Politics in Montenegro

Südosteuropa 66 (2018), no. 4, pp. 554-576

ALBERTO SARTORI and JOACHIM PRANZL

Politics Going Civil. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro

Abstract. In 2015, Montenegro’s oppositional alliance Democratic Front (DF) launched ‘Freedom Calling’, a contentious campaign demanding regime change. Although presented as non-partisan, it did feature a party-stemming background. Thus, politics turned civil— meaning that the civil character was a disguise for a planned, creative party endeavour. Methodologically, the authors interpret the DF’s campaign, elaborating on process tracing and applying Tilly and Tarrow’s ‘contentious politics’ approach. They enquire into how the political-party background of the organizers influenced the unfolding of the contentious campaign, thereby addressing the role of parties as initiators of movements. This is especially pertinent in hybrid regimes with formally democratic institutions and persisting authoritarian practices. The Montenegrin case study of contentious (party) politics reveals that, while resources are available, the strong (ethno)political identity label of the party imposes constraints on the construction of a programmatic campaign.

Alberto Sartori is a Junior Project Officer with the non-governmental organization Reggio Terzo Mondo (RTM) and is based in Shkodër, Albania. Joachim Pranzl is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna.

Introduction

This study analyses the anti-government campaign in Montenegro, which started in autumn 2015 when protesters took to the streets demanding free and fair elections. ‘Freedom Calling’ (Sloboda Traži Ljude) was a contentious campaign through which the Democratic Front (Demokratski Front, DF)—an alliance of oppositional parties—tried to engage political and civil-society actors in a fresh attempt to challenge the long-standing rule of Milo Đukanović. The organizers drew from a recurrent theme of political contention in the country’s long postsocialist transformation, accusing the incumbent coalition, led by the Democratic Party of Socialists (Demokratska Partija Socialista, DPS), of widespread electoral manipulation and thus to be illegitimate. Indeed, opposition actors have employed non-institutional methods of countering DPS Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 555 dominance in the past. Yet the attempt by ‘Freedom Calling’ to downplay its institutional characteristics and instead present itself as a grassroots social movement—or as the civil face of party politics—forms the campaign’s core endeavour, and offers a fascinating field of study. In order to analyse this civil face of party politics, the key interpretative approach of the present study draws on contentious politics, involving ‘interactions in which actors make claims bearing on other actors’ interests, leading to coordinated efforts on behalf of shared interests or programmes, in which governments are involved as targets, initiators of claims, or third parties’.1 In a nutshell: contention, collective action and politics are combined and their over- lap presents distinctive properties.2 By focusing on mechanisms and processes we investigate how the political party background of the organizers influenced the unfolding of the contentious campaign ‘Freedom Calling’ in Montenegro. The study starts by summarizing the existing contentious-politics literature in order to point at the lack of research on parties and movements in hybrid regimes. Subsequently, we explain why the concept of contentious politics is pertinent to our case and present the applied method and data collection. Thereafter, we address Montenegro’s political context and how the contentious campaign at hand unfolds in it. Lastly, we individuate outcomes and key findings, and touch on potential paths towards generalization.

Contentious Campaigns in Hybrid Regimes

In this section, we illustrate the benefits of a contentious politics approach to our case study. Most approaches to social movements focus on aspects such as collective identity, protests, resources, or collective action.3 A concept particularly relevant for our study is ‘political opportunity structure’, which highlights the importance of the political context by pointing to the mutual influences between state, institutions and movements.4 However, over time the often-narrow focus of these approaches to social movements became evident with the increasing complexity of forms of conten-

The authors would like to thank Mathias Krams, Clara Moder, Tobias Spöri and Samuele Tonello, as well as three anonymous reviewers for their comments. All mistakes remain ours. Gratitude is also expressed to the University of Graz and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Vienna for providing financial support in the pursuit of this research and publication. 1 Charles Tilly / Sidney G. Tarrow, Contentious Politics, New York/NY 22015, 7. 2 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 7-10. 3 Cf. the overviews in Bert Klandermans / Conny Roggeband, eds, Handbook of Social Movements Across Disciplines, New York/NY, London 2010; David A. Snow et al., eds, The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, Chichester, Malden/MA 2013 . 4 Hank Johnston, States and Social Movements, Cambridge 2011, 16. 556 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl tion that existed on the ground. Already in 2001, McAdam, Tilly and Tarrow had addressed the dynamic nature of contention by shifting their attention from political process theory towards what they call the mechanism-process approach 5. Their work has enabled researchers to draw ‘fruitful causal analogies’ across different settings of contention, going beyond the analysis of rather static variables to focus on causal mechanisms.6 To be sure, criticism of this approach surfaced rather quickly, for instance regarding the concept of mechanisms, which was seen as too positivist to be of value for the analysis of social phenomena.7 Responding to such criticism, Tilly and Tarrow have refined their approach and come up with their conceptualization of ‘contentious politics’ in 2007, and with a second, revised, edition in 2015. The concept of ‘contentious politics’ concentrates on relational mechanisms within contentious fields, for example when it comes to interactions between movements and institutional politics.8 It goes beyond the limitations of narrower concepts by putting emphasis on such questions as how contention is organized within particular cultural and political contexts, or how such aspects as resources, identities or opportunities may facilitate contention in a particular setting.9 Criticism of the concept of ‘contentious politics’ has often referred to its lack of clarity, as well as to its extensive attention to the state and subsequent neglect of other social actors. In addition, the downside of the aforementioned broader applicability has been pointed out: over-generalization is indeed a risk for such a ‘grand design’ concept, due to the great variety of potential cases within very different settings.10 Given that the authors give preference to labelling regimes as either Western liberal democracies or as authoritarian regimes, this latter flaw seems evident. Critics have highlighted the insufficiently differentiated relations

5 Doug McAdam / Sidney G. Tarrow / Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, Cambridge et al . 2001 . 6 Charles Tilly, Rhetoric, Social History, and Contentious Politics. Reply to Critics, Inter- national Review of Social History 49, no. 1 (2004), 132-141, 141, DOI: 10.1017/S0020859003001421. All internet references were accessed on 12 November 2018. 7 Cf. Zenonas Norkus, Mechanisms as Miracle Makers? The Rise and Inconsistencies of the ‘Mechanismic Approach’ in Social Science and History, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 348-372, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00329.x.; cf. the fruitful symposium debate as mirrored in Tulia G. Falleti / Julia Lynch, From Process to Mechanism. Varieties of Disaggregation, Qual- itative Sociology 31, no. 4 (2008), 333-339; and Mark Irving Lichbach, Modeling Mechanisms of Contention. MTT’s Positivist Constructivism, Qualitative Sociology 31, no. 4 (2008), 345-354; DOI: 10.1007/s11133-008-9104-2. 8 Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics, in: Donatella Della Porta / Mario Diani, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, Oxford, New York/NY 2015, 86-107, 87. 9 Suzanne Staggenborg, Seeing Mechanisms in Action, Qualitative Sociology 31, no. 4 (2008), 341-344, 341, DOI: 10.1007/s11133-008-9101-5. 10 Bert Klandermans, Book Review. Contentious Politics by Charles Tilly and Sidney Tar- row, Social Forces 86, no. 4 (2008), 1855-1857, DOI: 10.1353/sof.0.0034. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 557 between the concept and variations in regime type,11 resulting from both the inherent Western bias and a rather rigid characterization of regimes in general.12 Contentious politics substantially differs according to the regime type coun- tered .13 This is particularly important in systems not easily classified as either democratic or authoritarian, but which are better classified as hybrid, which means that they feature formal traits of liberal democracy coexisting with authoritarian practices.14 These hybrid forms had not been properly considered within the original concept as developed by Tarrow and Tilly. One attempt at differentiation outlines four categories of contention: consentful vs dissentful contention and consentful vs dissentful compliance, thus introducing in fact a new concept in order to address the complexity of regime forms, which has increased considerably since the end of the bipolar world order at the beginning of the 1990s.15 Jack A. Goldstone has highlighted the importance of both parties and movements for the field of social-movement studies, due to their ‘interpenetrated’ nature 16. Most attention was in fact given to the traditional process of institution- alization that turned movements into parties.17 However, as Hanspeter Kriesi has shown, the diminishing of clear-cut borders between parties and movements has often been overlooked in research on social and political movements.18 Parties have begun to behave, or attempt to behave, as movements, with the aim to appear more dynamic and appealing so as to counter the often negative

