Roman amphitheatres were centres of public entertainment, hosting various spectacles that often included wild animals. Excavation of a building near the Viminacium amphitheatre in Serbia in 2016 uncovered the fragmentary cranium of a bear. Multistranded analysis, presented here, reveals that the six-year-old male brown bear (Ursus arctos) suffered an impact fracture to the frontal bone, the healing of which was impaired by a secondary infection. Excessive wear to the canine teeth further indicates cage chewing and thus a prolonged period of captivity that makes it likely this bear participated in more than one spectacle at the Viminacium amphitheatre.

One of the central insights of critical and constructivist International Relations (IR) scholarship is that identity-seeking matters in world politics. Ontological Security Studies (OSS) has expanded on this insight, emphasising that actors may prioritise maintaining a stable sense of self over physical security and other concerns. Yet the question of radical identity change, particularly its affective dimension, remains underexplored. To address this gap, we draw on Lacanian psychoanalysis and argue that ontological security is sustained by fantasies aimed at filling a primordial lack that can never be resolved. This lack generates anxiety, which actors attempt to soothe by attaching their desires to empirical signifiers – objects-cause of desire – that promise wholeness. Our argument centres on the idea that the rearticulation of desire occurs through the affective mechanism of catharsis, manifesting as either metaphor or metonymy. We illustrate our argument through the case of Serbia’s cathartic (re)articulation of Kosovo as its object-cause of desire. In particular, we juxtapose earlier successful articulations of Kosovo as a metaphoric substitution for other desires with more recent, less effective attempts to rearticulate the north of Kosovo and the submerged cultural heritage in Gazivode Lake as metonymic substitutions for the rest of the territory.

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on reactionary internationalism by linking it with scholarly discussions on civilisation and civilisationism, which have mostly been running in parallel trajectories. By doing so, it attempts to address the question of how the radical right, rooted in numerous particularisms, such as cultural, national, and religious, has managed to foster a global movement with an internationalist ideology that poses a significant challenge to the liberal international order. Through an analysis of the relevant literature and a case study of the Serbian radical right, this article tries to elucidate this question and bridge the gap between the two debates by demonstrating that civilisationism forms the core of reactionary internationalism, unifying the radical right from the West to the East. This article examines the Serbian case and its history of civilisational and geopolitical reactions as a possible paradigm for the contemporary radical right in general. Furthermore, it explores the role of Russian revisionism and war in Ukraine in shaping this civilisational discourse, specifically considering the narratives built around the Serbian foreign fighters’ network in Ukraine. An additional contribution of this article is that it provides a non-Western perspective on civilisation, religion, and nationalism.

This article explores the relationship between ethnic diversity and intermarriage in Vojvodina, Serbia, a highly diverse region with a history of shifting political landscapes. Unlike many studies focusing on migration, this research examines autochthonous settings from a quantitative perspective, offering insights into how diversity and intermarriage intersect locally. Findings indicate that greater ethnic diversity is generally associated with higher interethnic marriage rates within sub-regions. However, these rates have not always paralleled changes in diversity, especially during disruptions like the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. The study reveals that declining diversity tends to reduce intermarriage by creating more homogeneous marriage markets, while intermarriages may also―albeit intermittently, under specific political circumstances, and indirectly―influence diversity trends. Results highlight small social distances and permeable ethnic boundaries among Vojvodina’s ethnic groups, though significant ethnic asymmetries remain. This study contributes to understanding the dynamics of diversity and interethnic relations, specifically through marriage, within national minority contexts.

Councils of National Minorities (NMCs), connected with the concept of non-territorial autonomy, have been recognized in research as a safeguard of minority rights, offering potential solutions to ethnic tensions. NMCs could be important actors in countries such as Serbia where tensions over the Kosovo issue are still present. Despite various studies on NMCs in Serbia, the specific role of women in these councils and their contribution to peace-making has not been a primary focus. This 2024 research in Serbia examines the involvement of women from NMCs in challenging male/state-centric discourses on women as peacemakers through inductive thematic analysis of interviews with female NMCs’ representatives. The focus of the analysis is on intersections of nation and gender, the impact of women in NMCs on reducing tensions and fostering peace, and the gendered nature of these processes. This study contributes to understanding the role of women from NMCs in peacebuilding using non-territorial frameworks.

