Civil Society and Democracy in Former Yugoslavian Countries

Abstract

This project addresses the impact of civil society on the quality of democracies in former Yugoslavian countries. Many of these new republics have witnessed some degree of democratic backsliding in the last twenty years. However, current comparative politics research has pointed to the presence of a strong civil society as a potential preventative mechanism for returns to authoritarian norms. This paper uses the Varieties of Democracy dataset to quantitatively test the correlative relationship between civil society and democratic backsliding in former Yugoslavian countries. We allude to larger research questions and the need for more quantitative explorations of these topics in comparative politics.