Serbia: documented application of the same framework
Academic research base
When does punishment frighten people, and when does it provoke even greater resistance?
Punishment more often scares people when it is quiet, directed at a few carefully chosen people and manages to separate them from colleagues, family and public support. Then others see a high price, but they do not see a wide enough injustice that they would easily gather around.
Pressure can cause more resistance when it is clearly disproportionate, affects many people at once, violates the widely accepted norm or merges groups that have not cooperated before. Public recording or symbolic sacrifice can change the way people interpret the event and reduce the fear of loneliness. There is no, however, the same rule for every country and moment. The government often intensifies the punishment because the resistance is already growing, so to understand the causes, the correct order of reaction is crucial.
The punishment scares people when the target is lonely, the consequence is certain, and the protection is weak. It can cause more resistance when it is perceived as manifestly unfair, when there is a recording or symbol that everyone understands and when organizations can quickly turn resentment into joint action. In Serbia, the repression of the 1990s sometimes broke up the protest, but at other moments it spread mobilization; similar pressures during student protests 202425 often produced new solidarity.
How the finding is separated in the matrix
Scientific studies of several protest waves under Milosevic and modern monitoring 2024-2025 record different reactions to violence, intimidation and public targeting. FemPlatz simultaneously records serious attacks and networks of female solidarity, so the same protest cycle gives cases of intimidation, but also the continuation of mobilization despite violence.
The same tool does not have the same outcome: visibility of injustice, previous organization, trust among participants, support of the general public and cracks in government are crucial.
Yes Serbian experience contains both deterrence and return shock.
It is not possible to know in advance what turning point will work. Subsequent attribution of success to one incident easily underestimates the months of organization and other parallel causes.
Research does not find the same outcome. The government often increases the pressure precisely because the resistance is growing, so it is difficult to separate what is the cause and what is the answer.
Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.
review more research
Davenport, C. (2007), „State Repression and Political Order“, Annual Review of Political Science 10: 1–23.
- Contribution to this answer
- Davenport’s review shows why one of the oldest issues of repression research is still open: coercion can increase the price of opposition and deter people, but it can also produce new reasons for anger and mobilization. The outcome depends on the type of repression, political threat, institutions and context in which it is applied.
Explain how the system works
Ritter, E. H. i Conrad, C. R. (2016), „Preventing and Responding to Dissent: The Observational Challenges of Explaining Strategic Repression“, American Political Science Review 110(1): 85–99.
- Contribution to this answer
- Ritter and Conrad show why this effect is so difficult to measure: repression and protest affect each other in advance. If preventive repression succeeds, people who would protest never show up in the data; those who do get out are often exactly the groups that the previous threat failed to deter.
research that checks more closely what the cause is
Wasow, O. (2020), „Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion, and Voting“, American Political Science Review 114(3): 638–659.
- Contribution to this answer
- Wasow shows one concrete way in which repression can produce political backfires: nonviolent protests by the American civil rights movement, especially when they encountered state or Vigilant repression, shifted media attention and public opinion towards civil rights. When protesters used violence themselves, attention shifted instead towards order and control.
review more research
Earl, J. i Braithwaite, J. M. (2022), „Layers of Political Repression: Integrating Research on Social Movement Repression“, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 18: 227–248.
- Contribution to this answer
- Earl and Braithwaite warn that the question of “does repression work” hides many different things: different types of repression, the actor who carries it out, the target, the legal context and the type of damage it does. That is why the opposite findings from different studies can not simply be gathered as if they had studied the same intervention.
data from a large number of countries
Bhasin, T. i Gandhi, J. (2013), „Timing and Targeting of State Repression in Authoritarian Elections“, Electoral Studies 32(4): 620–631.
- Contribution to this answer
- Bhasin and Gandhi show that the government itself counts on the political price of repression: before the elections, it avoids widespread violence against voters, whose support it still needs, and redirects the repression towards opposition leaders and activists. This shows that repression has a political cost, but does not test the work directly when it increases future protest.
Sources supporting the Serbia example, with the claim they support and their limitations.
Reviewed scientific work - Verified 21.08.2026
Vladisavljević, Nebojša. 2016. “Competitive Authoritarianism and Popular Protest: Evidence from Serbia under Milošević.” International Political Science Review 37(1): 36–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512114535450
Vladisavljević, Nebojša. 2016. “Competitive Authoritarianism and Popular Protest: Evidence from Serbia under Milošević.” International Political Science Review 37(1): 3650. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512114535450
- What the source records
- “The work shows that the protest can force concessions and open the regime crisis, but that different protest waves have different outcomes and only in 2000 there was a change of regime.
- Claim it supports
- The claim that repression deters when a target is isolated and produces a backlash when injustice is visible and there is a network that turns resentment into solidarity.
- Source limitation
- Analyzing Serbia in the 1990s; the mechanisms are not automatically the same in today’s institutional, technological and international environment.
Domestic NGOs analysis of the political crisis - Verified 21.08.2026
Belgrade Centre for Security Policy. 2025. Political and Institutional Crisis in Serbia: Possible Scenarios. Belgrade: BCSP.
- What the source records
- The analysis describes mass mobilization and growing repression, but concludes that the size of the protests does not alone address the issue of organization, choice and division within the government.
- Claim it supports
- The claim that repression deters when a target is isolated and produces a backlash when injustice is visible and there is a network that turns resentment into solidarity.
- Source limitation
- Scenario analysis is time-sensitive and does not predict the future; it is based on information available until November 2025.
Domestic NGOs representative public opinion - Verified 21.08.2026
CRTA. 2025. Raste nezadovoljstvo vlašću; natpolovična podrška studentima. Beograd: CRTA.
CRTA. 2025. Growing dissatisfaction with the government; above-half support for students. Belgrade: CRTA.
- What the source records
- After five months of protests, 59% of respondents continued to support students and protests, showing broad support that cannot be reduced to the core of opposition parties.
- Claim it supports
- The claim that repression deters when a target is isolated and produces a backlash when injustice is visible and there is a network that turns resentment into solidarity.
- Source limitation
- One poll does not measure the organizational capacity of the protest, nor does it predict whether support will produce institutional or electoral change.
Domestic NGOs annual monitoring of human rights - Verified 21.08.2026
Beogradski centar za ljudska prava. 2026. Human Rights in Serbia 2025. Urednik Dušan Pokuševski. Beograd: Beogradski centar za ljudska prava.
Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. 2026. Human Rights in Serbia 2025. Editor Dušan Pokuševski. Belgrade: Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.
- What the source records
- The twenty-eighth annual report documents systemic pressures and violations of rights in 2025 and brings together data from institutions and sectoral organisations on the prosecution of protest participants and incidents towards journalists.
- Claim it supports
- The claim that repression deters when a target is isolated and produces a backlash when injustice is visible and there is a network that turns resentment into solidarity.
- Source limitation
- The report follows the rights and institutional treatment, not the type of regime; part of the numerical data is taken from state authorities and other organizations and should be read with their original records.
Domestic NGOs exploratory qualitative research - Verified 21.08.2026
FemPlatz. 2025. Između megafona i tišine: žene u borbi za promene. Pančevo: FemPlatz.
FemPlatz. 2025. Between megaphone and silence: women in the fight for change. Pančevo: FemPlatz.
- What the source records
- In addition to violence, the research documents women’s solidarity, support networks and high readiness of the participants to continue the protest.
- Claim it supports
- Supports the claim that the same repression can produce fear or greater resistance, depending on support and organization.
- Source limitation
- The sample is not representative, the research is exploratory, and the database of incidents is not intentionally complete; the findings show patterns and experiences, not their frequency in the entire population.
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