A Betrayal of Liberalism? Serbian Dissidents and Slobodan Milosevic

In the early 1980s of all the republics of former Yugoslavia, Serbia had the largest number of intellectual dissidents who were able to secure effective control over several professional and scholarly bodies in Belgrade (e.g. Association of Writers, Philosophy Society, the Academy of Arts and Sciences). Using these institutional bases, they voiced demands for fundamental political and social change in Yugoslavia. While their ideological platforms included neo-Marxist and nationalist stands, at that time they rallied around a liberal demand for freedom of expression and the rule of law and against the ruling mono-party political system. Yet unlike their counterparts in Slovenia, in the early 1990s they failed to form an effective party coalition, capable of challenging the transformed Communist Party of Serbia under Slobodan Milošević. Many scholars argue that Serbian dissidents effectively ‘betrayed’ liberalism for nationalism and thus supported Milošević’s nationalist take-over. This paper offers some evidence against this ‘betrayal of liberalism’ thesis.