Recent scholarship on the democratization and Europeanization of the Western Balkans as well as the field of media studies have not amply dealt with the concept of political clientelism in the media in this region, which has been a major feature of the post-Milošević democratic transition in Serbia. This article examines the gradual political instrumentalization of the media landscape in Serbia under the ruling party since 2012. It will argue that despite the adoption of the new media laws first in 2014 and their amendments in 2023, government influence of the media outlets vis-à-vis more subtle mechanisms of control, has served to undermine media freedom rather than fostering democratic changes through genuine domestic reforms. This type of more subtle mechanism of indirect control is visible through the captured regulatory authority, state subsidies in the media vis-à-vis project co-financing, advertising contracts where the government serves as an intermediary, and the recent amendments to the new media laws adopted in October 2023 that practically “legalized” government interference in the Serbian media.

This essay argues that modes of conceptualizing global-local entanglements provide a useful lens for looking at the different ways Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects localize in BRI-host countries. The essay draws on recent work on George Ritzer to examine examples of BRI projects where global norms and practices are locally conceived and controlled, in contrast to other cases where the projects barely reflect local culture. Examples of Serbia and Hungary are provided to illuminate these points.

This article aims to analyze the impact of memory on security/foreign policy using the example of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s bilateral relations. The basis for these considerations is the concept of ontological security. It indicates the construction of the identity of the state and is implemented through political decisions and social practices (for example remembering important historical events). Here, memory is treated as a social construct. In addition, the article focuses on memory leading to the formation of state identity, also seen in the international sphere. Historical memory has a considerable impact on bilateral relations between countries that used to be in conflict, like Serbia and BiH. In the example analyzed, leaders use historical memory to create separate identities, commemorate chosen and appropriate victims/heroes or important dates, historical sites, monuments events and develop selective narratives. The most significant elements in the analysis of the historical memory of Serbia and BiH relations are (1) the goals of foreign and security policy of Serbia and BiH (2) the contemporary narrative of the Srebrenica genocide and its perception by governments of Serbia, BiH, and by Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks, and (3) an official Srebrenica commemoration (memorials, Srebrenica Memorial Day).

In this article, we explore intra-ethnic aspects of co-ethnic migration by members of the Slovak community from Serbia to Slovakia, both at the institutional level and at the level of intra-ethnic relations, and the boundaries between migrants and the established population. In the first part, we focus on the institutional framework of co-ethnic migration: the politicization of diaspora issues in Slovakia, the Slovak community in Serbia in the hierarchy of Slovakia’s diaspora policy, and co-ethnic relations as a subject of negotiations. In the second part, we investigate the role of language in co-ethnic migration, the situation of nonrecognition by co-ethnics in Slovakia, intra-ethnic boundary-making in everyday interactions, and the consequences of migration on intra-ethnic relations among those members of the community who did not migrate. We thus analyze the ongoing migration of the Slovaks of Vojvodina from Serbia into Slovakia, from the early 1990s onward, through a blend of perspectives “from above” and “from below.” This article is based on extensive fieldwork conducted among members of the Vojvodina Slovak community, both migrants and non-migrants who have remained in Vojvodina. Thus, the sending country (Serbia) and the receiving country (Slovakia) represent one research field. The data collected in the field have been complemented by legal documents and statistical data to gain an overview of the wider social and political structures within which the migration is taking place.

Amidst the Russian aggression against Ukraine, peace and stability within the geostrategic region of the Western Balkans have come under the spotlight. While some have called for the “denazification” of the Balkans, others have firmly supported Ukraine. Among the six non-European Union states in the Balkans, the Republic of Serbia is perceived as the most visible and longstanding supporter, akin to a brotherly state, of the Russian Federation. This article aims to investigate President Vučić’s narrative in his Addresses to the Nation concerning the war in Ukraine. The objective is to gain a better understanding of Serbia’s foreign policy positioning with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. Anchored in the Regional Security Complex theory, the article examines President Vučić’s Addresses to the Nation from February 2022 to February 2023, revealing Serbia’s consistent insistence on independent decision-making in foreign policy matters, including in the context of the war in Ukraine. These Addresses to the Nation further reinforce the notion of Serbia’s multi-vector foreign policy, while also utilizing the war in Ukraine to reignite public discussions on the importance of Kosovo to Serbia’s foreign policy.

