Der Kosovo-Krieg als Mobilisierung für politischen Wandel? Erklärungsansätze für den Demokratisierungsdruck in Serbien im Sommer 1999
The Kosovo War as a Mobilisation for Political Change? Some Possible Explanations for the Pressure to Democratise in Serbia in Summer 1999

Summary/Abstract: The bombing of Serbia by NATO in the spring of 1999 is widely perceived as having delayed the democratization of Serbia, which occurred after the fall of the Milošević regime in October 2000. This contribution looks back at the space for political opposition during the war over Kosovo and seeks to answer the question whether indeed the NATO intervention rendered the democratization of Serbia more difficult, or whether it instead triggered protest movements which would facilitate the electoral defeat of the regime and the subsequent mass demonstrations against it. While the war succeeded in temporarily silencing the opposition and appeared to trigger a popular “rallying behind the flag”, localized protests outside of Belgrade erupted toward the end of the war and challenged the Milošević regime in its previously undisputed heartland. This article argues that the NATO bombing crystallized the grievances of the population, and even if the wave of protests ebbed off in the fall of 1999, it provided a prelude for the subsequent democratization of Serbia. In this way the article contributes to a better understanding of a neglected phase in the decline of the Milošević regime and corrects the misperception that the NATO bombing of Serbia triggered widespread support for the regime.

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