The burden of systemic legitimization in socialist Yugoslavia

Re-framing Serbian identity within a global imaginary: Nation building through the Belgrade Waterfront project

“…This situation has raised an important matter about the capacity of Serbia's ruling elite to enact its vision of the 'upcoming' Serbian identity which would take the appearance of a reinterpretation of the original identity containing the representation and validation of subjects, state and individual actors within global narratives binding neoliberalism and multiculturalism (Andolina et al, 2005). However, unlike what happened during Yugoslav socialism, when the political elite entered in a constant process of interpreting-reinterpreting all formal aspects of a certain social reality, so as to justify the relevance of the Yugoslavian market-socialist model compared to present (or conceivable) alternative institutional forms (Ivković et al, 2019), in contemporary Serbia, the politics conducted since 2012 aim to deal with the remains of Yugoslav market socialism, contrast to the economic laisser faire and tentative Europeanization of the 2000s, economic catch-up and nationalism containment while enforcing an "active transformative politics of framing" (see Beck, 2007, p. 691) or, more precisely, re-framing Serbian identity within a global imaginary by focusing on boundary crossing. So as to break the 'glass ceiling of transformation', discursive practices then entered into a process of legitimation by action, the new horizon being the fulfillment of a dream.…”