Discourses of democracy and exclusion in the streets of Belgrade , 1968 - 1997

Abstract

In June 1968 students at the University of Belgrade occupied their Faculties for a week in protest at social inequalities. They denounced the Yugoslav bureaucracy and proclaimed their solidarity with the working class. Three decades later, in the winter of 1996-97, the University of Belgrade was once again on strike, as students took to the streets daily for five months, protesting the annulment of the Serbian election results by Slobodan Milošević. Their discourse of democracy was far removed from that of 1968. This thesis seeks to examine the changes in these discourses of democracy and the exclusions they implied.