamentary Elections, 23 December 2000 — Final Report. Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR.

Pavlović, Dušan. 2020. “The Political Economy Behind the Gradual Demise of Democratic Institutions in Serbia.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 20(1): 19–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2019.1672929

Castaldo, Antonino. 2020. “Back to Competitive Authoritarianism? Democratic Backsliding in Vučić’s Serbia.” Europe-Asia Studies 72(10): 1617–1638. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1817860

Milačić, Filip. 2025. “Democratic Backsliding Through Legislative Capture in Serbia: A One-Man Show.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 712(1): 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162251316346

Jovanović, Milan. 2022. “Presidentialization of Parliamentarism in Serbia – Causes and Consequences.” Politeja 19(1/76): 345–363. https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.19.2022.76.17

International IDEA. 2025. Serbia — The Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Democracy Tracker. Poslednje ažuriranje: septembar 2025.

Bertelsmann Stiftung. 2026. BTI 2026 Serbia Country Report. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Pejić Nikić, Jelena, i Predrag Petrović. 2024. How to Unbind the State Capture in Serbia? Towards Security Institutions and Foreign Policy in the Service of Citizens. Beograd: Beogradski centar za bezbednosnu politiku. https://doi.org/10.55042/ZHSW9821

Popović, Đorđe, Predrag Petrović, Gorana Odanović i Jelena Radoman. 2011. Context Analysis of the Security Sector Reform in Serbia 1989–2009. Beograd: Beogradski centar za bezbednosnu politiku.

Based on academic research

Practice documented in Serbia

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Focus on the system, not on blaming people

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