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

01 / 20

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

How can we distinguish authoritarian rule from populism, corruption, or simply bad governance?

Confidence in the conclusionquite substantiated, with important conditions

key academic works5

linked Serbia sources24

Period2012-2026; individual studies cover a longer period

ANSWER FROM THE MATRIX

Populism represents politics as a conflict between the “right people” and the corrupt elites; it can remain within democratic limits, but it becomes dangerous when the courts, the media and the opposition declare themselves enemies of the people because they limit the leader.

Corruption is an abuse of public power for private gain and can also exist in a democracy if it is investigated, punished and if the government can lose elections because of it. Bad governance means incompetence, waste or failure. Authoritarian power is recognized by something else: citizens can increasingly find it harder to detect abuse, limit the government, punish it and replace it peacefully. That is why the question is not only whether the government steals, mistakes or deceives, but whether there is an independent way to stop.

SERBIA CASE STUDY

Example from SerbiaChecked 24 sources; 19 manufacturers

24 related sources; 19 groups of evidence producers; domestic NGOs/research producers: 7

Research media and organizations that monitor elections and public finances have documented the use of public resources for party activities, irregularities in campaign financing and pressure on employees and voters. One such case could be an isolated abuse. When similar practices are repeated, and control institutions do not prevent them or do not provide responsibility, abuse becomes a way in which the system preserves the political advantage of the authorities.

How the finding is separated in the matrix

01Established fact

Transparency Serbia finds a broad anti-corruption legal framework, but inefficient or selective application, and documents public resources and financial imbalances in the 2023 campaign CINS through a database of party finances and concrete investigations of col-centres and official vehicles shows what financial dominance, clientelism and misuse of resources in practice can look like.

02Our interpretation

These cases in themselves prove possible corruption or electoral abuse, not automatically authoritarian regime. Authoritarian dimension occurs when the same patterns are repeated, affect the possibility of political shift and when the institutions that are supposed to investigate them, punish or prevent them become weak, selective or politically dependent.

03Does it show the same process?

Partially concrete cases become systematic evidence only with form and poor control

04Important caveat or alternative explanation

Illicitness must be established in the appropriate procedure, and high spending or political advantage is not corruption in itself. We use research stories as documented cases and grounds for verification, not as a substitute for scientific studies and systematic monitoring.

LIMITS OF THE CONCLUSION

What the general answer does not allow us to conclude

Researches sometimes call different phenomena in the same words. First you need to describe what is really happening, and only then choose a name.

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: Linz gives the criteria by which authoritarianism differs from other problems of mismanagement: the essence is in the organization of political competition, accountability and the boundaries of government, not in whether a decision is bad or whether there is corruption.

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.

Maerz, S. F. (2020), „The Many Faces of Authoritarian Persistence“, Government and Opposition 55(1): 64–87.

Ginsburg, T. i Huq, A. Z. (2018), How to Save a Constitutional Democracy, University of Chicago Press.

Carothers, C. (2022), „Taking Authoritarian Anti-Corruption Reform Seriously“, Perspectives on Politics 20(1): 69–85.

Hanson, J. K. i Sigman, R. (2021), „Leviathan’s Latent Dimensions: Measuring State Capacity for Comparative Political Research“, Journal of Politics 83(4): 1495–1510.

Stojiljković, Zoran, i Dušan Spasojević. 2018. “Populistički Zeitgeist u ‘proevropskoj’ Srbiji.” Politička misao 55(3): 104–128. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.55.3.04

Vladisavljević, Nebojša, i Aleksandra Krstić. 2023. “Competitive Authoritarianism and Populism in Serbia Under Vučić in Political Cartoons.” Europe-Asia Studies 75(9): 1429–1452. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2022.2149700

Vuković, Danilo, i Bojan Spaić. 2022. “Parallel Normative Reality: The Informal Order of Corruption and Clientelism in Serbia.” Sociologija 64(4): 519–542. https://doi.org/10.2298/SOC2204519V

Vuković, Danilo, i Marija Stefanović. 2024. “Leaving No One Behind: Party Clientelism in Social Welfare in Serbia.” Annals of the Faculty of Law in Belgrade 72(4): 697–722. https://doi.org/10.51204/Anali_PFBU_24404A

Dragojlov, Aleksandra. 2026. “Influence of Political Clientelism on Media Freedom under Vučić and the Progressive Party.” Nationalities Papers 54(2): 391–407. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2025.25

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

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

CRTA. 2024. Final Election Observation Report – 2023. Beograd: CRTA Election Observation Mission.

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.

Đorđević, Miloš, i Nemanja Nenadić. 2023. Civil Society Report on the Implementation of UNCAC Chapters II and V in Serbia. Beograd: Transparentnost Srbija i UNCAC Coalition.

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.

Milosavljević, Ivana, Teodora Ćurčić i Vladimir Kostić. 2023. CINS Inside SNS’s Call Center: Hostess Agency, Vote Buying, and Millions in Cash. Beograd: CINS.

Nikolić, Jovana, i Ivana Milosavljević. 2023. People Brought to SNS Rally by Vehicles of State Institutions. Beograd: CINS.

Ćurčić, Teodora. 2024. Party Funds Database: SNS, the Financially Strongest Political Party in Serbia. Beograd: CINS.

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

OECD. 2026. Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026: Serbia.

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

Transparency Serbia. 2024. Assessing Political Integrity Rules in Serbia. Belgrade: Transparency Serbia.

BIRN Srbija. 2026. Analiza praksi oglašavanja u medijima: tokovi novca, nedostatak kriterijuma i (ne)poštovanje etičkih normi.

Res Publika. 2025. Propaganda vs. javni interes: analiza projektnog finansiranja i medijskog pluralizma u lokalnim zajednicama.

Poverenik za informacije od javnog značaja i zaštitu podataka o ličnosti. 2026. Izveštaj o radu Poverenika za 2025. godinu.

Agencija za sprečavanje korupcije Republike Srbije. 2026. Annual Report 2025.

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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