WESTERN BALKANS SECURITY OBSERVER SERBIA 2007 - ILIBERAL TRANSFORMATION OR PROLONGED TRANSITION Adapting to Democracy: Reflections on 'transition' in Serbia and the Western Balkans No 7-8 · OCTOBER 2007 – MARCH 2008 Belgrade WESTERN BALKANS Contents SECURITY OBSERVER EDITORIAL NOTE . 3 Dijana Gaćeša Journal of the Belgrade FUNDAMENTALIST School of Security Studies SERBIA 2007 – ILIBERAL TENDENCIES OF SERBIAN No. 7-8 TRANSFORMATION ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY . 65 OCTOBER 2007 – MARCH 2008 OR PROLONGED Cvete Koneska TRANSITION REGIONAL IDENTITY: Publisher: THE MISSING ELEMENT IN Centre for Civil- Timothy Edmunds WESTERN BALKANS Military Relations ADAPTING TO DEMOCRACY: SECURITY COOPERATION. 82 Editor in chief: REFLECTIONS ON Miroslav Hadžić ‘TRANSITION’ IN SERBIA PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS Executive editors: AND THE WESTERN Sonja Stojanović BALKANS . 4 Djordje Popović Filip Ejdus Denisa Kostovicova COMMENTARY OF THE Editorial Board: STATE WEAKNESS IN THE DRAFT LAW ON DEFENCE AND THE DRAFT LAW Nadège Ragaru WESTERN BALKANS ON ARMY . 90 Dragan Simić AS A SECURITY THREAT: Kenneth Morrison THE EUROPEAN UNION Bogoljub Milosavljević Ivan Vejvoda APPROACH AND A REVIEW OF THE PROPOSED Bogoljub Milosavljević A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE . 10 LAW ON THE SECURITY Timothy Edmunds SERVICES IN THE REPUBLIC Marjan Malešič Đorđe Pavićević OF SERBIA. 102 THE POLITICAL SCENE Friesendorf Cornelius Predrag Petrović Barry Ryan IN SERBIA: STABILITY AND CHALLENGES . 16 INCOMPLETE STEP TOWARDS Svetlana Đurđević Lukić REFORM OF THE SECURITY Illustrations: Miroslav Hadžić INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM IN Marko Milošević MEASURING THE EXTENT SERBIA - CRITICAL RETRO- Translation: OF SECURITY SECTOR SPECTIVE VIEW AT THE Ivan Kovanović REFORM IN SERBIA DRAFT LAW ON THE BASIC Vidak Anđelić - FRAMING THE PROBLEM . 22 STRUCTURING OF THE Dijana Gaćeša Will Bartlett REPUBLIC OF SERBIA Proofreading: ECONOMIC TRANSITION I SECURITY AGENCIES . `108 Vidak Anđelić N SERBIA SINCE 2000: Dijana Gaćeša TRENDS AND PROSPECTS 29 REVIEW Design: Saša Janjić SECURITY Marko Savković THE www.bezbednost.org Computer typesetting: AND IDENTITY Časlav Bjelica WEBPAGE AS AN Filip Ejdus EXPRESSION OF Printed by: SECURITY, CULTURE „SECURITY TAILORED TO GORAGRAF, Beograd AND IDENTITY THE NEEDS OF THE Circulation: IN SERBIA . 38 PUBLIC“ . 115 200 copies Belgrade School of Security Studies is established with the assistance of the Kingdom of Norway. Its functioning was This journal is financed by NATO supported by the Balkan Trust for Fund for Democracy. an Open Society Centre for Civil-Military Relations promotes the public and responsible participation of civil society in increasing the security of the citizens and state based on modern democracy principles, as well as security cooperation with neighboring countries and Serbia’s integration into the Euro-Atlantic community. Belgrade School of Security Studies is a special divi- sion of the Centre for Civil-Military Relations set up to carry out systematic research and promote aca- demic advancement of young researchers thus con- tributing to the development of security studies in Serbia. Contact Centre for Civil-Military Relations Gundulićev venac 48, 11000 Beograd phone/fax: +381 (0) 32 87 226 +381 (0) 32 87 334 www.ccmr-bg.org [email protected] Editor’s word Human security is impossible to deliver with- transition theory, weak state, globalisation, out a consolidated democracy. Serbian political economy, elite and identity-based progress in establishing democratic standards explanations. of governance is challenged by dramatic The second section of this issue presents events domestically, such as the assassination three articles using identity-based explana- of PM Djindjic in 2003, and external factors, tions to analyse current political divisions in such as international recognition of independ- Serbia and the region. First article analyses dif- ence of Kosovo that happened in early 2008. ferent processes of securitization in order to The capability of Serbia to act as a ’spoiler’ or map sharp divisions within Serbian elites and a ’leader of reforms and promoter of regional society regarding key foreign and security pol- cooperation’ in the Western Balkans makes its icy priorities, while the second article exam- political transformation also a relevant subject ines the importance of positive regional iden- for researchers of regional security. tity for enhancing regional cooperation in the This is the reason why the Centre for Western Balkans. The last article in this sec- Civil-Military Relations, together with the tion deals with a taboo topic in Serbian polity University of Bristol, launched an academic - the possibility of considering Serbian discussion between Serbian and foreign