The aim of this article is to bring together quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to examine, within a broadly Bourdieusian theoretical framework, connections between positions in social space and strategies agents deploy in their everyday life. The data are derived from a study of social structure in today’s Serbia, combining survey and interviews with selected respondents. Strategies are conceptualized as a continuum ranging from a more sustained and cumulative, or ‘strategic’, pole to the unsystematic, ephemeral ‘tactical’ pole, as suggested by Michel de Certeau. On the basis of interview data, four types of life strategies are identified (individualist reactive, individualist proactive, collectivist reactive, and collectivist proactive). These strategies are presented through their generic practices and the typical habitus of the agents, along with individual portraits as illustrations. In conclusion, some theoretical implications are derived from data analysis, including departures from Bourdieu’s model.

The paper considers the values and value orientations in four ex-Yugoslav republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia). The starting point of the analysis are cross-national analyses of data from the World values survey (Inglehart et al.2014) and data presented by Shalom Schwartz (2013). Both approaches paint a similar picture of Slovenia being by far the closest to values typical for Western liberal democracies, while Bosnia and Herzegovina, and partially Serbia, are found on the opposite extreme. The longitudinal analyses suggest that in all the countries the studied values shifted in the direction of more traditional and survival values. More specifically, all four countries have witnessed an erosion of generalised social trust, a decline in public morality, and retraditionalization of gender roles. It is argued that these shifts should mainly be understood as a consequence of the enduring economic insecurities of the citizens, enhanced by the effects of the global economic crisis.

The dominant religions in Southeastern European countries (Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania), Orthodoxy, Islam, and Catholicism, contain social teachings, which include several norms that deal with certain forms of economic practices. These post-socialist societies develop various forms of informal practices, some of which are contrary to elements of religious social teachings and religious ethics. In the process of the revitalization of religiosity after the fall of socialism in this region, the question can be posed as to whether the attitude towards informality and the application of certain informal economic practices, which range from the illegitimate to the illegal (getting things “done” through informal connections, tax evasion, corruption), correlates to some extent with the level of religiosity and the type of religion. The results of the research show that there is a connection between belonging to a certain confession or religion, self-declared religiosity and level of religiosity, and approving of informal practices and engaging in them. At the state level, a specific dynamic was developed even when it came to approving of and engaging in informal practices depending on whether the members of certain confessions were a minority or a majority at the level of the observed country.

The paper is an attempt to assess the exposure of two distinct approaches to reproductive behavior - the claims for reproductive rights and freedoms, and the pro-natalist population policy - in the press media in Serbia after 2000. The first approach is grounded on the principle of self-determination in respect to reproductive behavior, whereas the second attempts to modify reproductive behavior so that a higher goal of the survival of Serbian nation is achieved. The two approaches have clear and contradictory policy implications. In the first part of the paper two discourses are constructed based on relevant declarations and other publications by the proponents of the two discourses. In the second part, by the means of a descriptive quantitative analysis, we assess the frequency and the coherence of the discourses in the articles published in Blic, Kurir, Vreme and Nin. The questions we attempt to answer are: To what extent interested pressure groups get to place the elements of their agendas in the press? To what extent these groups manage to frame public discussions and to dominate the instances of media coverage with their own imagery and rhetoric? .

Abstract:The relationship between religious communities and states in the former Yugoslavia is burdened with socialist heritage, but also with conflicts that ensued after the downfall of the socialist regimes. Although the majority of these countries are defined as secular, the struggles have not abated. Following the war conflicts, these struggles moved to the political and symbolic level. The formal and informal influence of religious institutions on the secular state and society continues. Since these countries are formally defined as secular and they strive to join the EU, which supports the separation between church(es) and religious communities and the state, with cooperation based on mutual independence and respect, legal solutions are biased towards acknowledging these principles. Nevertheless, the public sphere has become a battlefield in which public space is being occupied, and a particular way of life and values is imposed. The dynamics of symbolic and other struggles in former Yugoslav countries differ as a consequence of different powers and the relationships between specific religious communities within a state. This paper aims to examine the present religionization of public space that has been taking place, despite the fact that the states in question have been declared as secular (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia).