Back to Competitive Authoritarianism? Democratic Backsliding in Vučić’s Serbia

Despite growing concerns expressed by international organisations about the deterioration of democracy in Vučić’s Serbia, the country has been neglected by the literature on the ‘crisis of democracy’. Using a combined qualitative/quantitative research strategy for detecting changes in regime types, including various V-DEM measures and over three dozen indicators provided by the competitive authoritarian framework, the analysis confirms the recent regression of Vučić’s Serbia to competitive authoritarianism. The peculiar features of the Serbian case—a double transition to and from democracy in less than two decades—appear to support a pessimistic outlook for the future of democracy.