Farbanje demokratije
Painting democracy

Author(s): Boris Varga
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Civil Society, Governance, Government/Political systems, Electoral systems
Published by: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji
Keywords: Democracy; Southeastern Europe; Transition
Summary/Abstract: With its content and author's approach, "Painting Democracy" adds a new, intriguing dimension to the corpus of published books published by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. Primarily due to the fact that Varga's "transitional mosaic" encompasses a much wider area than Serbia and the region, further east, towards the Caucasus and Asia. The lands of that vast expanse of the European backyard and its hinterland have long been the focus of Boris Varga. First as a journalist, now as a serious analyst, he passionately collects, records and analyzes the processes that take place in them. The part of the world that Varga's book deals with is the one where two traditions of civilization and culture, tentatively labeled as Euro-Atlantic and Asian, meet and clash. The comparative analysis of transitional diversity, of which Serbia is a part, offered by the author in this book, carries two, we would say, essential messages. One is, certainly, that Serbia, with its transitional wanderings and stumbles, is not a unique case. On the contrary. The second is encouraging: thanks to its geostrategic position and environment, Serbia has a better chance of getting out of its own vicious circle of failed transition with the help and support of the European Union. Seška Stanojlović

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