Serbian populism

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The political history of mankind knows a large number of different and diverse variants and forms of populism, and each of them would be easier to identify and characterize if there was one general universally valid definition of populism as such and if this would provide a basis for a more complete, content-specific consideration. However, this is not the case. There is no general definition of populism that would include its inevitable, universally valid characteristics, i.e. peculiarities that would serve as a landmark and in relation to which specific performances of populism could be more transparently and accurately characterized.

The reason for the absence of a more precise and clear model formalization of populism as such consists in the fact that populism appears as a mere result of a bare struggle for power and that the goals of populist arrangements are not derived from any clear programmatic orientation, consistent action orientation and general vision of a desirable general social organization. The fact that the struggle for power suppresses and covers all other lines of political action results in the circumstance that populism should not, and perhaps should not, be treated as a form of legitimate political organization and appropriate action. Because, on a normative level, politics can be defined as a form of organized social action aimed at creating a sustainable social consensus on the directions and forms of future development and finding the most effective long-term solutions for the realization of that fundamental consensus. With its stripped-down and brutal struggle for the conquest and permanent maintenance of power, populism does not meet the requirements to be characterized as a true political phenomenon. As such, it is actually the negation of politics, something that could be called nothing more mild than antipolitics or counterpolitics. Populism is a malignant deformation of the body of social ideas and institutions that direct and regulate social development.

FACTORS AND MECHANISMS OF DEVIATION FROM NORMATIVELY DETERMINED CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY

When it is understood as a hard-to-treat disease of the political system of a society, populism in each specific case must have its own specific determinants and disturbed institutional structures through which it manages to dominate society. First of all, every society, as an immensely complex social system, faces numerous and major problems that can only be solved through political organization. Every political organization implies and mandates the construction of mechanisms and the activation of procedures for the application of coercion and force, as well as the institutionalization of the threat that force will be used if valid social rules are violated. Without coercion and the threat of force, much of what in a society is the basis and pledge of efficient organization and permanent social progress could not be maintained. If theft and robbery were not socially sanctioned, the community would turn into a group of robbers and thieves, productive work would cease to be not only attractive but also sustainable, and honesty would become a pointless ethical fiction. We stick to the law and order not only because we were taught that way and because our moral instincts to some extent point to such behavior, but above all because there are prescribed punishments for breaking the law that make anti-systemic behavior extremely unattractive.

Coercion is a dangerous, potentially degenerative social phenomenon. As useful as it is in preventing the vast majority of forms of social pathology, it is also potentially hazardous because there is an ever-present danger of its abuse by those who are authorized to manipulate it. Therefore, every society is put in a position to take care of two opposing aspects of its organization with equal zeal: to build and develop effective mechanisms for the application of coercion to those who violate social rules, but also to develop, in parallel, institutions for the defense of the community against those who are trusted mechanisms and tools of force and coercion.

When it is taken into account that populism is an unrestrained struggle for power and if it is taken into account that this struggle is all the more attractive, with the all the greater probability that success will be achieved in that struggle if society for various reasons failed to build these other mechanisms, the danger of populist contamination shows itself in all its terrifying magnitude. Namely, when one soberly and thoughtfully assesses how necessary protection structures are from excessive concentration of power, then identifying the roots and causes of populism in Serbia becomes much easier. The socialist past of Serbia is a heavy stone around the neck of all institutions and all strata that tried to put the government under social control and to make the appropriate arrangement permanent and stable. Socialism is a society of almost unlimited power, while this key fact remained permanently unnoticed and unappreciated in socialism, and the immanent danger of far-reaching social pathology was even less recognized.

BURDENS OF THE SOCIALIST HERITAGE

Unrestricted power was not only a hard fact of life but also a normatively elevated and powerfully elevated aspect of political and social organization. To illustrate this statement, it is enough to cite the well-known slogan - and it represents one of the most striking and regrettable, ultimately, violent acts of drastic devaluation of fundamental civilizational values ​​- that one should not obey the law like a drunkard! How much civilizational backwardness is contained in that normatively set primitive component of social organization is best seen by the fact that the ancient Romans had a real enlightened idea about the value of law and limiting power when they coined an unforgettable sentence some 2.000 years ago Omnes legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possumus (We are all slaves to the law so that we can be free). We are used to noticing and highlighting only progress in social movements, while overlooking the not-so-rare epoch-making collapses of civilization.

In our socialist heritage there was much of this absence of institutional mechanisms for controlling and limiting power (in English very successfully called checks and balances). Another equally influential component of the socialist legacy is a strong state. A strong state is actually part of the definition of socialism. And a powerful state is a well-paved road to unfreedom and tyranny. The state grew cancerous not only by its own uncontrolled growth but also by banning other sectors of ownership and entrepreneurship in almost all spheres of social life. What can be expected from unlimited power and a strong state that serves that power as an instrument?

When it comes to limiting and controlling power, it is only necessary to mention the enormous importance and irreplaceable role of the division of power. It is an elementary matter that only a divided power can be effectively controlled, it is understood that one power will control the others and that in that division of functions the judicial power will play a key role. The special mandate of the judiciary is that the laws are strictly respected and equally applicable to all (omnis), so that even the one who gets the huge trust of the voters can operate only, and strictly, within the framework of his powers.

