A Genuine Backlash or Politics as Usual? Serbian Feminists’ Perceptions of Contemporary Political Changes

There seems to be an established consensus among scholars that regimes in Southeastern Europe transitioned from initially liberal to increasingly illiberal ones. Special attention to feminist movements is of particular importance in research on illiberal democracies because illiberalism also tends to go hand in hand with hyper-masculinisation of political leaders and the parallel discrimination against women. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with feminist scholars and activists in Belgrade last summer, this paper investigates how Serbian feminists attach meaning to their political environment and how it influences their logic of action. By changing political environment this paper refers to two aspects: the entry of the EU as a crucial external actor pressing for democratisation since the early 2000s and the supposed transition to illiberalism in the past five years. Surprisingly, many feminists themselves challenge the established canon: illiberalism is not on the rise, rather it never really disappeared and the supposed democracy promoter EU is partly responsible for this. The paper demonstrates that participants do not perceive significant changes in the past 15 years in the way the regime treats them neither in official discourse nor through concrete measures. What has changed instead is a sophisticated lip service to more gender equality and the co-optation of feminist concepts, especially gender mainstreaming. The paper also highlights the dilemma the EU creates for them by insisting they collaborate with incumbents they deem intrinsically undemocratic and not committed to a more equal society. As such it more generally investigates the role they attribute to the EU.