11 Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 93. 12 Graeme B. Robertson, The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes. Managing Dissent in Post-Communist Russia, New York/NY 2010, 19-36, 9. 13 Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics, in: Snow et al., eds, The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclo- pedia of Social and Political Movements, DOI: 10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm051. 14 Larry J. Diamond, Thinking About Hybrid Regimes, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002), 21-35. Other descriptions are e.g. competitive authoritarianism, illiberal or non-consolidated democracy. For an overview and discussion cf. Anna Lührmann / Marcus Tannenberg / Staffan I. Lindberg, Regimes of the World (RoW). Opening New Avenues for the Comparative Study of Political Regimes, Politics and Governance 6, no. 1 (2018), 60-77, DOI: 10.17645/pag.v6i1.1214. 15 Ammon Cheskin / Luke March, State-Society Relations in Contemporary Russia. New Forms of Political and Social Contention, East European Politics 31, no. 3 (2015), 261-273, 266, DOI: 10.1080/21599165.2015.1063487. 16 Jack A. Goldstone, Introduction. Bridging Institutionalized Politics, in: Jack A. Goldstone, ed, States, Parties, and Social Movements, New York/NY 2003, 1-24. 17 Cf. John K. Glenn, Parties Out of Movements. Party Emergence in Postcommunist Eastern Europe, in: Goldstone, ed, States, Parties, and Social Movements, 147-169; Herbert Kitschelt, Movement Parties, in: Richard S. Katz / William J. Crotty, eds, Handbook of Party Politics, London, Thousand Oaks/CA 2006, 278-290. 18 Hanspeter Kriesi, Party Systems, Electoral Systems, and Social Movements, in: Donatella Della Porta / Mario Diani, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, Oxford, New York/NY 2015, 667-680, 667-668. 558 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl stigma of political parties.19 Whereas ‘the complexity and dynamic nature of interactions’ between movements and parties has been acknowledged, research on these interactions has remained particularly insufficient when it has come to hybrid regimes.20 Russia’s ‘For Free Elections’ movement of 2011/12 has been studied with a focus on the mechanisms that enhanced this movement, for which a political party was accountable. However, here the research question was limited to why this party joined a social movement that had already taken up its work earlier.21 Social-movement research has been challenged by the increasingly blurred categories, not only regarding the division between political and civil or grassroots movements, but also in terms of identifying the actors behind such movements and campaigns. Hybrid regimes play a key role here, because independent or grassroots civil organizations are more difficult to locate than in most of the liberal democratic cases traditionally studied. Montenegro represents such a hybrid regime. Milo Đukanović has maintained power for nearly three decades; political and civil oppositional actors have failed to bring about regime change. Montenegro has gone from being classified as ‘constrained democracy’, to a ‘stabilitocracy’, to ‘elastic authoritarianism’. The first term, ‘constrained democracy’, has been applied to several of the Yugoslav successor states.22 ‘Stabilitocracy’ implies a formal democracy with authoritarian elites governing through informal and patronage networks, while simultaneously claiming to be necessary for stability.23 ‘Elastic authoritarianism’ adds to this, highlighting the deeply flawed democratization processes of the 1990s, which led to Montenegro’s oligarchic and often criminal structures in the first place 24. Its political system can thus be summarized as hybrid, because formal democratic institutions co-exist with authoritarian practices such as patronage, clientelism and extensive pork-barrel practices, all of which are sustained by

19 Marco Giugni, Political Opportunity. Still a Useful Concept?, in: Michael P. Hanagan / Chris Tilly, eds, Contention and Trust in Cities and States, Dordrecht, New York/NY 2011, 271-283, 281. 20 Swen Hutter / Hanspeter Kriesi / Jasmine Lorenzini, Social Movements in Interaction with Political Parties, in: David A. Snow et al., eds, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, Chichester 22018, 322-337, DOI: 10.1002/9781119168577.ch18. 21 Andrey Semenov / Olesya Lobanova / Margarita Zavadskaya, When Do Political Parties Join Protests? A Comparative Analysis of Party Involvement in ‘for Fair Elections’ Movement, East European Politics 32, no. 1 (2016), 81-104, 84, DOI: 10.1080/21599165.2015.1121870. 22 Florian Bieber / Irena Ristić, Constrained Democracy. The Consolidation of Democracy in Yugoslav Successor States, Southeastern Europe 36, no. 3 (2012), 373-397, DOI: 10.1163/18763332- 03603005 . 23 Marko Kmezić / Florian Bieber, eds, The Crisis of Democracy in the Western Balkans. An Anatomy of Stabilitocracy and the Limits of EU Democracy Promotion, Graz, Belgrade 2017, http://www.biepag.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/final.pdf . 24 Jasmin Mujanović, Hunger and Fury. The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans, London 2018, 2. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 559 incumbent political leaders who declare themselves to be necessary for geopo- litical stability and, by doing so, succeed in gaining international legitimacy. Summing up, to date there has been limited research on contentious politics within hybrid regimes that focuses on the increasingly blurred lines and relations between movements and parties. Due to its broad nature, which permits including in it a great variety of forms of contention, Tilly and Tarrow’s concept of ‘contentious politics’ offers a valuable tool to address a hybrid regime such as Montenegro. In addition, rigid understanding of what is a social movement needs to be avoided. The following is a contribution that fills in on the existing research gaps. We analyse Montenegro’s anti-regime contentious campaign ‘Freedom Calling’, providing fresh insights into the complex interactions between a state, its parties and its movements through the lens of the contentious politics approach. Accordingly, we will use the term ‘movement’ in our study to acknowledge the variety of possible contentious configurations, while adhering to ‘social movement’ only when referring to social-movement literature.

