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It is often assumed that vibrant civil society is precondition for democracy, government accountability and rule of law. Following this assumption, international development agencies, civil society organizations and even governments are participating in activities aiming for the social accountability, that is, accountability of governments towards societies. In this article I am analyzing activities of prominent Serbian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the field of fostering government accountability. The analysis focuses on their ability to shift the balance of social and political power away from the state. The analysis is primarily based on empirical data collected through a series of in-depth interviews with representatives of NGOs. It reveals that NGOs follow policy-not-politics, that is, a depoliticized approach, that they target individual citizens and not social groups and nurture relationships with state institutions and public officials with whom they cooperate. They demonstrate a weak ability to (1) initiate wider civic mobilization or (2) establish solid institutional preconditions for government accountability. Thus, available data suggests that Serbian NGOs have weak potential to contest power of the state and thus contribute to strengthening government accountability and rule of law.

Health regulations curbing the spread of the Kovid-19 virus have brought a number of restrictions into our social life, from wearing masks and maintaining physical distance, to the complete abolition of important segments of social life. In doing so, the government has responded to the key risks of a pandemic: the health of individuals and the ability of health systems to care for large numbers of patients. At the very beginning of the pandemic, two notions took shape in the public: that young people are at lower risk than the elderly and the sick, and that they adhere less to epidemiological measures. Using a dana obtained through the survey at a sample of students at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, I tried to establish the extent to which they comply with the regulations and which factors influence it the most. The results show that a relatively small percentage of respondents regularly comply with health regulations and that most of them are in the ambivalence zone. Compliance with the measures is influenced by the following factors: belief that the measures are justified and effective, that is, agreement with the content of the norms; trust in institutions, and especially trust in experts and doctors; as well as regular media consumption and trust in their objectivity. Social control, that is, moral and legal condemnation for non-compliance with measures, did not prove to be significant. These findings show that in crisis such as this, clear and transparent communication, and the behavior of actors and institutions that instills trust, can ensure voluntary compliance with legal measures.