ABSTRACT
The Serbian trajectory of democratisation is in many ways unusual. It does not fit into the classic ‘transition paradigm’, which assumes that elite-pacting generates a departure from authoritarianism that opens the way for the establishment and consolidation of democracy. In Serbia, the breakdown of communism did not lead to fully-fledged democratisation. Instead, the socialist system was replaced by a hybrid regime which maintained authoritarian practices behind the façade of democracy. Under Milošević’s rule, Serbia experienced pluralist elections and proto-democratic institutions without any genuine alteration of power. It is only with the overthrow of Milošević in October 2000 and the rise to power of parties emanating from the democratic opposition that the conditions were created for the substantial democratisation of the Serbian political system. However, the preservation of existing institutions and the difficulty in evaluating democratic practices renders the distinction between authoritarianism and democracy rather ambiguous.1