‘Freedom Calling’ as a Contentious Campaign

‘Freedom Calling’ is a political phenomenon of ambiguous nature that has received little academic attention so far.25 It is neither a classic social movement stemming from grassroots actors, nor is it a political movement like the ‘Five- Stars’ movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) in Italy. Rather, it is a campaign that has been set up, in the framework of Montenegro’s hybrid regime, by an alliance of oppositional parties with the intention of mobilizing the population through its civil appeal, with the ultimate goal of uniting critical actors towards removing Montenegro’s long-lasting incumbent. Boundaries between Montenegrin political and civil actors have been blurred by the informal power networks that underpin the incumbent’s dominance, primarily through the politicization of most social spheres. Approaching ‘Freedom Calling’ through the ‘contentious-politics’ lens, the three main criteria are quickly discernible: first, the matter of contention, the incumbent’s resignation and the creation of a transitional government to set the terms for free and fair elections; second, the counterpart, that is the government, in this case the coalition led by the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (Demokratska Partija Socijalista Crne Gore, DPS); and third, the repertoire of performances to advance claims through collective action such as protest marches and public-space occupation.

25 See the recent informative, yet concise description in Kenneth Morrison, Change, Conti- nuity and Crisis. Montenegro’s Political Trajectory (1988-2016), Südosteuropa . Journal of Politics and Society 66, no. 2 (2018), 153-181, 169-174, DOI: 10.1515/soeu-2018-0014. 560 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl

In the following, we highlight the peculiarities of a party-stemming contentious campaign in contrast to one that emerges from a grassroots initiative. In order to do so, we identify the causal mechanisms and processes unfolding in such a campaign. With reference to Tilly and Tarrow’s concept, ‘Freedom Calling’ is investigated as a single episode. This episode is then analytically divided into processes, and the processes into sets of causal mechanisms, in order to explain particular outcomes. Mechanisms are defined as ‘a delimited class of changes that alter relations among specified sets of elements in identical or closely similar ways over a variety of situations’; processes are ‘regular com- binations and sequences of mechanisms that produce similar (generally more complex and contingent) transformations of those elements’.26 For the purpose of the present analysis, a brief reference to the criteria used in social-movement research can help to identify how the party-stemming background of the campaign has influenced its development. In this sense, a social movement is seen as consisting of four elements: (a) an organized and claim-making campaign; (b) a repertoire; (c) displays of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment (WUNC); and (d) the base, i.e. organizations, networks, traditions and solidarities.27 In ‘Freedom Calling’ all these elements can be found. Therefore, this analytical tool can be adopted for our case, even though we do not deal with a social movement in the narrow sense but rather with part of a more general contentious struggle. Keeping these four elements of what characterizes a movement in mind, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the processes and mechanisms of the campaign, with focus on identifying the role that the party-stemming background played in ‘Freedom Calling’.

A Word on Method and Data

In this paper, we qualitatively and systematically analyse empirical campaign data to identify the mechanisms that link causes with outcomes, providing a coherent explanation of the relevant dynamics within the considered episode.28 The explicatory power of mechanisms and processes within the present case serves a twofold purpose: first, to gain a better understanding of how a party-stemming movement like ‘Freedom Calling’ could unfold in the Montenegrin context; and second, to generate empirically rooted propositions that provide ground for more general conclusions within the, still emerging, field of contentious politics in hybrid regimes. What we do not intend to consider thoroughly are

26 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 29. 27 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 11. 28 Derek Beach, Process-Tracing Methods in Social Science, in: Oxford Research Encyclo- pedia, Politics, New York 2016, 1-31, 20-24, DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.176. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 561 the actors behind the campaign, nor do we explore their particular motives or discuss the protesters’ perspectives. The data on which this study is based were primarily, although not exclusively, drawn from online sources—both informational and research-based ones.29 This includes various media outlets such as Montenegrin digital and printed press as well as internet portals and blogs, consisting both of news and of analyses conducted by domestic and international experts. It has proved a difficulty in our data-gathering process that the media landscape in Montenegro is mostly made up of contributions that represent a mere summary of a given politician’s declarations and actions, while analyses are often partisan, providing a black-and-white representation of complex events. Therefore, in order to further complement our primary sources and widen our understanding of the considered actors’ stances, we scan in detail social-media accounts of politicians and parties, as well as political public-relations statements and communiqués. Protest footage is also screened and analysed. Before we examine the processes and mechanisms of the ‘Freedom Calling’ campaign, we establish the framework of the political context. After a brief outline of the political opportunity structure in Montenegro, we highlight the importance of identity patterns. Against this background we unfold the events of the campaign, before offering some reflections on potential generalizing patterns deducible from our case study.

The Unfolding of the ‘Freedom Calling’ Campaign

Tilly and Tarrow’s analytical components of what they call the political opportunity structure include six key elements: (1) the presence of multiple independent power centres within a regime; (2) the structure’s openness to new actors; (3) the instability of current political alignments; (4) the availability of influential allies or supporters for challengers; (5) the degree to which the regime represses or facilitates collective claim-making; and (6) changes in any of the mentioned conditions.30 With regard to the presence of multiple independent power centres (1), Montenegro does not comply, as it features only one, strongly predominant, power centre: Milo Đukanović and his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), with which he has led Montenegro’s ‘exploitative reconstruction of the state’ since 1991.31 Initially acting under the patronage

29 We follow the example of Lorenzo Mosca, Methodological Practices in Social Move- ment Research, in: Donatella Della Porta, ed, Methodological Practices in Social Movement Research, Oxford 2014, 397-417, 397. 30 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 59. 31 Ivan Vuković, The Post-Communist Political Transition of Montenegro. Democratization Prior to Europeanization, Contemporary European Studies 2 (2010), 59-77, 62, http://www.ces. upol.cz/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2-10_vukovic.pdf. 562 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl of Serbia’s president Slobodan Milošević, Đukanović later turned against his former sponsor, which in 1997 led to a split within the DPS, ending the political ‘monolith[ism]’32 with the formation of the pro-Belgrade Socialist People’s Party (Socialistička Narodna Partija, SNP). However, Đukanović’s power held firm: driven by pragmatic calculations, his party embarked on a ‘creeping independence’ project through a gradual appropriation of competences from the federative centre in Belgrade.33 The move was further legitimized through the establishment of identity-orientated policies, which effectively ‘simplified’ the traditionally ambiguous blend of Montenegrin and Serbian identities. A clear distinction between the two ethnic groups was thus to be achieved through an elite-driven process of redefining Montenegrin identity, ultimately aimed at cementing the DPS’s rule.34 While the ‘Western-ness’ of this identity was emphasized, religious and ethnic connota- tions strongly associated with Serb identity were omitted in an attempt to adopt a civil-based nationalism.35 This appealed to the country’s minorities, gaining their electoral support.36 The policy proved to pay off, as access to power and high positions was and still remains exclusively available to actors willing to support the DPS and share the patronage-related benefits, which is in accordance with point (2), i.e. the political opportunity structure is principally open to new actors. This is well illustrated by a recent statement by a member of the Social Democratic Party (Socijaldemokratska Partija, SDP), the DPS’s coalition partner from 1998 to 2015: ‘As soon as we will start to leave the cabinet, we will be stuck at the door with those who push to enter and take our place.’37 As David S. Meyer stresses, the state ‘can encourage the development of oppositional identities, based on racial, ethnic, sexual or religious categories’,38 thus influencing perceived opportunities for potential claim-makers. In Monte- negro, this was achieved through the politicization of identity affiliations along

