Student Protest and Democratic Imagination in Serbia

The student-led protests that erupted in Serbia in late 2024 challenge not only an entrenched political order but also the prevailing assumptions about participation, leadership, and political legitimacy. This book examines the protests as a site of democratic experimentation in conditions where institutional channels are systematically weakened. Focusing on practices such as plenary assemblies, horizontal organization, and the rejection of party mediation, the contributors explore how social movements can generate alternative democratic logics while operating within hybrid regimes. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, the volume situates the Serbian case within broader debates on democratic innovation, protest politics, and civic engagement in autocratising societies, offering insights that resonate well beyond Southeast Europe. This volume addresses a growing global interest in the renewed role of student protest in societies marked by democratic backsliding and institutional crisis. As students have re-emerged as central political actors, it offers a timely contribution to debates at the intersection of political theory, political sociology, and democracy studies and speaks to broader comparative debates on generation Z and its political articulation, hybrid regimes, and authoritarianism. It is also suitable for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on social movements, contemporary democracy, European politics, Southeast European studies, and protest and political participation.