From Maribor to Istanbul various protests and social movements have shaken the political systems of Southeast Europe (SEE) in recent years. The heterogeneous protests there have tackled a range of issues and concerns as a part of a wider wave of social movements that have been characterising the Mediterranean region. Different aspects of the SEE protests and social movements engaged a number of renown scholars and activists to gather in Graz (Austria) for a three-day conference “Rebellion and Protest from Maribor to Taksim: Social Movements in the Balkans” from 12th to 14th of December 2013.

This conference was the third in the series “Southeast European Dialogues” organized annually by the Centre for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz (CSEES). CSEES has been founded at the University of Graz in 2008 as interdisciplinary forum for teaching and research. CSEES is actively organizing a number of programs and projects focused on contemporary Southeast Europe among which is the series “Southeast European Dialogues”. The first conference in the series entitled “Debating the End of Yugoslavia” took place in November 2011, while the second one entitled “Leaving Europe’s Waiting Room. The Crisis of EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans” took place in November 2012. Southeastern European Dialogues are high-level academic conferences that bring together experienced and young researchers and ensure that current research is presented jointly with a perspective from primary actors, in this case activists from the different social movements.

The purpose of the conference was to explore the protests and social movements that recently emerged throughout Southeastern Europe, including the post-Communist countries of the region, as well as Greece and Turkey and how these protests link to larger global trends. The protests since 2011 form part of the largest wave of popular discontent with governments across the world since 1989. Apart from their evident differences and particularities, they share common dissatisfaction and grievance with the ways governments work. Therefore, this conference has been organised as the base for putting different protests into a dialogue with one another and learning from their experiences. Moreover, it offered an exceptional opportunity for exchanging views not only among academics but among activists and observers of these social movements. Finally, beside the topic itself, an additional purpose of the conference was to contribute to overcome the divide among scholarly debates between post-communist countries and Greece and Turkey and highlight trends and a research agenda that transcends this divide. Hence, the topic of protests and social movements served as appropriate to reintegrate Southeastern Europe.

Within the three days of the conference, the panellists and participants focused on a variety of issues including the importance of austerity policies for triggering protests, the privatisation of public space, the (non)-provision and privatisation of welfare and public utilities, poverty, corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, environmental concerns and authoritarian tendencies. These topics were discussed through a collection of papers presented through nine thematically divided panels. Within the first day through the first panel An Activists’ Perspective the views of activists and participants of the protests from Sarajevo, Sofia, Maribor and Istanbul were presented at the very beginning of the conference, triggering an exciting discussion. From the perspective of the panellists these protests, or as Gregor Stamejčič from Maribor stated “united coalitions of angry people”, share common features including “non-existence of leaderships, fight for regaining the public space, solidarity, common good, huge mistrust of the citizens in electoral and parliamentary democracy and discontent with their governments” as the moderator of the panel IGOR ŠTIKS (Edinburgh), a well-known Bosnian writer, academic and activist noted. The following panels entitled Mapping the Protests of 2012/13 included a series of academic presentations on the different protests covering the Maribor protests, the so called JMBG protests in Sarajevo, the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, protest movements in Greece, and protests in Bulgaria. The second day continued with three more panels examining The International Context; the Political Activism and Protest Movements and Who are the People?. Finally, on the third day of the conference the three last panels considered the topics roots and causes of the protests, social mobilization and the role of social media and culture of the protests through the three last panels entitled: Protest Triggers; Social Mobilization and Profiles of Protests and Representing Protests.

Remarkable presentations provoked inspiring discussions among scholars and activists throughout the panels. As one of the highlights ALI TÜRÜNZ (Brno) presented his view on A Cultural Sociological Perspective on Gezi Park Protests emphasizing the role of the protest in Istanbul as a breakthrough where “Turkish society met a dissident movement that they have never had before, which introduced feelings of proud and hope instead of the emotions of resignation, fear and cynicism.” KIVANC ATAK (Florenz) referred as well to the Gezi Protests with his presentation From Malls to Barricades: Reflections on the Social Origins of Gezi, particularly focusing on the social mobilization and role of the 1990s generation in the protests. ASIM MUJKIĆ (Sarajevo) explored the consequences of the protests in Sarajevo which he characterised as genuinely political in his presentation On the Way to Bosnian Multitude. Review of JMBG Protests of June 2013: “JMBG protest has clearly marked the enemy not as the ethnical other, as it was usually the case in ethno-national everyday politics, introducing civic solidarity instead of the one based on ethno-national principal, which lead to the outstanding possibility that citizens become aware of themselves as agents capable to reclaim political space”. Mujkić concluded that these protests represent a part of an emerging greater world movement which represents a search for new models of representation and new forms of political organisation. Apart from the presentations focused on single cases of protests in the SEE region, some of the participants raised new concepts and ideas in the research. Among them VEDRAN HORVAT (Zagreb), defined the recent protests and events emerging in the Western Balkans not as revolution but rebelution characterised with “new social energy, unrest and discontent instrumentalized through mass media which deconstructs and pacifies the revolutionary potential”.

