Activist Citizenship in Southeast Europe

This volume explores recent episodes of progressive citizen-led mobilisation that have spread across Southeast Europe over the past decade. These protests have allowed citizens the opportunity to challenge prevailing notions of citizenship and provided the chance to redress what is perceived to be the unjust balance of power between elites and the masses. Each contribution debunks the myth of inherently passive post-socialist populations imitating West European forms of civil society activism. Rather, we gain a deeper sense of progressive and innovative forms of activist citizenship that display essentialist and particular forms of protest in combination with the antics of global protest networks. Through richly detailed case study research, the authors illustrate that whilst the catalysts for protest in Southeast Europe were invariably familiar (the expanse of private ownership into urban public spaces; the impact of austerity), the pathology of such protests were undoubtedly indigenous in origin, reflecting the particular post-socialist/post-authoritarian trajectories of these societies.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in Europe-Asia Studies.

Adam Fagan is Professor of European Politics at Queen Mary University of London, UK. His research interest is in civil society and social movements, with a particular focus on the post-authoritarian polities of Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans. His most recent edited book is The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics (co-edited with Petr Kopecky). Fagan is also the co-editor in chief of East European Politics.

Indraneel Sircar is a Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. His research focuses primarily on Europeanisation and citizen-led mobilisation in the Western Balkans.