The Serbian Political Science Association (SPSA) hosted its 18th annual conference, titled ‘Super Election Year 2024,’ at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, on 26-27 October. The two-day event featured numerous Serbian and international experts, including current and former members of the EUI community, such as Max Weber Fellow Alexander Mesarovich and doctoral researcher Nahla Mansour.
After the welcome address by SPSA President, Professor Alexandra Krstic of the University of Belgrade, Professor Kostelka delivered a keynote lecture titled ‘Should Participative Theorists Be Grounded? A Realistic Approach to Citizen Participation.’ His address compared the expectations of participative theory with his empirically informed middle-range theories and findings on election frequency, voter fatigue, and social acceptance of electoral abstention. He advocated for reforms of election calendars that would preserve citizen rights while achieving strong participation rates and democratic inclusiveness. Following his keynote, Kostelka also discussed his research in an interview to the independent Serbian TV channel Insajder.
Professor Kostelka shared: “It was an absolute pleasure to attend this event and support our Serbian colleagues who successfully transformed their political science association’s meeting into a truly international conference, with many attendees from both the East and the West. The spirit of their conference aligns fully with the mission of the EUI Widening Europe Programme, which is to bring the European academic communities together.”
Filip Kostelka is Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, and Chair in Political and Social Change at the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences. Kostelka’s research interests cover the fields of political behaviour, party politics, and regime change. Geographically, he focuses on countries in Central and Eastern Europe, comparing them with polities in Western Europe and other regions.