Podcasts, interviews with the participants and photos can be found on the web-site of the Centre for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz.1

This conference report also appears in "Turkish Review" (Copyright (c) 2014 by H-Net, Clio-online, Turkish Review, and the author, all rights reserved).

Conference Overview:

Panel 1: An Activists‘ Perspective
Moderator: Igor Štiks (University of Edinburgh)

Emir Hodžić (Sarajevo), Konstantin Pavlov (Sofia), Gregor Stamejčič (Maribor), Erdem Yörük (Istanbul)

Panel 2: Mapping the Protests of 2012-3 (part 1)
Chair: Kerem Öktem (Oxford University)

Cirila Toplak (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), The Maribor Protests: Specifics and Patterns from the Perspective of Political Science

Valentina Gueorguieva (University of Sofia “St.Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria), From the protection of public goods and reactive mobilizations to anti-governmental rallies: Street protests in Bulgaria from 2012 and 2013

Panel 3: Mapping the Protests of 2012/3 (part 2)
Chair: Norbert Mappes-Niediek (independent journalist, Graz)

Asim Mujkić (University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), On The Way To Bosnian Multitude. Review of JMBG Protests of June 2013

Ali Türünz (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic), A Cultural Sociological Perspective on Gezi Park Protests

Panel 4: The International Context
Chair: Christian Pippan (University of Graz)

Mark Kramer (Harvard University, USA), The International Context of Mass Political Unrest in The Balkans

Jaroslav Chodak (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland), Time of People Power. Recent Waves of Global Revolutionary Activity

Heiko Wimmen (German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, Germany), Divided they Stand: The Dilemma of Non-formal Political Activism in a Divided Society

Panel 5: Political Activism and Protest Movements
Chair: Igor Štiks (University of Edinburgh)

Vedran Horvat (Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Croatia), Leapfroging Toward / Beyond Rebelution in the Western Balkans

Astrid Reinprecht (University of Vienna, Austria), Moving Democracy: Student Activism in Croatia and Serbia

Emin Eminagić / Pavlina Vujović (Members of 'Front Slobode' Organization, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Breaking the Silence - A Map of Protests in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Contexts, Methods and Ideas Towards a De-Ethnicized Politics

Panel 6: Who are the people?
Chair: Rory Archer (University of Graz)

Gal Kirn (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany), Urban Contours of Socio-economic Crisis in Maribor (from 1988 to 2012) and Re-invention of Political Category of “People” in The Recent Uprising in Slovenia

Giorgos Katsambekis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), The Movement of the Greek ‘Aganaktismenoi’: Somewhere Between the Multitude and the People, or Beyond?

Mariya Ivancheva (Central European University in Budapest, Hungary), Commonism after Communism? The Bulgarian Protest Cycle of 2012-2013

Panel 7: Protest Triggers
Chair: Andreas Ernst (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Belgrade)

Ana Dević (Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey), Trees and ID Cards as Triggers of Protest, or on the Generations Without Identifications: The Politics of Political Exclusion in Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina

Marius Ioan Tatar (Univeristy of Oradea, Romania), Mapping Protest Politics: The Roots and Patterns of Elite-Challenging Actions in Post-Communist South-Eastern Europe

Chiara Milan (European University Institute, Italy), Seeing the Forest through the Trees: From Single-Issue Protest to Resonant Mass Movements in Greece, Turkey, and Bosnia Herzegovina

Panel 8: Social Mobilization and Profiles of Protests
Chair: Karl Kaser (University of Graz)

Kostis Plevris (Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France), The Spatiality of Social Mobilizations in Greece During the Crisis Period

Kivanc Atak (European University Institute, Italy), The Politics of Local Resistance in Gezi Protests

Lora V. Koycheva (University College London, UK), Between Chaos and the Ordinary: Language, Politics and the 2013 Protests in Bulgaria

Panel 9: Representing Protests
Chair: Marion Hamm (University of Graz)

Ksenija Berk (Ljubljana, Slovenia), At the Crossroads of Cultural and Ideological Exchange – Behind the Posters of Protest in Maribor and Ljubljana Uprisings

Giorgio Stamboulis (University of Florence, Italy), Imagining a Manifestation

Željka Lekić-Subašić (Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Bosnia and Herzegovina ), Social media and «Balkans' Spring»

Note:
1 Centre for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz, <http://www.suedosteuropa.uni-graz.at/>, (19.3.2014).