Regional party systems in Serbia

Despite the high centralisation of the State, Serbia has developed a vivid political scene in its regions, including a wealth of political parties, namely in the three ethnically heterogeneous regions Vojvodina, Sandžak, and Preševo Valley. While previous work on the Serbian political landscape has concentrated on the national political landscape of Serbia (Komšić 2003; Goati 2004, 2006; Lutovac 2005; Bieber 2003b, etc.), regional parties have often been reduced to short paragraphs or footnotes, possibly because they appear to be not very crucial players on the national political level. Whereas the study of regionalism and regional party systems in many European countries has flourished in recent years (e.g. Heller 2002; Ishiyama 2002; De Winter and Türsan 1998, etc.), there is no such work known to the author on the Serbian case. Nevertheless, the study of regional parties in Serbia appears important because of two aspects. First, it might give new suggestions for research on territorial differences in party systems, such as the study of the importance of territorial ethnic divisions for party formation and electoral behaviour. Second, regional parties play an important part in Serbian political life, and should therefore be looked at more closely. The most important ethno-regional and regional parties in Serbia exist in Vojvodina, followed by the Sandžak, and then the Preševo Valley. Since the emergence of regional parties is to a large extent (but not exclusively) related to the ethnic structure of the country, and to territorially concentrated ethnic groups, this chapter also offers a view on ethnically motivated party formation and electoral behaviour in Serbia. (For a view of other, not ethnicity-or region-related aspects, I refer to the chapter on Serbian parties in this book.) In this chapter, I first discuss the political institutions and social conflicts that are relevant for the creation of regional and ethno-regional parties. Building on this institutional and socioeconomic framework, I discuss how territorial differences in the Serbian party system have developed since 1992, before having a closer look at the regional parties which play a role in the post-authoritarian period in Serbia, starting in 2000.