Na raskršću nacije i tržišta

postkomunistička tranzicija Srbije u uporednom regionalnom kontekstu

Abstract

Drawing on recent literature on emergence and variations of capitalism in post-communist Europe, this article situates the post-communist transition of Serbia within its wider regional context and highlights rarely discussed international economic influences on the trajectories and outcomes of Serbia’s economic and political transitions. The main thesis is that the trajectory and outcome of Serbia’s transition were largely determined by the country falling behind in the regional race to attract foreign capital in the 1990s. Limiting the country's long-term attractiveness for foreign investment, the first transitional decade shaped the economic and political choices available to subsequent Serbian governments. By making it impossible to find answers to the problem of mass unemployment, the modest inflow of foreign capital made it difficult to consolidate democracy in the first decade of the 2000s. After the outbreak of the World Economic Crisis in 2008, in partially changed international circumstances, Serbia found a way to attract more foreign capital through specialization in labor-intensive, export-oriented industries with low added value. This post-crisis model of development, although suboptimal in the long term, solved the problem of mass unemployment, thus contributing to the consolidation of the authoritarian rule of Aleksandar Vučić.