Views on Freedoms Between Democracy and Authoritarianism

The Case of Serbia

Abstract

Transitioning from one system to another might be difficult for one country. That happened with Serbia, which proved that the process of transition and adaptation to liberal values could exhaust the country. In this paper, the author examines political rights, the election process, civil liberties, and the status of the media and civil society during Milosevic's reign and in the post-Milosevic era. The author argues that Serbia has not developed democracy in full capacity yet and that Serbia is an example of semi-consolidated democracy. In this text, the author uses quantitative and, qualitative criteria to examine the situation of democracy in Serbia during the Milosevic era, and in the post-Milosevic era. The main focus was on civil liberties, political rights, media freedom, and civil society. To examine these things, we used primary and secondary sources. The author analyzed the period from 1994 up to 2018/19. The paper structure is the following. In the first part, the author gives basic information about the country's history. The second section outlines political rights, civil liberties, and elections. In the third section, the author examines media freedom and civil society with a focus on the Milosevic era and the post-Milosevic era. In the conclusion section, the author sums up and briefly emphasizes the paper’s main findings.