“One out of Five Million”: Serbia’s 2018-19 Protests against Dictatorship, the Media, and the Government’s Response

Having fallen out of the scholarly and public spotlight after the cessation of the conflicts in the 1990s, Serbia nowadays seldom takes the central place in scholarly analysis. With the six-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić, nowadays the President of Serbia (in addition to being the former Prime Minister), however, we are of the opinion that his reign needs to be tackled from a scholarly perspective. With the diminishing of media freedoms, constant attacks on the free press, the suppression of almost all opposing political organizations, parties, and activists/politicians, Serbia is nowadays more and more often described as a “dictatorship” under the rule of one man, Aleksandar Vučić. In December 2018, a series of mass public protests started occurring regularly in several Serbian cities, all aimed against the rule of Aleksandar Vučić. Observing Serbia’s autocrat through the lens of elite theory, we tackle the protests against him, including the government’s official responses, as well as the smearing of the protests by the government-supporting media