Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society Under Milosevic and After
| Author | Thomas Jackson |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234330604300621 |
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Ramet, Sabrina P. & Vjeran Pavlakovic, eds,
2005. Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society
Under Milosevic and After.Seattle, WA: University
of Washington Press. 440 pp. ISBN 0295985380.
This book provides a valuable collection of essays
examining the processes and consequences of
Serbia’s transformation into the dysfunctional
state we see today. Insightful chapters by the
editors frame contributions from several
respected Balkan experts, providing analysis of
how the Milosevic regime rallied many Serbs
around nationalist symbols and failed wars.
Essays by Sabrina Ramet, James Gow and Milena
Michalski seek to explain the effects of war on the
Serbian psyche and the processes of political and
social decay, while other contributions examine
the victims of the regime, such as Kosovar Alba-
nians, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and the
Roma population. On several questions, the con-
tributors offer different perspectives, notably the
impact of NATO’s bombing campaign on Milo-
sevic. However, as Ramet points out, there is clear
consensus regarding the grimness of contempor-
ary Serbian society. Despite the desire for Balkan
analysts to see signals that Serbia is turning the
corner, it may take a generation before the Milo-
sevic era is fully expunged and the country
becomes ‘boring’. Unfortunately, leaders who
stand up for liberal principles and reject nation-
alism have been rare. As Obrad Kesic shows in his
chapter on the post-Milosevic era, personal
agendas within the ruling Democratic Opposi-
tion of Serbia coalition have forestalled much-
needed reform. Serbia continues to fascinate, and
each contributor seeks to explain why. First,
nationalism, all too often chauvinistic, persists in
the political sphere. Second is the question of
whether Serbian leaders can construct a func-
tional system based on liberal democratic ideals.
Indeed, the importance of fostering legitimacy in
contemporary Serbia is one of the book’s most
important messages.
Thomas Jackson
Rapley, John, 2004. Globalization and
Inequality: Neoliberalism’s Downward Spiral.
Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. 193 pp. ISBN
1588262456.
Rapley constructs a compelling account of the
foremost contribution neoliberalism has made to
global instability. Rather than focusing on
globalization with respect to global institutions,
Rapley examines political regimes, which he
understands as the norms of reciprocity between
classes. The global neoliberal regime is seen as
unstable because it assumes that absolute rather
than relative prosperity is the key to contentment,
and, while absolute poverty has declined under
neoliberalism, relative inequality has risen. Rapley
bookends the neoliberal regime between two Sep-
tember 11ths, citing the ascendancy of Chilean
dictator Pinochet in 1973 as the world’s first
experiment with neoliberal government and the
destruction of the World Trade Center as neolib-
eralism’s metaphorical end. While this makes for
an attractive temporal scope, it is far too tidy a
rendering. The intellectual roots of neoliberalism
extend back to the economics of Adam Smith,
and, even as an organized force, the founding of
the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1947 is a more appro-
priate beginning, as think-tanks are imperative to
the spread of the paradigm. This is an important
consideration if we are to move beyond insti-
tutional analyses of globalization’s usual suspects
(the World Bank and IMF), as Rapley encourages
us to do. While it is also premature to view 9/11
as the veritable end to neoliberalism, Rapley
suggests this was a symbolic moment of crisis,
where those on the losing end of the regime’s
unequal distribution made their discontent clear.
Far from spelling the end for the neoliberal
regime, Rapley contends that the crisis will fester
indefinitely until a viable alternative is found.
Thus, challenging neoliberalism’s conviction of
‘there is no alternative’ is of paramount import-
ance to peace in this world.
Simon Springer
Rosen, David M., 2005. Armies of the Young:
Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism. New
Brunswick, NJ & London: Rutgers University
Press. xi + 199 pp. ISBN 0813535689.
Pham, J. Peter, 2005. Child Soldiers, Adult
Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra
Leonean Tragedy. New York: Nova Science. xvi +
308 pp. ISBN 1594546711.
With Rosen concentrating on voluntary youth
participation in conflicts and Pham believing that
the majority of child combatants in Sierra Leone
were forcibly recruited, these two books could
have become a decent contribution to both sides
of an emerging scholarly debate about the agency
BOOK NOTES 757
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