Protests for change: mass protests against competitive authoritarian regimes in the Western Balkans

The Western Balkans have experienced several competitive authoritarian regimes in the past two decades. The article examines the strategies of opposition movements and parties in challenging these regimes, focusing on protests. It argues that institutional responses to competitive authoritarian regimes, such as pre-election coalitions, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and similar strategies, have failed to challenge regimes without extra-institutional approaches, such as mass protests. However, not all protests have resulted in effectively challenging competitive authoritarianism. Focusing on Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, we examine cooperation and coordination between civil protest movements and opposition parties. We explore protests that have helped lead to government change and those that have been unable to and analyse them in terms of their ability to bring together parties and civil society groups and their link to institutional responses.