Mladen Ostojic

My research project at CEU-IAS would consist in turning my doctoral thesis into a book manuscript and writing several academic articles on the basis of the data collected during my PhD. My PhD thesis explores the impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on democratic consolidation in Serbia in the first decade following the overthrow of Milosevic. It draws on a collection of in-depth personal interviews and extensive analysis of media excerpts in order to examine and elucidate official thinking and policy-making on transitional justice in Serbia. These data reveal that the international judicial intervention alienated Serbian transitional authorities by jeopardising the stability and legitimacy of the new democratic regime. My research thus demonstrates that there is a potential trade-off between international justice and democratic consolidation in target states, which suggests that there is a need for sequencing transitional justice efforts with domestic regime change processes.