32 Jelena Džankić, Citizenship Between the ‘Image of the Nation’ and ‘the Image of Politics’. The Case of Montenegro, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 14, no. 1 (2014), 43-64, 46, DOI: 10.1080/14683857.2014.882075. 33 Džankić, Citizenship Between the ‘Image of the Nation’ and ‘the Image of Politics’, 46. 34 Florian Bieber / Jenni Winterhagen, Erst der Staat – dann die Nation. Staats- und Nations- bildung in Montenegro, Südosteuropa. Journal of Politics and Society no. 1 (2009), 2-24, https:// www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=189868. 35 Jelena Džankić, Reconstructing the Meaning of Being ‘Montenegrin’, Slavic Review 73, no. 2 (2014), 347-371, 347, 352, DOI: 10.5612/slavicreview.73.2.347. 36 Džankić, Citizenship Between the ‘Image of the Nation’ and ‘the Image of Politics’, 47. 37 Miloš Bakić, Političke Prilike. Raspad Sistema, Monitor no. 1291, 17 July 2015, http:// www.monitor.co.me/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6177:politike-prilike- raspad-sistema&catid=4237:broj-1291&Itemid=5536.. 38 David S. Meyer, Protest and Political Opportunities, Annual Review of Sociology, no. 30 (2004), 125-145, 140, DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110545. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 563 the ‘Serb-Montenegrin identity continuum’.39 Such affiliations were clearly transposed into the political landscape, becoming a relevant determinant of voter behaviour.40 Thus, the DPS and its coalition partners defined themselves as the only viable referents of an independent Montenegrin identity, in stark contrast with the rather Serb-orientated opposition of that time. Effectively, in the Montenegrin censuses, the number of citizens declaring their belonging to the Serb ethnic group rose from around 9% in 1991 to around 30% in 2011, thereby giving proof of how the enhanced non-Serb ‘Montenegrin-ness’ of the DPS followers prompted adherents of the opposition to ‘Serbianize’ themselves.41 In the independence referendum of 2006, the divide came to represent a cleavage in the political system, which found its ‘organizational expression’ in the political parties and has persisted as basic reference of political conflict and for narrowing down the electoral market.42 After Montenegro’s independence, following the referendum of 2006, parties that remained fundamentally critical of the DPS’s dominance while possessing less noticeable ethnopolitical identities grew in popularity. This helped to foster the fragmentation of the party system, characterized by frequent oppositional party splits due to top-down internal decision-making practices and a low level of membership inclusion.43 In this process, the Divide et Impera strategy of the ruling DPS, coupled with its extensive patronage networks, remained crucial in fostering a high level of polarization while supporting the general non-in- stitutionalization of opposition ranks.44 In addition to this, Milo Đukanović has consistently enjoyed a good degree of international support, as ‘a stable partner’ and someone to ‘count on’,45 lowering support for the opposition both domestically and abroad. This is the enactment of Tilly and Tarrow’s point (4), namely, influential allies have been available to Đukanović.

39 Bieber / Winterhagen, Erst der Staat – dann die Nation, 3. 40 Bojan D. Spaić, Political Identities and Citizenship in Montenegro, published as online preprint with the Social Science Research Network, March 2013, 1-19, 3, DOI: 10.2139/ssrn. 2332191 . 41 Džankić, Reconstructing the Meaning of Being ‘Montenegrin’, 352-356. 42 Cf. Peter Mair, Cleavages, in: Richard S. Katz / William J. Crotty, eds, Handbook of Party Politics, London, Thousand Oaks/CA 2006, 371-375, 373. 43 Zlatko Vujović / Nikoleta Tomović, Perspectives for Development of Intra-Party De- mocracy in Montenegro, in: Vladimir Goati / Srđan Darmanović, eds, Electoral and Party System in Montenegro. A Perspective of Internal Party Democracy Development, Podgorica 2015, 151-180. 44 Florian Bieber, The Party System of Montenegro, in: Vera Stojarová, ed, Party Politics in the Western Balkans, London et al. 2010, 119-130. 45 Mirko Bošković, Why Montenegro’s Protests Are Unlikely to Spell the End for Milo Đukanović, European Politics and Policy (EUROPP), Blog of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 20 November 2015, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/11/20/why- montenegros-protests-are-unlikely-to-spell-the-end-for-milo-dukanovic/. 564 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl

Đukanović’s focus on identity enabled him to legitimize his political shifts and was key in allowing him to maintain control of the country’s institutions through the strategic manipulation of electoral contests.46 Thanks to this dou- ble-edged strategy, the dominant DPS does not need to return to harsh modes of repression. Leaving enough space for claim-making, the incumbent resorts to other suppression methods, such as informal pressure and patronage. This is, in Tarrow and Tilly’s terms, the degree to which Đukanović’s regime represses (or facilitates) collective claim-making (5). However, the consequences of the global economic crisis have evidenced the flaws of the Montenegrin postsocialist transformation, such as the problematic de-industrialization process and the increasing socio-economic inequality. A row of protests occurred in 2012, led by the ‘Network for the Affirmation of the NGO Sector’ (Mreža za afirmaciju nevladinog sektora, MANS). In a campaign matching the size of ‘Freedom Calling’, but without the active involvement of political parties, thousands of people protested against their economic hardships. They blamed the economic policies of the government and demanded resigna- tions and immediate reforms.47 The episode did illustrate the full potential of Montenegro’s collective anti-regime activism, as the campaign ended with the announcement of snap parliamentary elections, from which a pro-EU coalition emerged as winner, with Đukanović in the lead, and a better focus on addressing the start of Montenegro’s EU accession negotiations. The ‘audio-recordings affair’ that had erupted in 2013, after the leaking of recordings of DPS sessions in which officials were caught planning the use of state resources and informal networks to buy votes and assure their stay in power, boosted, in 2014, accusations of electoral theft. As a consequence, and with substantial EU pressure, legislation to improve the electoral process was finally approved. However, the new regulations have only seen delayed and partial implementation, which once more gave ground to the recurring oppositional concerns about the incumbent’s electoral legitimacy. When the DPS’s earlier best ally, the Social Democratic Party, left the ruling coalition in 2015, political stability was significantly weakened (point (3) in Tilly and Tarrow’s model). On the other side of the political spectrum, the DF has represented the most important opposition formation since 2012. An alliance of several opposition parties, among its most relevant members are the Movement for Changes (Pokret za Promjene, PzP), and NOVA Serb Democracy (NOVA Srpska demokrati- ja, NOVA). While the former party emerged from a civil-society grouping and stresses the need for democratic development, the latter is strongly bonded to Serb identity. NOVA, along with other members of the alliance, resorts to Serb

