and Balkan Europe
by IECOB & AIS Università di Bologna
After the Revolution.
Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia
edited by: Jessica Greenberg
published by: Stanford University Press
pp: 248
ISBN: 9780804791151
price: Hardback £62.00/ $ 37.18 | Paperback $ 25.09/ £18.99 (only £14.24 when you quote CS1114RUSS ordering here)
What happens to student activism once mass protests have disappeared from view, and youth no longer embody the political frustrations and hopes of a nation? After the Revolution chronicles the lives of student activists as they confront the possibilities and disappointments of democracy in the shadow of the recent revolution in Serbia. Greenberg's narrative highlights the stories of young student activists as they seek to define their role and articulate a new form of legitimate political activity, post-socialism.
When student activists in Serbia helped topple dictator Slobodan Milosevic on October 5, 2000, they unexpectedly found that the post-revolutionary period brought even greater problems. How do you actually live and practice democracy in the wake of war and the shadow of a recent revolution? How do young Serbians attempt to translate the energy and excitement generated by wide scale mobilization into the slow work of building democratic institutions? Greenberg navigates through the ranks of student organizations as they transition their activism from the streets back into the halls of the university. In exploring the everyday practices of student activists—their triumphs and frustrations—After the Revolution argues that disappointment is not a failure of democracy but a fundamental feature of how people live and practice it. This fascinating book develops a critical vocabulary for the social life of disappointment with the aim of helping citizens, scholars, and policymakers worldwide escape the trap of framing new democracies as doomed to failure.
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Against the Future: Youth and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia
2. Embodying Citizenship: The Changing Politics of Protest
3. Revolution and Reform: Citizenship and the Contradictions of Neoliberal University Reform
4. Ethics of Knowledge: expertise, Branding and (In)visibility as Forms of Democratic Representation
5. "We Have to Be Politicians": Proceduralism and the Depoliticization of Politics
Conclusion: Democracy and Revolution After the Cold War
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Reviews
Review by Alexei Yurchak, University of California, Berkeley:
"This insightful book describes in great ethnographic detail the challenging process of constructing democracy in today's post-violence Serbia, when earlier revolutionary dreams and utopian expectations have been long abandoned. In this context youth-based political activism is full of contradictions and disappointments and its outcome is not guaranteed. However, the messiness and uncertainty of this practice, Jessica Greenberg convincingly shows, are signs not of democracy's failure, but of its real promise. The powerful thesis of this book is of great importance for our understanding of the contemporary tensions of democracy everywhere—not only in the former Yugoslavia and other post-communist states, but also in the 'democratic world' itself."
Review by David Nugent, Emory University:
"In this fascinating and important new book, Jessica Greenberg makes a significant contribution to the anthropology of politics. Focusing on the dilemmas faced by political activists in the aftermath of revolutionary change, she deftly weaves together issues of temporality, youth, affect, and democracy. After the Revolution will be of great interest to scholars in multiple fields of study."
PECOB: Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe - University of Bologna - 1, S. Giovanni Bosco - Faenza - Italy
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