The lithium sodium borosilicate jadarite, LiNaSiB3O7(OH), was first identified in 2007 in the Jadar basin, Serbia, where it forms the principal ore mineral of one of Europe's largest Li deposits. We report the successful application of the dry-gel conversion technique (DGC) to synthesise a jadarite analogue, via a dry-gel precursor made using sol-gel synthesis and the inclusion of the structure directing agent tetraethylammonium hydroxide (TEAOH). Pawley refinement of powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) data collected on the synthetic sample was carried out using a monoclinic unit cell in space group P21/c (Whitfield et al., 2007), and gave refined unit cell parameters of a = 6.824(3) Å, b = 13.882(5) Å, c = 7.735(3) Å and β = 124.37(1)° (Rwp = 9.22). Inductively-coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP–OES) on the synthetic sample confirmed an empirical formula of Li1.07Na1.40Si0.79B3O7.32(OH), based on three B atoms per formula unit (apfu). The synthetic product was found to be deficient in Si compared to natural jadarite from analysis of PXRD and ICP–OES data. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed that synthetic jadarite has peaks at 1415 and 1342 cm–1 and between 1180 and 900 cm–1, which are attributed to the presence of trigonal (BO3) and tetrahedral (BO4) borate groups characteristic of the natural jadarite structure, as well as a broad peak at 3441 cm–1 due to the presence of residual TEAOH. Scanning electron microscopy showed similarities in the morphologies between synthetic and natural jadarite particles.

The traditional Laing–Giddens paradigm views ontological insecurity as an unusual mental state triggered by critical situations and characterized by feelings of anxiety, disorientation and paralysis. However, theories inspired by Lacan suggest a different perspective, stating that ontological insecurity is not an exception but rather a regular state of mind. Similarly, ontological security is a fantasy stemming from the desire to fill the primordial lack, thus fuelling agency. While these Lacanian interpretations have introduced a fresh viewpoint into Ontological Security Studies (OSS), they have not fully incorporated one of the key concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis – the object-cause of desire (French: objet petit a) – into international relations theory. In this article, we present a framework of how to conceptualize and empirically study the objects-cause of desire in world politics. Our arguments are exemplified in a case study of Serbia's resistance to Kosovo's UNESCO membership in 2015.

Since the election of Aleksandar Vučić and the Progressives, Serbia has witnessed a slow decline in media freedom, which scholars such as Subotić (2017) argue has been worse than in the 1990s. Although the government had adopted a package of three laws in August 2014 to bring the media landscape up to European standards, the implementation of the laws has been limited and marginal, with the Progressives engaging in fake compliance. The adoption of the new media strategy 2020–2025 in 2020 has not led to genuine domestic reform and compliance to EU conditionality. In fact, the EU Commission and journalists’ associations in Serbia have criticized the decline in Serbia’s media freedom, citing continued attacks on journalists and indirect political and economic control through advertising and project co-financing, which continue to be features of the Serbian media landscape. In the absence of clear and credible EU conditionality, the decline of media freedom is in the eye of the beholder, where the gap between public engagements with Serbian politicians and the critical stance of progress reports regarding the degradation of the media have enabled Serbian elites to exploit this ambiguity to continue their strategy of fake compliance vis-à-vis rule of law.

In Serbia, modern pork production systems with implemented control measures, including the detection of Trichinella larvae in meat (ISO18743), have eliminated farmed pork from pigs slaughtered at abattoirs as a source of trichinellosis. Epidemiological data from 2011 to 2020 indicate that the number of human cases and the number of infected domestic pigs has decreased significantly. Over the years, pork was the most frequent source of human infection. Cases generally occurred in small family outbreaks, and the infection was linked to consumption of raw or undercooked pork from backyard pigs. In most of the outbreaks, T. spiralis was the aetiological agent of infection, but in 2016, a large outbreak was caused by consumption of uninspected wild boar meat containing T. britovi larvae. To achieve safe pork, it is important that consumers of pork from animals raised in backyard smallholdings and of wild game meat are properly educated about the risks associated with consumption of untested meat. Laboratories conducting Trichinella testing should have a functional quality assurance system to ensure competency of analysts and that accurate and repeatable results are achieved. Regular participation in proficiency testing is needed.

Are referendum campaigns involving issues about sovereignty more likely to succeed if framed in a positive rather than a negative way? We ran a survey on a hypothetical referendum on a peace agreement between Serbia and Kosovo to answer this question, and we experimentally simulated both positive and negative frames. We found that the positive campaign frame, i.e. one that contains an invitation to support a lasting peace in the Balkans, economic prosperity, Serbia’s path to EU integration, and the protection of the Serbian population and cultural heritage in Kosovo, is more appealing than the negative one, which focuses on avoiding the risk of failure. Our finding contradicts previous works that relied on the prospect theory to argue that negatively framed messages can attract more attention because people try to avoid adverse outcomes. To explain our findings, we argue that positive referendum campaigns are more effective than negative ones when the reference point is low due to attributive framing.