46 Džankić, Citizenship Between the ‘Image of the Nation’ and ‘the Image of Politics’. 47 Mreža za afirmaciju nevladinog sektora (MANS), Annual Report, Podgorica 2012, http:// www.mans.co.me/wp-content/uploads/mans/MANS2012AnnualReport.pdf. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 565 ethnonationalist rhetoric, supporting the union between Serbia and Montenegro and expressing anti-NATO, pro-Russian stances. Although the alliance clearly maintains Eurosceptic traits, it has never openly questioned the country’s path towards the EU. The PzP is the only alliance member that declares itself in favour of NATO membership; it does not explicitly appeal to ethnic affiliations, but rather criticizes the incumbent’s malversation in this respect. Given these divergent views, it is evident that the common denominator of the members of the oppositional alliance amounts to a strong and unwavering confrontational stance against the DPS. Structurally, NOVA and PzP share a low level of insti- tutionalization, as well as a particularly low level of member inclusion within the parties’ internal executive bodies.48 As the parliamentary mandate came to a close, from August 2014 onwards the opportunity of staging anti-government protests became increasingly discussed among the DF leadership. The internal debate this stirred up led the charismatic leader of the alliance, Miodrag Lekić, to defect and establish his own party, the Democratic Alliance (Demokratski savez, DEMOS) in March 2015, which subsequently significantly threatened the alliance’s popular support.49 Summing up the applicability of Tilly and Tarrow’s model, we thus found that (1) the predominant political power in Montenegro is centred around Milo Đukanović and his DPS, which (2) only remains accessible to new actors who are willing to play according to their rules. Simultaneously, as the regime employs softer threats rather than overt repression (5), opposition parties and actors do indeed exist, albeit strongly fragmented and often unwilling to cooperate (4). Since opportunities ‘must be perceived in order to be considered as such’,50 the decreased stability (6) of the current political alignments (3) has become crucial. Fractures within the ruling coalition offered the DF an opportunity to pursue their objectives through a contentious claim-making campaign.51 Indeed, after institutional channels fell short and with other opposition actors maintaining a moderate stance,52 the chance for fruitful contentious action was perceived by DF’s leadership and duly exploited. The claim for free and fair elections

48 Vujović / Tomović, Perspectives for Development of Intra-Party Democracy in Monte- negro. 49 Milena Perović-Korać, Andrija Mandic, Demokratski Front. Ko je protiv režima, doći će, Monitor, no. 1300, 18 September 2015, http://www.monitor.co.me/index.php?option=com_con tent&view=article&id=6322:andrija-mandi-demokratski-front-ko-je-protiv-reima-doi-e- &catid=4347:broj-1300&Itemid=5654. 50 Giugni, Political Opportunity, 277. 51 Stevo Muk, Elections in Montenegro – Between Protests and Dialogue, The Balkans in Eu- rope Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG), 24 November 2015, http://www.biepag.eu/2015/11/24/ elections-in-montenegro-between-protests-and-dialogue/?highlight=stevo%20muk. 52 Dusica Tomovic, Montenegro Opposition Offers SDP Role in New Govt.,BalkanInsight , 22 May 2015, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/montenegro-opposition-seeks-support- for-crisis-govt. 566 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl was promptly available from the contentious repertoire of the Montenegrin opposition and obviously a hot topic.

Mechanisms and Processes in Action

Turning a movement base into an actual campaign requires triggering a set of processes, among which the process of mobilization, and mechanisms such as brokerage, coordinated action or repression.53 The key process observed in the Montenegrin case is indeed mobilization, requiring an increase in resources that the contentious actors have available for their claim-making.54 The inter- connection of mobilization with (political) activities and (political) values is also crucial, as this process requires a ‘collective awareness’ and ‘common values’,55 coupled with a deliberate set of tactics and strategies, common and realistic goals as well as reliable methods, all to be adapted in response to structural or newly established restrictions.56 In Montenegro, after the DF’s organizational effort was set into motion in early 2015,57 intense brokerage activity to prepare the terrain for coordinated action followed in the form of meetings with local activists and citizens led by coalition leaders.58 In early July, it was announced that the campaign would start on 27 September, while the official internet platform, ‘Freedom Calling’, was presented in a press conference before the first gathering. The platform articulated great ambitions, demanding the formation of a broad-consensus transitional government that was to exclude the DPS and to lead the country to the ‘first free and fair elections’. The campaign management was entrusted to Fedja Pavlović, a student and son of member of parliament Koča Pavlović of the PzP and a founding member of DF.59 While the remaining opposition

53 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 149; For the definition of ‘mechanisms’ and ‘processes’ (if not stated otherwise) cf. Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 31; 36-37; 235-244. 54 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 120. 55 Ann-Dorte Christensen / Nina C. Raaum, Models of Political Mobilisation, in: Christina Bergqvist, ed, Equal Democracies? Gender and Politics in the Nordic Countries, Oslo 1999, 17-26, 17-18. 56 Erica Chenoweth / Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, New York 2011, 36-46. 57 Nakon analize organizacije demonstracija, predsjedništvo DF-a ostalo pri ranijm zaključima o prevazilaženju krize u zemlji, Dan Online, 26 February 2015, https://www.dan. co.me/?nivo=3&datum=2015-02-28&rubrika=Politika&clanak=478371&najdatum=2015-02-26. 58 Knežević: DF kreće u terensku kampanju za pripremu protesta, IN4S, 24 April 2015, https://www.in4s.net/knezevic-df-krece-u-terensku-kampanju-za-pripremu-protesta/?lang=lat . 59 Detailed information about the demands were published online at http://slobodatraziljude.me/en/new-deal/. The website is offline now, but see https://web.archive.org/web/ 20170128001918/slobodatraziljude.me/en/new-deal/; as well as Sloboda Traži Ljude’s YouTube Channel, https:// www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ2UhuwWlK_-ZUmhTtBK7kw. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 567 parties were invited to join the DF’s effort, the SNP was the only party to follow through on the offer, issuing an informal backing. If, as Hank Johnston argues, the perspective on success is among key conditions for the actual success of a movement, because ‘even fervent proponents of change will not act if they see no possibility of success’,60 then the lack of support from other opposition forces towards ‘Freedom Calling’ signalled a relevant point: they did not intend to take the risk of being a minor actor in a play led by the DF, precisely because they considered the chances for success to be low. This rationale was underpinned by the lack of evidence that efforts were undertaken to include other actors in the campaign’s design. Nevertheless, on 27 September, several thousands of people marched through Podgorica behind the DF leaders, to then listen to their speeches from a stage placed in a ‘liberated area’ on the boulevard in front of the parliament building. With some hundreds of tents giving shelter to the participants, the organizers voiced their resolution to keep occupying the area until their demands were met. This somewhat clumsy attempt to adopt an Occupy-style format was performed as a substantiation of the platform’s self-assigned non-violent and civil disobedience character. Thus, the performance was strategically chosen to strengthen the campaign’s credibility both in the country and beyond. The narrative clearly focused on triggering a mechanism of reassurance for a national and international audience. The crowd-funding campaign the movement initi- ated is telling in this respect, as it aimed to give the protests a more grassroots and citizen-driven gloss. The broad coverage of the campaign on the activists’ official website and social-media profiles was made available also in English, clearly signalling that the addressees were also international audiences.61 However, the sociopolitical matrix of the participants did not align with the civil coverage that was set up on the campaign’s platform. Some ethnic-Serb symbolisms, and the fact that the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Irinej I., gave a speech in the context of the campaign, further contributed to the DF leaders’ political reputation as contrasting with the identity crafting provided by the activists. These contrasting imaginaries were duly emphasized by pro-government media coverage.62 Because of such cleavages, and also due to Đukanović’s aforementioned international support, no substantial endorsement came from abroad, nor from the domestic civil-society sector, both of which remained neutral. What is exemplified here is the fact that addressing and in-

