Security sector in a captured state: act two

Due to the damage that state capture causes to the public interest, it is very important to investigate and closely monitor this process in the security sector of Serbia. The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy was the first organisation in the country to point out this negative process and the role that the security sector plays in it. It has conducted its first research on this topic, the findings of which can be found in a study entitled “Capturing the Security Sector of Serbia”. The study in front of you is a continuation of that research. In it, we monitored and documented further state capture and the role of security institutions in that negative process. The research covered the period from the beginning of 2020 to November 2021. It explained the political context of capturing the state, the security services, the police, the army and the Ministry of Defence, within which we analysed the capture of special-purpose [arms] industry and parliamentary oversight of the security sector. Considering the fact that actors who participate in state capture are trying to secure international support for their endeavor, and that they are also making use of the experiences of other captured states, we have analysed the foreign policy aspect of capturing the state, which is a novelty compared to earlier research.

In the past year and a half it has become clear that Serbia is a captured state and that the security sector is one of the most important means of preserving and cementing the situation. Security institutions have become an instrument for preserving the power of the ruling party; they participated in breaking up opposition protests, secret surveillance, intimidation and discrediting those that criticise the government. They also made sure that suspicious business deals of people close to the ruling party ran smoothly, and that the main actors involved in these activities were never held to account, either politically or legally. The trend of increasing expenditures for the security sector by additional redistribution of funds through budget rebalances has continued. The National Assembly, which – by way of its committees – should be one of the main institutions of democratic control of the security sector, has become an instrument for expressing support for the ruling party, and for public attacks on and discreditation of anyone who criticises the work of the government. The above is a consequence of the fact that the opposition has boycotted the parliamentary elections in June 2020 due to the absence of minimum conditions for holding fair elections. For all these reasons, Serbia continued to decline in the ranking of various global indices in the field of democracy, rule of law, human rights and freedoms. For the first time since 2003, it is currently classified by Freedom House not as a “partially consolidated democracy”, but as a “hybrid regime” in which power is based on authoritarianism. To legitimise the existing situation, the ruling party continues to maintain and strengthen foreign policy ties with undemocratic regimes.

This publication was produced with the financial support of National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Responsibility for the content of this publication belongs solely to Belgrade Centre for Security Policy.