In Serbia, there was a sudden, as it were, instant democratization without the institutional conditions for the normal functioning of democratic institutions. Even in wider international frameworks, it is not truly understood that democracy cannot function properly if the necessary preconditions for it are not ensured. It is known how the attempt to prematurely impose democracy in socially underdeveloped countries such as Libya ended in blood. The most important assumption for the growth and sustainable survival of democratic rule is equal conditions for the political action of the relevant actors. The election game is, in fact, a competition in the fight for power, and this eminently competitive interaction ceases to be that, and thus loses its meaning when, as a result of the election, one political organization or coalition comes to power and takes control of excessive state resources. We are talking about a large mass of state-owned capital, extensive control over economic and other organizations, and equally extensive control over the media, in connection with which abuse has become part of everyday political life here. With such an uneven distribution of the most broadly defined resources with which to enter the political game, election results become perfectly but also discouragingly predictable. Serbia is the country where they are by far the most predictable; for example, the results of our presidential elections are predicted without error not only by domestic analysts and specialized organizations, but also by those in our immediate and distant neighborhood.

With such certainty of electoral victories, the coalition in power has to excessively and politically counterintuitively strengthen itself. The predictable outcome of election contests with such uneven conditions is the system slipping into a one-party political order, which happened in Serbia not long ago. Power is not only not divided, but merged into a huge compact monolith that commands the Assembly indefinitely, and through dominance in the Assembly simply directs the Government and exerts a strong, prevailing influence on the judicial system. A witty remark was successfully launched in public that the Parliament and the Government have sunk to the level of governing bodies of the ruling party. Management power is increasingly concentrated within the ruling political organization, and this convergence of power leads to its concentration in one point, i.e. towards accumulation actual ones prerogative in the hands of an unhealthy powerful personality. Serbia thus returns to the distant time of Prince Miloš, for whom already in the middle of the 19th century, ways were found to limit his power and even his temporary resignation.

These are the circumstances through which it is easy to explain how the President of the Republic could be the President of the ruling party at the same time, violating Article 115 of the Constitution in plain view of the entire enlightened public of this country. It did not go unnoticed, but it is surprising that this deplorable fact was not met with a much stronger condemnation in the public. In the same way, the prevailing and almost routine violation of the law at all levels of government and its selective application, which simply renders it meaningless, can be explained. Institutionally, Serbia has become so deformed that it has become - let Đilas's expression be used here - a country without judgment.

A part of you recklessness is also the grotesquely unequal representation of political "competitors" in the media, especially those with national coverage. It was calculated and numerically specified that in one representative period, a single figure from the ranks of the government had several times (it was also stated how much) greater representation than all the opposition parties! The political struggle under such unequal conditions led to the fact that the opposition in Serbia was decimated and almost destroyed. The public has not paid enough attention to this fact: a healthy and dynamically propulsive society needs not only an efficient government, but also a vital and action-capable opposition. By destroying the opposition, a great deal of damage was done to the direction of the authorities, and one eminently so unpatriotic, actually an anti-patriotic act. As paradoxical as it sounds and as absurd as it sounds to many, the responsibility for the disturbing weakness of the opposition lies with the current government. It is natural that the government wants to push the opposition into mouse holes, but it should do so only under uniform, fair conditions and strictly in accordance with the rules defined by the constitution and laws that are equally applicable to all.

The abuse of managerial powers (not a prerogative!) has reached the point where the President of the Republic is pictured on state and other televisions announcing - of course, without procedures defined by law - administratively imposed price reductions of a number of food products, creating the impression that they are all his personal performance. Such actions, as well as the announced budget food fees for a larger number of categories of selected consumers, and all this just before the election, are clearly equivalent to obvious electoral theft. With such obvious manipulations, theft in elections is not necessary, although some do not rule it out either. It is not difficult to imagine a legal system in which such election frauds would be treated as criminal acts punishable by substantial prison terms.

The other side of abuse of power is the electoral body susceptible to abuse. Vuk Drašković found a suitable expression by saying that it was lobotomized. In fact, only a small part of the above-average educated and politically literate electorate is not susceptible to the mentioned, but also many other, so to speak, everyday political manipulations. The mother of that body is politically insufficiently knowledgeable and falls prey to those manipulations en masse. These manipulations could be interpreted as a massive, always profitable hunt for less valuable votes in the upcoming elections. One cannot help but remember some electoral systems from the distant past in which voting rights were unequally distributed, according to the assessment of political literacy and, much more concretely and measurably, according to the amount of tax paid and the extent to which an individual finances public expenditures.

Due to the illegitimate monopoly over the means of political control and rule, Serbia is forced into a position where the government cannot change. Self-encouraging claims of the opposition that the government would be overthrown already in the next elections do not seem convincing at all. The "lobotomized" electorate shares its value orientation and political priorities with the current government. In order to win the elections, the opposition would have to fundamentally reverse its political priorities and start advocating more or less the same as the government. This is not possible because it is in conflict with elementary moral orders, but also because the opposition cannot do it as effectively as the government itself. In addition, such a far-reaching turn in political goals would encounter the problem of credibility: the electorate would simply not believe such a reversed political discourse.

So, how will Serbia get rid of this government? It is already too extensive a complex of problems to be able to be accommodated in this already extensive text. A new article would have to be written about the collapse of the government. Let it be noted here that the ruling coalition is so strong that it cannot be overthrown by opposition opponents. That strong government can be overthrown only by itself.