60 Johnston, States and Social Movements, 106. 61 Cf . Fedja Pavlovic, Crowdfunding a Revolution in Montenegro, Open Democracy, 13 Octo- ber 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/fedja-pavlovic/crowdfunding- revolution-in-montenegro; Fedja Pavlovic, Meet My Dictator, Balkanist, 24 October 2015, https:// balkanist.net/meet-my-dictator/ . 62 Analitičari o protestima: DF je opozicija Crnoj Gori, Radio i Televizija Crne Gore, 21 October 2015, http://rtcg.me/vijesti/politika/107295/df-je-opozicija-crnoj-gori.html. 568 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl fluencing the general public opinion is a difficult endeavour, because it often involves different interest groups and different views on the world. However, success in this field is often considered a prerequisite for mobilizing massive protest participation.63 In Montenegro’s highly polarized and fragmented po- litico-media environment this results even more demanding. While the protests were at least partially innovative in character, they did not succeed in communicating a more substantial diversity among the participants, as opposed to the mentioned ethnic-Serb inclinations. More diversity on all levels could perhaps have helped send a stronger message to the disproportionately large number of anti-riot police surrounding the protesters’ camp. Instead, police even told journalists to keep their distance, due to alleged security concerns, which served the suppressive purposes of the government. The latter reported the campaign to be anti-democratic, anti-NATO, anti-Western, inherently anti-Montenegrin and funded by Serbian/Russian-chauvinists.64 After ten days, the permit for the occupation of the ‘liberated area’ expired, opening up two weeks of unstable equilibrium between tacit allowance and an increasingly plausible repression menace. Eventually, in the early hours of Saturday, 17 October, the latter occurred openly, when the evacuation of the ‘liberated area’ was met with resistance and was enforced violently by police units. Civil-society observers reported on the use of unjustified harshness.65 A protest march that was organized on the same day also encountered blockade and violent repression by the police. One day later, on 18 October, an increased number of people took to the streets to show solidarity. This sudden momentum led the organizers to further radicalize their claims: they set an ultimatum for the government to resign within six days.66 After these repressive acts, the government-sponsored stigma that had been laid on the campaign began to lose its strength, while the protesters’ claim showed potential in gaining broader support and posing a more serious threat to the government.67 At the climax of the episode, on 24 October, more than

63 Kateřina Vráblíková, Public Opinion and Movements, in: Snow et al., eds, The Wiley-Black- well Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, DOI: 10.1002/9780470674871.wbe spm170. 64 Marinović o protestima u Podgorici, Al Jazeera Balkans, 28 September 2015, available on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY5U29ElnKA. 65 Milan Radović / Zoran Vujičić, CA Sent Open Letter to International Organizations, Civic Alliance / Građanska Alijansa / Aleanca Qytetare, 18 October 2015, http://gamn.org/ca-sent- open-letter-to-international-organizations/?lang=en. 66 Dušica Tomovic, Podgorica Protesters Give PM Six Days to Resign, BalkanInsight, 18 Oc- tober 2015, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/podgorica-protesters-give-pm-six-days- to-resign-10-18-2015. 67 Miloš Bakić, Protesti. Na braniku domovine, Monitor, no. 1305, 23 October 2015, http:// www.monitor.co.me/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6387:protesti-na- braniku-domovine&catid=4392:broj-1305&Itemid=5719. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 569

10,000 people marched through Podgorica—a respectable size considering Montenegro’s total population of approximately 620,000. The absence of any other opposition party, however, diminished the value of the event. When the crowd arrived in front of the parliament, the DF leaders spelled out a threat of escalation in the absence of a resignation.68 In an increasingly tense atmosphere, the DF’s members of parliament attempted to force their way into the parliament building and, as the ultimatum expired, violence erupted when a group of protesters began targeting the police with various objects. Applying once more a disproportionate harshness, the security forces reacted with tear gas, shock bombs and beatings, resulting hundreds of injured, while two of the DF’s members of parliament were arrested, which amounted to a violation of their immunity .69 It quickly became evident that the organizers had no ‘plan B’, as they had proved unable to de-escalate the situation before the police reacted. In the aftermath of these events, the government accused the DF of an attempted coup d’état, which was met with the counter-accusation that the government had deliberately instilled violence. While international reaction condemned the violence, this for the most part articulated only limited criticism and rather called for a ‘constructive dialogue within democratic institutions and processes’.70 In this way, Đukanović, as the guarantor of stability, once again received implicit endorsement. From this point on, the campaign moved towards de-escalation. On 15 No- vember, another mass demonstration was organized in Podgorica with a whole set of performances intended to re-establish the peaceful and democratic character of the campaign’s gatherings. In the meantime, the government and other opposition parties, supported by the EU, signalled their willingness to engage in dialogue that addressed the exact points on which the protest campaign had solicited. Additional protests followed, but with slightly decreasing participation and the psychological momentum seemed to have faded away. By the end of November bipartisan negotiations began, yet the DF was unwilling to take part. The government’s efforts to suppress its opponents continued, while the DF voiced reproaches towards the other opposition parties.71 Further-

68 Dusica Tomovic, Montenegro Opposition Mulls Options After Clashes, BalkanInsight, 26 October 2015, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/montenegro-opposition-mulls-op tions-after-clashes-10-25-2015. 69 Milena Perović-Korać, Ko je komandovao a ko učestvovao u subotnjem policijskom teroru. Milove beretke, Monitor, no. 1306, 30 October 2015, http://www.monitor.co.me/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6406:ko-je-komandovao-a-ko-uestvovao-u-subotnjem-policijskom-teroru-milove-beretke-&catid=4403:broj-1306&Itemid=5730. 70 Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro, Statement of the EU Delegation to Mon- tenegro Regarding the Recent Events in Podgorica, 19 October 2015, http://www.eeas.europa. eu/archives/delegations/montenegro/code/navigatee56c.html?Id=3281. 71 DF: Opozicija trebalo odmah da ode i da nam se priključi, Vijesti, 2 December 2015, http:// www.vijesti.me/vijesti/df-opozicija-trebalo-odmah-da-ode-i-da-nam-se-prikljuci-863375 . 570 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl more, early December saw the long-awaited NATO-invitation for Montenegro, leading to separate demonstrations.72 Yet, even though these were performed outside ‘Freedom Calling’, the actors involved were mostly overlapping, as the government did not fail to underline.73 Among the DF constituents, only the PzP did not take part to the anti-NATO protests. These circumstances further blurred the contours of the supposedly civil character of the campaign. After additional gatherings at the end of December,74 more mass demonstrations were held on 24 January 2016, on the eve of a vote of no-confidence against Đukanović’s government, which however failed.75 By the end of February, the dialogue appeared more fictitious, as it did not produce any concrete results, and during March and April the DF maintained its contentious rhetoric yet organized no collective action. The momentum of the October protests was lost, and no significant mobilization efforts were observable. Active contention returned on 26 April, however, when the institutionalized dialogue resulted in an ‘Agreement on free and fair elections’ in order to recon- struct the government including opposition figures, thus allowing an ‘increased trust in the electoral process’.76 As only three opposition formations (controlling just six MPs) were part of this agreement while the Socialist People’s Party (SNP) decided to drop its involvement, the special law decreed to implement the agreement was to be discussed in parliament, but led the increasingly isolated DF to organize another demonstration and to end its parliamentary boycott. These 3 May protests were of no comparison to the scale of the autumn gatherings, and clearly marked the shift from the ‘Freedom Calling’ episode to the electoral campaign. Now protest slogans and banners were brought into the parliamentary debates as well.77

