Democratic changes in Serbia and the process of de-ethnification of social consciousness

This paper presents and comparatively analyses the results of socialpsychological research of geopolitical identities in Serbia carried out after the democratic changes. The main goal of the paper is to determine eventual changes in the volume and intensity of geopolitical identity of the citizens of Serbia and define the factors influencing the changes thereto. The authors considered the changes of geopolitical identities at two levels: horizontal (identification with basic social groups such are generational, ethnic, professional, confessional etc.) and vertical level of identification (identification with geopolitical entities - from local community to cosmopolitan affiliation). The results of the conducted analysis showed that the trend of de-ethnification of social consciousness in Serbia, which began already in mid-1990s, was continued after the democratic changes. The changes in collective identities of the citizens of Serbia pointed out in the results of empirical research are more emphasized at the horizontal than at the vertical plan. In that sense, the process of abandoning the nation as the primary basis of identity at the horizontal level of identification and the process of shrinking the diffusion of European identity at the vertical level of identification make the authors to assume that national defeatism and Euro-skepticism are integral parts of the process of de-ethnification of social consciousness in Serbia which should be probed in some subsequent research.