Return to Belgrade
By Emily Wright (MA, 2023), Fulbright student.
Although I have been interested in the Balkans since my undergraduate studies, my research in this area began during GPIA’s International Field Program (IFP) in the Balkans in 2022. During the IFP, I interned with Partners for Democratic Change Serbia, a Belgrade-based civil society organization (CSO). This fall, I will return to the Balkans and to Partners for Democratic Change Serbia as a Fulbright Research Fellow. My Fulbright research will focus on the role of local CSOs in Serbia’s democratization process. I will use methods of actor mapping, consultations with local CSOs, and participant observations to explore the organizations’ role, organizational capacity, and potential contributions to democratization. The goal of this research is to understand how capacity-strengthening support for local civil society organizations can facilitate Serbia’s democratization through a bottom-up approach. This research project will build off one of Partners Serbias’ current focuses of civil society capacity building.