72 Anti-NATO skup završen čitanjem testamenta Sv. Petra Cetinjskog, Vijesti, 12 December 2015, http://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/anti-nato-skup-zavrsen-citanjem-testamenta-sv-petra-cetinjskog-865124 . 73 Milena Perović-Korać, Nebojša Medojević, lider pokreta za promjene: Protesti se nastavljaju i neće biti anti-NATO, Monitor, 11 December 2015, http://www.monitor.co.me/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=6492:neboja-medojevi-lider-pokreta-za-promjene-protesti-se-nastavljaju-i-nee-biti-anti-nato&catid=4475:broj-1312&Itemid=5811 . 74 Dušica Tomović, Montenegro Opposition Protest Demand Free Elections, BalkanInsight, 20 December 2015, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/montenegro-opposition-plans- new-anti-djukanovic-protest-12-18-2015. 75 Andrej Nikolaidis, Obračun kod Crnogorske OK skupštine, Aljazeera Balkans, 30 January 2016, http://balkans.aljazeera.net/vijesti/obracun-kod-crnogorske-ok-skupstine . 76 Mila Radulović, I Đukanović potpisao Sporazum o fer i slobodnim izborima, Vijesti, 26 April 2016, http://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/i-dukanovic-potpisao-sporazum-o-fer-i-slobodnim- izborima-885394. 77 Mila Radulović, Mandić: Đukanovic nas je vrijeđao, prvi je nasrnuo na naše poslanike, Vijesti, 13 May 2016, http://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/mandic-dukanovic-nas-je-vrijedao-prvi-je- nasrnuo-na-nase-poslanike-887806 . Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 571

Outcomes, Obstacles and Facilitations

On the one hand, the observable outcomes of the campaign, when compared to its initial demands, were clearly unsatisfactory. The government successfully reduced the significance of the campaign’s claim by commencing an institutional dialogue with other opposition parties, thereby successfully isolating the movement and emphasizing its negative effect on the country’s stability during the NATO and EU accession processes. A centripetal effect was thus put in place in the DPS’s favour, from which only the DF remained excluded, voluntarily and proudly. This led to increased polarization between the two main actors in the party system—proving the DPS’s Divide et Impera strategy to be effective once again. On the other hand, however, the cohesion among the DF is likely to have improved, with some polls speaking of a slight increase in support also among the electorate 78. In comparison to pre-campaign polls, the fairly positive electoral results at the 2016 parliamentary elections speak in favour of the alliance’s mobilization effort. Thus, in this sense at least, the protests have proved to be a rather innovative endeavour towards increasing support for the organizing party alliance and for building internal cohesion. When applying the mechanism approach to the campaign’s developments, interesting characteristics are observable. According to Tilly and Tarrow, brokerage activates diffusion, and together they produce coordinated action.79 We individuated a strong party-based brokerage as the main driver of the mobilization process. Indeed, the key facilitation of this party-stemming campaign appears to be the diminished importance of diffusion in spurring a sufficient level of participation at the start of the process, due to already-established networks. Because of the initial base configuration, brokerage was efficient enough to kick off coordinated action. It can be argued that in the decisive week between 17 and 24 October 2015, a successful undermining of the government by non-institutional means might even have been a possible, although missed, outcome. Indeed, the campaign failed to create innovative and inclusive trademarks or brandings. On the con- trary, the staged performances sent contradictory messages to the public, paving the way for the government’s suppression strategy as the campaign remained widely perceived as pro-Serb protest. The diffusion was limited due to the failure in downplaying political-identity boundaries. Other opposition parties would not take part in non-institutional claim-making, because they thought

78 DAMAR Research: DPS Strongest, DF in Front of DEMOS, Cafe del Montenegro, 1 Decem- ber 2015, https://www.cdm.me/english/damar-research-dps-strongest-df-in-front-of-demos/. 79 Tilly / Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 35. 572 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl that they would have to accept a role subordinate to that of the DF.80 Given that the contention claim touched on a critically important theme of the anti-regime repertoire, other opposition parties avoided the risk of downplaying their own political label and thus refrained from participating in collective action—particularly in one led by their strongest intra-opposition competitor, and offering no guarantee for an equal say within the campaign.81 The DF did not convincingly signal that such equality was a likelihood. Thus, political party labels proved more important than the nature of the claims within the mobilization process. This strongly compromised the movement’s endeavour, heightening the diffusion costs for other opposition groupings. As the sites of contention did not increase, an identity shift mechanism was not activated, making it impossible to coagulate around a communal identity of being a meaningful opposition. The clear attempt to stress the peaceful character of the campaign through ‘non-violent action’, including the goal of overthrowing the incumbent by withdrawing obedience and cooperation, correctly implied the campaign’s strategically superior morale in its attempt to achieve regime change.82 Yet, as much as the campaign organizers benefitted politically from the violence of the repression, this escalation was responded to with a radicalization on the part of the campaigners. Setting an ultimatum for Đukanović’s resignation proved counterproductive. Without a clear strategy in case of failure, the protesters’ momentum could not be abated, which ultimately led to the violence of the night of 24 October. This, not lastly, provided support to the suppression strategy adopted by the government. The push for radicalization therefore limited a possible de-activation of existing (ethnic) identity boundaries between the movement and other opposition or civil actors. Moreover, the opening of an institutional dialogue slowly weakened the movement’s claim in the eyes of other domestic and external relevant actors, eliminating potential endorsement mechanisms. After the mobilization and psychological peak of the campaign on 24 October, there was a slow but steady loss of momentum, with negotiations allowing the regime to capitalize on its suppression efforts. Rather than cohesion, this development triggered re-activation, arguably in a stronger fashion, of the boundaries between the opposition parties. By May 2016, the DF’s rhetoric depicted the supporters of the agreement as lackeys of the regime and pushed them further beyond the ‘us/them’

80 Marko Milačić, Miodrag Lekić, Lider DEMOSA: Ne očekujem puno od razgovora s Krivokapićem, Monitor, no. 1310, 27 November 2015, http://www.monitor.co.me/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6463:miodrag-leki-lider-demosa-ne-oekujem- puno-od-razgovora-s-krivokapiem-&catid=4453:broj-1310&Itemid=5787. 81 Bakić, Protesti. 82 Chenoweth / Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 3. Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 573 border.83 Between January and May, a partial demobilization had occurred, and the protests became remnants of the previous momentum that were channelled towards the electoral campaign.

