Cycling to Brussels: Democratic Subjectivity Between Situationship and Political Form
Keywords:
EU enlargement, Serbia, democratic subjectivity, political situationship, student movements, political belonging, indeterminacyAbstract
This paper argues that the contemporary impasse of European Union enlargement is not a temporary delay but a structural condition of political suspension. Rather than operating as a linear process of convergence, enlargement unfolds through deferral, ambiguity, and managed proximity. Drawing on political theory and recent student movements in Serbia, the paper develops the distinction between relationship and situationship to conceptualize forms of political belonging that are neither fully institutionalized nor entirely external to institutions. It argues that democratic subjectivity increasingly emerges outside institutional frameworks and that the future of enlargement depends on the capacity to recognize these emergent forms as political rather than residual.
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