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The student protests in Serbia have persisted for seven months, yielding widespread and diverse effects. All state universities are still blocked and primary and secondary school teachers ceased work from January to April 2025. Lawyers went on strike throughout the whole of February, while farmers and university professors have also voiced their support. Roads have been blocked and students have organized marches not only across many parts of the country but also to EU institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg. Notably, national minorities reported feeling equal to Serbian citizens for the first time.
However, the most significant outcome of the student protests has been the substantial delegitimization of Aleksandar Vučić’s populist Serbian Progressive Party (SPP) government. After half a year of struggles, it has become clear that the government’s legitimacy is not only questionable but non-existent.
Yet the SPP remains in power and appears to be growing more repressive. The government has illegally cut the salaries of university professors who support the students. Without evidence, it has accused and imprisoned six opposition activists, including students. At the largest peaceful protest held in Belgrade on 15 March, the government used a non-lethal weapon, the ‘sound cannon’, against them.
Oppression is known to increase proportionally with declining legitimacy, but the question of what it means to govern without legitimacy remains unaddressed. The problem that this question raises is the reality of power without legitimacy – the violence under which all institutions of democratic society and political communities as we know them are currently being dismantled.