Politics Going Civil. First Notes Towards Generalization

Individuating the processes and mechanisms at work in Montenegro allows for differentiating between party-stemming movements and grassroots ones. If a party is formally defined as a political group that possesses an official label and evolves towards the ultimate goal of running candidates for public office,84 it is also expected to possess substantial and readily available access to resources that can trigger collective action, in the sense of membership, human resources, financial assets, etc. As such, the initial participation ‘barrier’ (costs) for individuals can be thought of as low. Organizational loyalties, i.e. placing the party brand ‘in the mind of the public’,85 and the relatively stable support base can also allow for effective mobilization. However, while this increased initial availability of resources represents a clear advantage, the ‘official label’ as a political party implies also crucial impediments. If the construction of a suitable collective (political) identity is fundamental for the party itself, as it defines its stance within the party system and is necessary to mobilize political support, the same is true for the formation of a movement. The strategies and ideas a movement presents in terms of con- structing its identity are decisive in terms of its mobilizing success, both when it comes to initializing protests and to setting boundaries with respect to other groups.86 Yet, movements often only succeed when they act on an attractive and inclusive basis, balancing out internal disagreements and strictly observing the self-set identity boundaries.87 On the other hand, movements need to be flexible enough to deconstruct and reinvent identity categories when the necessity to do so shows.88 This latter aspect is particularly significant in the Montenegrin

83 Vučurović: Jedina budućnost države politika pomirenja DF-a, Vijesti, 16 May 2016, http:// www.vijesti.me/vijesti/vucurovic-jedina-buducnost-drzave-politika-pomirenja-df-a-888255 . 84 Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems. A Framework for Analysis, Colchester 2005, 56; Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties. Organization and Power, Cambridge 1988, 18. 85 Joan Hillebrand Neumiller, Identity Politics or Politics of Maturation? New Extreme Right Parties in Italy, PhD Thesis, University of Minnesota, 2006, 30. 86 Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, Collective Identity, in: Snow et al., eds, The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, DOI: 10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm039. 87 Thomas Shriver / Alison E. Adams, Collective Identity and the Subjective Terrain of Political Opportunities. Movement Dissension over Participation in Party Politics, Mobiliza- tion 18, no. 1 (2013), 65-82, 65-67, http://mobilizationjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.17813/maiq.18.1. 076ut123521u6115 . 88 Mary Bernstein / Verta Taylor, Identity Politics, in: Snow et al., eds, The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, DOI: 10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm104. 574 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl case, as here the political-identity labels of the parties within the alliance were already set before the beginning of the movement. This implied that its prop- agated collective identity was not a result of extensive grassroots negotiation at the campaign’s inception. As research on other cases has shown, established parties can be involved in the initial process of innovative contentious action, but the movement as such can only become successful once societal groups join who were previously unaffected by party politics.89 This ensures that grassroots social movements enjoy more space and flexibility when negotiating collective identity than a political party. A diverse pool of protesters, in terms of age, gender, religion, ethnicity, ideology, socio-economic status and even party-political outlook was found to decrease the likelihood of governmental repression, while allowing flexibility concerning both initial strategies and responses to state countermeasures.90 Ultimately, if we measure the Montenegrin case against these findings, the conditions of the political system in which the interaction between movement and state unfolds are crucial. This can be demonstrated in the category of ethnicity. In states where ethnicity has been politicized to the point of representing cleavages in the party system, parties relying on this ethnic marker will face difficulty in disengaging a contentious campaign from a previously established identity label. Consequently, by way of a generalizing statement, we assume that any identity label of a political party will, even if in differing ways, be transposed onto a contentious campaign this party might engage in. When considering how to address the relation between political parties and social movements within a party-stemming contentious campaign in hybrid regimes such as the Montenegrin one, our findings suggest that the interplay between a party’s organizational resources and its established political identity play a substantial role in the initial configuration of the movement’s basis. This initial configuration then takes effect in the movement’s further development, and it is here that we identify the crucial difference between contentious (party) politics and the contentious campaigns that have stood in the focus in earlier research.

Conclusion

The ‘Freedom Calling’ campaign of 2015 and 2016 in Montenegro blurred the lines between a movement and a party, as they were understood by Tilly and Tarrow’s contentious-politics approach. When it comes to the question

89 McAdam / Tarrow / Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, 102. 90 Chenoweth / Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 36-46; David S. Meyer / Nancy Whit- tier, Social Movement Spillover, Social Problems 41, no. 2 (1994), 277-298, 279, DOI: 10.2307/ 3096934 . Contentious (Party) Politics in Montenegro 575 regarding the influence of the party-stemming background on the unfolding of the contentious campaign, i.e. how the party goes civil, that which Tilly and Tarrow call the movement’s ‘basis’ proves to be at variance with their approach. The peculiarities inherent in ‘Freedom Calling’ derived from three aspects: first, Montenegro corresponds to a ‘hybrid regime’, a state design that was not taken into account by Tilly and Tarrow; second, the party-stemming resources in the mobilization process facilitated the initiation of the movement, including an eased brokerage; and third, the existing identity label of the party proved to be a limiting factor when it came to sustaining the campaign, even with regard to purely programmatic claims. The core problem here is that a given political-identity label can be attached to the movement by both its supporters and its detractors, without extensive negotiation during the campaign’s inception. Such a negotiation process, however, often proves to be crucial for the creation of a substantiating effect within grassroots movements. In Montenegro, the political opportunity that the DF perceived and sought to exploit in terms of achieving a regime change would have demanded a strong de-activation of the established identity boundaries. Due to Montenegro’s polarized political environment and the salience of the political identity the campaign organizers bore, the need to transversally include participants regardless of their ethnopolitical identity was paramount. Given that such inclusion was not pursued coherent- ly throughout the campaign, it failed to encourage diffusion by lowering the participation threshold for formal and informal opposition actors beyond the DF. Only an unambiguous effort towards the inclusion of all opposition forces could possibly have overcome the initial scepticism that the DF faced due to its strong identity label as being pro-Serb. The analysis of mechanisms and processes in the considered contentious episode ‘Freedom Calling’ brought forth how previously unconnected protesters were gathered together through party-based brokerage and how coordinated action was triggered within a process of mobilization that included a progressive escalation and radicalization of the protest claims. After the mobilization peak in October 2015, then, a slow demobilization occurred and led to the return to institutional party politics by May 2016. This outcome can be explained by the movement’s inability to diffuse its appeal to potential allies, both domestically and abroad. At the same time, an effective and coherent suppression strategy took root that was deployed by the government against the contenders. Our analysis of Montenegro’s ‘Freedom Calling’ campaign is intended to fill the gap observable in research when it comes to the blurring of the categories of parties and movements within hybrid regimes. Taking the specific conditions of this case study as a starting point, future research could for instance explore further the motives that lead a party to engage in contentious campaigns or movements; or investigate further the causes of why other oppositional actors 576 Alberto Sartori and Joachim Pranzl do not join such actions. Indeed, the Montenegrin case shows how oppositional parties in hybrid regimes face substantial constraints when they set out to challenge the incumbent. Such a context is therefore likely to provide incentives for contentious action towards regime change, which amounts to a substantial difference from those present in both liberal democracies and authoritarian settings. In order to establish a general pattern on how contentious campaigns unfold in hybrid regimes, further studies need to complement (or contradict) our findings in Montenegro.

CORRESPONDING AUTHORS Alberto Sartori Reggio Terzo Mondo Albania, Rr. Kardinal Mikel Koliqi, 4001 Shkodër, Albania. E-mail: [email protected] Joachim Pranzl University of Vienna, Department of Political Science, Universitätsstr. 7, 1010 Wien, Austria. E-mail: [email protected]