Aktuelle Visiting Fellows
Robert Dopchie
Robert Dopchie is a research fellow at the Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.–FNRS) and a doctoral researcher at the University of Liège (Belgium). His PhD dissertation, Between Empowerment and Domination: The EU’s Civil Society Engagement in Candidate Countries, examines the European Union’s efforts to strengthen civil society organizations in the Western Balkans—particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina—through the lenses of postcolonial and post-development theories. The research highlights the power dynamics between the EU, Bosnian authorities, and local civil society organizations.
He is the author of several scientific publications, including an article in the European Foreign Affairs Review (2024) and a book chapter published with Palgrave Macmillan (2025).
Brownbag: Between Empowerment and Domination: The EU’s Civil Society Engagement in Candidate Countries
Andrijana Lazarevic
Andrijana Lazarević is a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade. Her research interests include comparative politics, social movements, democratization, and democratic innovation. She is currently pursuing a PhD focusing on the role of contemporary social movements in addressing and overcoming the crisis of political legitimacy in Western democracies. She is a member of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action “Linking Euroscepticism and Populism: Causes and Consequences (EUPopLink)”.
During her research stay at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, she will focus on the role of protests and social movements in the democratization of authoritarian and hybrid regimes, with a particular emphasis on Serbia as a case study. Her research stay at the Centre for Southeast European Studies is supported by an Ernst Mach Grant awarded by the Austrian Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD).
Brownbag(24.03.2026): “Two Generations of Resistance: A Comparative Analysis of the Role of Opposition and Student Movements in Serbia in the 1990s and Today”
Irina Milutinović
Dr. Irina Milutinović is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade, Serbia. She obtained a PhD degree from the Faculty of Political Sciences, University in Belgrade (2012) and her scholarly expertise spans Media Studies, European Studies, and Democracy Studies. For the past five years, Dr Milutinović has been an external collaborator of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (European University Institute) in Florence, Italy. She leads a country team for Serbia on the “Monitoring Media Pluralism in the digital era” (MPM) project.
She mostly deals with issues of media freedom, media pluralism, democratic transitions, and European integration, situating her work at the core of contemporary debates on institutional resilience and democratic accountability. She is the author of four monographs and more than fifty peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and policy analyses, disseminated across diverse academic and policy venues in the United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Poland, Czechia, Bulgaria, Serbia. Her current research agenda is oriented toward the study of media policies and practices amid democratic backsliding in Serbia and in contemporary Europe.
Within this framework, she examines the evolving regulatory and political environments of Serbia, highlighting the challenges to media freedom and pluralism in the broader context of European integration.
ORCID Irina Milutinović (0000-0003-4074-1906)
IES website: http: /ies.rs/en/irina-milutinovic-p hd/
Scopus: www.scopus.com/authid/de tail.uri?authorId=57195382493
Google Scholar: https:/scholar.google.com/citations?user=a8WgjDoAAAAJ
Brownbag: Media Pluralism and Disinformation Amid the Autocratic Turn: The Case of Serbia
Filip Mitricevic
IDr. Filip Mitricevic is a graduate of Indiana University Bloomington. His dissertation, titled "The World Champion of Antifascism: Yugoslavia’s Multidirectional Legitimacy Discourse in the Early Cold War (1948-1961)” and supervised by Prof. Maria Bucur-Deckard, investigated the Yugoslav communist regime’s memory diplomacy in the Global South during the 1950s. Positing that the regime’s inward and outward-facing legitimacy discourses were heavily interdependent, the dissertation explores the dawn of Non-Alignment through the process of synonymizing Yugoslav antifascist legacy with the Global South’s anticolonial struggle.
During his Visiting Fellowship at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, Filip is working on two journal articles. One stems from his dissertation and explores Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1958 visit to Yugoslavia and his participation in commemorating the Battle of Sutjeska as a prime example of Yugoslav memory diplomacy in the early Cold War. The other brings a comparative analysis of Josip Broz Tito’s visual and discursive representations during his trips to Africa in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Since 2019, Filip has been involved in teaching and research at Indiana University. His teaching assignments included classes on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the First World War, survey classes of European history, and the history of baseball. His work was supported by various funds of the Mellon Foundation, John W. Hill Endowment, IU’s Russian and East-European Institute, and OeAD’s Ernst Mach Fellowship.
Brownbag Lecture: The Two Titos: Josip Broz's Visual and Discursive Representations in Africa during the Early Cold War
Fanni Elek
Fanni Elek is a doctoral researcher and PhD Candidate at Andrássy University Budapest. Her compilation dissertation explores the interplay between EU enlargement policy and the influence of authoritarian external actors in Serbia. Her research focuses on how autocracy promotion by these actors impact both EU policy and domestic democratic development in Serbia. She holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Szeged and an MA in International Relations - European Studies from Andrássy University Budapest.
During her Visiting Fellowship at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, she is finalizing two peer-reviewed articles: one on the EU’s shift from democracy to stability promotion in Serbia, and another on China's influence in the region through the Belt and Road Initiative. Her research combines case study methodology with theories of democracy and autocracy promotion, contributing to the literature on EU external governance and political developments in the Western Balkans.
Previously, she worked as a Research Fellow and academic project manager at Andrássy University Budapest. She has also taught undergraduate courses at McDaniel College Budapest and Marbella International University Centre and participated in the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Network Project WB2EU. Her work has been supported by multiple scholarships, including the PhD Scholarship of the Hungarian State, the Danube Excellence Scholarship, the Carl Lutz Scholarship, and the Ernst Mach Grant from OeAD.
Brownbag: Caught in the Middle? Serbia Between EU Stability Politics and China’s Passive Autocracy Promotion
Ana Kladnik
Ana Kladnik received her PhD in history from the University of Ljubljana, after being a PhD researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History in Prague. She then worked at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF) in Potsdam, at the University of Dresden and at the Institute for Contemporary History in Ljubljana. Since 2023, she has been a MSCA Fellow at the University of Graz (2023-25) and University of Maribor (2025-26). She works on modern European history (particularly East Central Europe), political and social transformation processes of the 19th–21st centuries, socialism, democratisation, nationalism, and the history of civil society. She edited Visions and Practices of Democracy in Socialist and Post-Colonial States (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming in 2025) and Volunteering and Voluntary Associations in Post-Yugoslav States (Comparative Southeast European Studies, 2020).
Together with Celia Donert and Martin Sabrow, she co-edited Making Sense of Dictatorship. Domination and Everyday Life in East Central Europe after 1945 (CEU Press, 2022) and together with George Bodie Volunteers Across Cold War Borders: Solidarity and Socialist Internationalism (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2026).
Brownbag: Volunteering and Democracy in Socialist Yugoslavia
Denur Paçaku
Denur Paçaku is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Faculty of Contemporary Social Sciences, South East European University. He previously completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Science at the University of Prishtina, specializing in European Integration and Public Administration.
His doctoral research addresses critical questions in the fields of international relations and security, with a particular focus on how public institutions and security policies in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe respond to the evolving challenges of hybrid warfare in the 21st century.
Beyond his academic endeavors, Denur Paçaku is a scholarship recipient and alumnus of several local and international organizations and institutions. He has actively participated in preparatory programs for researchers, schools of political thought, and research initiatives, with a particular emphasis on European studies, foreign policy, higher education, and human rights.
Denur is a member of the Roma ethnic community in Prizren and holds the distinction of being the first Roma PhD candidate in the history of the Republic of Kosovo—an inspiring milestone for both his community and the broader discourse on inclusion in academia, governance, and society. In addition to his academic and civic engagements, he maintains a strong interest in cultural activities, writing, and literary criticism.