AUTHORITARIANISM - RESEARCH ATLASAVtokratija

How the authoritarian system works in Serbia

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

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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

How to recognize authoritarian rule and distinguish its forms

We first need to distinguish one bad decision from a system in which those in power become increasingly difficult to remove through elections or hold to account. These systems are not all alike, and they do not survive in the same way.

QUESTIONS IN THIS AREA

01How can we tell that this is not just one bad decision, but an authoritarian way of governing?02What is the difference between an authoritarian leader, the current government, and the system as a whole?03How can we distinguish authoritarian rule from populism, corruption, or simply bad governance?04Do all authoritarian governments operate in the same way?05Does it matter whether a government emerged through a coup, war, revolution, or the gradual weakening of democracy?

Research-based answerAUTLAS Research Base

What is the difference between an authoritarian leader, the current government, and the system as a whole?

Confidence in the conclusionwell substantiated

key academic works5

linked Serbia sources21

Period201726; structural roots before 2012.

ANSWER FROM THE MATRIX

The leader is the most visible face of the government, but no leader governs completely alone. He needs people who make and implement decisions, control money, information, party, police, administration and local networks.

The current government is that circle of people in positions, while the system consists of formal rules and unwritten relations that determine who gets protection, who gets the punishment and how the government can be controlled or replaced. If institutions, public companies, media and local networks continue to reward loyalty and punish independence, this way of government can survive the departure of one man. That is why changing the leader is not the same as changing the system.

SERBIA CASE STUDY

Example from SerbiaChecked 21 sources; 17 manufacturers

21 related sources; 17 groups of evidence producers; domestic NGOs/research producers: 8

Election and media monitoring shows that political decision-making and government representation are largely tied to Aleksandar Vucic, including campaigns in which he is not a candidate. At the same time, reports on parliament, public institutions and the security sector show that such domination is carried out through the ruling party and institutions at different levels. That is why sources not only describe the power of one man, but the system that transmits and maintains that power.

How the finding is separated in the matrix

01Established fact

Domestic monitoring shows concrete channels between the leader and the system. For 2024, CRTA measured that more than half of the television time for political actors went to the president, the Open Parliament records the dominant influence of the executive power on the assembly, BCSP describes political ties in the security sector, and Transparency Serbia documents the intertwining of the presidential function and the promotion of the party list.

02Our interpretation

These findings show that personal power becomes systemic when it is regularly communicated by the media, the parliamentary majority, appointments, procedures, supervisory bodies and informal rules. That is why the departure of the leader does not automatically guarantee the change of all these ties.

03Does it show the same process?

Yes domestic sources show the channels through which personal power becomes systemic

04Important caveat or alternative explanation

Serbia did not have a shift of the current center of power, so sources cannot directly prove what would survive it. They can show existing connections and institutions that would have to change in order for a personal shift to become a change of the system.

LIMITS OF THE CONCLUSION

What the general answer does not allow us to conclude

When one leader suppresses the party, the army and the state, these differences blur. That is why it is necessary to watch how many other people and institutions can really say ‘no’ to him.

GENERAL RESEARCH BASE

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

A01

Explain how the system works

Linz, J. J. (2000), Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, Lynne Rienner.

Contribution to this answer: The Linz regime defines through the rules and structure of political power, and not through the personality of a single leader. That is why the shift of the man at the top does not have to change the system if the limited pluralism and weak responsibility remain the same.

How the authoritarian system works in Serbia

Which question do you want to start with?

How to recognize authoritarian rule and distinguish its forms

How the finding is separated in the matrix

Linz, J. J. (2000), Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, Lynne Rienner.

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

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

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

Geddes, B., Wright, J. i Frantz, E. (2014), „Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions: A New Data Set“, Perspectives on Politics 12(2): 313–331.

Republika Srbija. 2006. Ustav Republike Srbije, Službeni glasnik RS 98/2006, engleski prevod Narodne skupštine.

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

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

Ugarković, Uroš. 2023. “What Is Parliamentarism to Populists? The Populist Redefinition of the Concept of Parliamentarism in Parliamentary Debates in Post-Milošević Serbia.” Redescriptions 26(2): 160–175. https://doi.org/10.33134/rds.403

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

European Commission. 2025. Serbia 2025 Report. Commission Staff Working Document. Brussels: European Commission.

Freedom House. 2026. Freedom in the World 2026: Serbia Country Report. Washington, DC: Freedom House.

CRTA. 2025. Media Monitoring of Political Pluralism: Government in Focus, Opposition Almost Invisible. Beograd: CRTA.

Otvoreni parlament. 2025. Godišnji izveštaj o radu XIV saziva Narodne skupštine, februar 2024 – april 2025. Beograd: CRTA.

Đokić, Katarina, Saša Đorđević, Marija Ignjatijević, Jelena Pejić Nikić i Predrag Petrović. 2020. Security Sector Capture in Serbia – An Early Study. Beograd: Beogradski centar za bezbednosnu politiku.

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

Koalicija prEUgovor. 2025. Alarm Report on Progress of Serbia in Cluster 1 – May 2025. Beograd: prEUgovor.

Transparentnost Srbija. 2024. Povećanje nesrazmere među akterima, procena ukupne vrednosti kampanje i preliminarni izveštaji: monitoring izbora 2023. Beograd: Transparentnost Srbija.

Cvijić, Srđan. 2018. When Law Doesn’t Rule: State Capture of the Judiciary, Prosecution, Police in Serbia. Open Society European Policy Institute, Transparentnost Srbija i CINS.

European Commission. 2025. 2025 Rule of Law Report: Country Chapter on the Rule of Law Situation in Serbia. SWD(2025) 931 final.

OECD/SIGMA. 2025. Public Administration in Serbia 2024: Assessment against the Principles of Public Administration. SIGMA Monitoring Reports. OECD Publishing.

European Policy Centre (CEP). 2023. The Neverending Story of Senior Civil Service Depoliticisation in Serbia. Belgrade: CEP.

Transparentnost Srbija. 2024. Public Enterprises — A Symbol of Abuses and Violation of the Law. Belgrade: Transparency Serbia.

Asocijacija medija, AOM, NDNV, NUNS, Lokal pres i Slavko Ćuruvija fondacija. 2023. Strategija razvoja medijskog sistema Srbije (2020–2025) i njena implementacija: saznanja, stavovi i predlozi medijskih radnika. Beograd.

Mandić, Sofija, i CEPRIS. 2026. Report on the Transparency of the Work of the High Judicial Council and the High Prosecutorial Council: 2025.

Regulatorno telo za elektronske medije (REM). 2025. Izbori 2023 — završni izveštaj monitoringa pružalaca medijskih usluga.

Based on academic research

Practice documented in Serbia

Sources open to scrutiny

Why questions?

Focus on the system, not on blaming people

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