Divided We Stand: Discourses on Identity in 'First' and 'Other' Serbia (ePub)

Ana Omaljev

It has long been acknowledged in scholarly circles that national and political identities more broadly are constructed rather than essential. However, Omaljev's book remains unusual in her native discipline of IR in that she takes this ongoing process of construction as her object of analysis. In focusing on intellectual debate in Serbia in the Miloševi? and Post-Miloševi? eras, she has chosen a period in which the political identity fundamentals of what it means to be a Serb, a European, a patriot or a traitor have been subject to an unusually vigorous degree of public contestation. Yet as Omaljev's discursive-historical analysis reveals, the polarization of the Serbian public sphere has persisted in spite of the fact that both the nationalist intellectuals of ‚First Serbia' and their anti-nationalist opponents of ‚the Other Serbia' have constantly adapted their discursive self-constructions in relation to the political issues of the day and the challenges posed by their adversaries. One very general lesson that emerges from this intimate study of the author's home society is that scholarly generalizations about ideas and attitudes at the national level?even those resulting from robust survey analyzes?will almost always hide more than they reveal.?James Dawson, School of Public Policy, UCL'Cultures of Democracy in Serbia and Bulgaria - How Ideas Shape Publics', Ashgate, 2014.