Under pressure: the politics of clientelism and coercion in Serbia

2. Defining and explaining clientelism 3. Case selection and context: clientelism in Serbia 4. Research strategy 5. Empirical results 6. Concluding discussion Acknowledgements Disclosure statement Additional information Footnotes References Appendixes Full Article Figures & data References Citations Metrics Licensing Reprints & Permissions View PDF(open in a new window)View EPUB(open in a new window) ABSTRACT This article examines the correlates of perceptions of clientelism in Serbia, drawing on original survey data collected in 2024. The analysis explores how employment status, regional differences, and political alignment shape individuals’ perceptions of clientelist exchanges. The findings indicate that regional differences are evident, with respondents from the more developed regions of Belgrade and Vojvodina reporting higher awareness or prevalence of clientelist exchanges than those in Central and Southern Serbia. An analysis of the interaction between voting behaviour and regions indicates a strong partisan effect. Notably, respondents who did not disclose their vote report levels of perceived coercion nearly equivalent to those of opposition voters in the South. These findings align with theoretical expectations that coercive clientelism is not uniform across different contexts but are influenced by local variations in both political and economic competition. This article contributes to broader debates on the persistence of clientelism in post-communist democracies and highlights the diverse forms of clientelism, including its overlap with coercion.