schol- Orthodox Christianity within the concept of ars on the prospects of Serbia’s transition. At religious fundamentalism. the conference held in Bristol in June 2007, After this theoretical examination, we we attempted to answer the question whether present the policy analysis of relevant new leg- the process of democratisation in Serbia is bet- islation. This issue concludes with analysis of ter to be qualified as protracted transition or three key laws for institutionalization of new illiberal transformation. In other words, is it security system in Serbia: Law on Defence, the case that Serbia, for different reasons, is Law on Military and Law on the Basic taking a longer time to establish a functioning Structuring of the Republic of Serbia Security democracy than, for instance, the CEE states, or, if that is not the question of duration of the Agencies. The draft laws were scrutinized democratisation process, is it the issue of qual- from the perspective of democratic-civilian ity of change? The proponents of the second control. Two research fellows from the option would explain the change that took Belgrade School of Security Studies and a place on October 5th, 2000 as an elective leading legal expert on Serbian security system democracy in which most of the democratic proposed recommendations on how these institutions exist formally, while in practise, laws could be improved to ensure accountable the newly-elected leaders and accompanying provision of security. During the preparation interest groups obstruct the establishment of of this issue all three laws were adopted. The accountability and rule of law, or curtail polit- Centre will be monitoring the implementation ical rights in order to remain in power. In this of these laws together with other civil society issue of the WBSO, some of the papers from organisations gathered in the advocacy net- this event are presented with the aim of work. improving the quality of domestic academic Last but not the least, we end this Western discussions, as well as foreign understanding Balkans Security Observer issue with a call for of the change process that Serbia is going paper submissions for the forthcoming issues through. The authors in this section challenge in 2008 hoping to attract innovative external the capacity of the following concepts to contributions. explain Serbian unconsolidated democracy: Sonja Stojanovic 3 WBSO SERBIA 2007 – ILIBERAL TRANSFORMATION OR PROLONGED TRANSITION Adapting to Democracy: Reflections on ‘transition’ in Serbia and the Western Balkans Timothy Edmunds UDK: 321.7 (497); 316.4 (497) BSERVER O Abstract This article aims to reflect on how we might best conceptu- alise political, economic and social change in Serbia and much of ECURITY S the rest of the Western Balkans today. The dominant paradigm through which this process has been understood has been one of democratic transition, albeit a transition that is an inevitably diffi- cult, hesitant and long term process. The argument here is that ALKANS B while these democratisation approaches do offer some important insights about what is happening in Serbia, they also need to be treated with some caution. In particular, there is a danger that by ESTERN accepting ‘transition’ as the primary framework through which we W explain and understand change, we risk making a serious of mis- judgements about the factors that actually constrain, limit and motivate domestic actors in transforming societies themselves. Key Words: democratization, Illiberal resilience, Western Balkans Democracy and democratisation Perhaps the main – though sometimes implicit – assumption of much of the democratisation literature is that when societies overthrow old authoritarian regimes they embark on a process of political change in the direction of liberal democracy. Broadly, this process is envisaged to entail the establishment of free and fair elec- tions, followed by the ‘consolidation’ of democratic practices in range of spheres. These include issues such as a separation of pow- ers between the executive and parliament, the placement of secu- The Author is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, University of Bristol. 4 SERBIA 2007 – ILIBERAL TRANSFORMATION OR PROLONGED TRANSITION rity forces under civilian control, a free and fair press, an active civil society and so on and so on. This ‘transition paradigm’ has been outlined in a variety of different literatures, with varying degrees of sophistication.1 It also forms the basis of most peace- building and democracy promotion activities by international actors in the Western Balkan region. Despite its prevalence however, the concept of ‘democratic transition’ has come in for heavy criticism in recent years. It has been attacked for being too simplistic, teleological in nature and for failing to capture – or even