From Dissent to Belonging: Identity and Unity in Serbia’s Anti-Corruption Protests

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6: Movements in the Face of Authoritarianism

Abstract

On November 1, 2024, the main railway station canopy in Novi Sad, Serbia collapsed, killing fifteen people. Spurred by this tragedy, sustained anti-corruption protests and commemoration events have since been organized across more than 400 cities and towns. What began as a student-led mobilization quickly developed into a cross-generational movement that continues to expand nationwide, now including teachers, lawyers, and agricultural workers, as well as internationally in diaspora communities, turning the tragedy into a focal point for demands for government accountability, institutional responsibility, and snap elections.
How does a moral shock in a backsliding democracy catalyze coalition-building and boundary work that reconstitutes “the people” as a political subject? We examine how Serbian student-led peaceful protest under democratic erosion redraw the boundaries of “the people” and ask: (1) who is constructed as belonging to “the people,” and by whom, (2) which forms of national identity are framed as (un)desirable, and (3) how protesters enact symbolic and moral boundaries between “the people” and the government.
Theoretically, we speak to debates on mobilization under repression and to cultural consequences of social movements by arguing that the Serbian protests illuminate a bi-directional dynamic of identity formation under threat: boundary spanning expands “us” across social divides, while boundary making sharpens an increasingly stigmatized “them” (the government and its supporters).
Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in January and February 2026 (with additional fieldwork planned, including diaspora interviews), we use interpretive thematic analysis and triangulate with protest visuals and online texts. Preliminary findings highlight (1) cross-cutting solidarity that expands “the people,” (2) national symbols as contested moral property, (3) mutual aid and inter-religious cooperation as everyday solidarity infrastructures, and (4) moralized boundary making under repression, including the claim that neutrality is ethically unacceptable. We show how grassroots moral and symbolic work sustains mobilization while intensifying polarization.

Authors

• Adrijana Miladinovic, The Ohio State University

• Anneliese M Schenk-Day, The Ohio State University

• Steven Bao, Ohio State University