Possibility of non-institutional political participation within the non-responsive system of Serbia: The impact of (dis)trust and internal political efficiency

Abstract

Starting from the findings of previous studies, whose results speak of the distrust of Serbian citizens in political institutions and political actors, low turnout and general passivity and apathy of citizens, the authors deal with the understanding of non-institutional political participation in Serbia. The paper starts from the assumption that the stated indicators pointing to the withdrawal of Serbian citizens from political life do not necessarily represent part of the same phenomenon. Namely, the authors believe that it is necessary to distinguish between the assumptions of institutional and non-institutional civic participation. On the one hand, the authors start from the thesis that high trust in institutions can actually negatively affect the need of citizens to mobilize in order to influence institutions. At the same time, citizens may be inclined to participate in political life through non-institutional channels if they posses a developed sense of internal political efficiency, which is not necessary related to the responsiveness of the political system.