Jovo Bakić (; born 23 March 1970) is a Serbian sociologist, political activist, and an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. He is primarily interested in political sociology.
Biography Academic career Jovo Bakić graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 1996. In 1998, he became an assistant at the same faculty in the field of sociology of politics. He received his master's degree in 2002. From 2006 until 2014, he was an associate researcher at the faculty's Institute for Sociological Research.
Bakić defended his doctoral dissertation "Development of Interpretation of the Process of the Disappearance of Yugoslavia" at the Department of Sociology at the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy in 2009. He specialized at the Universities of Oxford, Helsinki and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As part of the CEEPUS program, he taught at Charles University in Prague. He has written three extensive monographs: "The European Far Right 1945-2018" (2019), "Yugoslavia: Destruction and Its Interpreters" (2011) and "Ideologies of Yugoslavia; between Serbian and Croatian nationalism 1918-1941" (2004). He has also published about thirty short studies in Serbian, English and German in scientific periodicals and collections of scientific papers. He is currently employed as an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.Jovo Bakić, Sociological Research Inatitute, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
Political activity In 2015, Bakić publicly aligned himself with Borko Stefanović after a political rift formed between Stefanović and the veteran politicians of the Democratic Party in Serbia. The split with the Democratic Party accumulated to Stefanović making his own new party in December 2015 called Serbian Left, for which Bakić significantly contributed to the initial ideological profile. Bakić's vision for the new party was such that he argued for a left-libertarian movement based on secularism, democracy, anti-capitalism, internationalism, and opposition to NATO expansion. However, Bakić did not commit to the party after disagreements arose with Stefanović on the party's strategies and politics. One of the conditions which Bakić found non-negotiable was for the party to recruit only those who were not previously active with a major political party. In response to Bakić's disagreement, Stefanović said that anyone who accepted the party's program should qualify as a member, regardless of their previous political affiliations. Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, a political science professor at the University of Glasgow, defended Bakić's refusal to commit to Serbian Left, arguing that "Borko Stefanović wants a party more like the Democratic Party in the United States, rather than like one of the leftist parties in Europe."
He became a member of the Social Democratic Union (SDU) in 2019.Bakić: “PRL je protiv kapitalizma. Branićemo interese svih poniženih”, Novi Plamen, 18 October 2020 As the main initiator of the reorganization of the SDU, as well unification with the other minor Serbian leftist, labour and student organizations, and the merger of the SDU party into the Party of the Radical Left (PRL), in which he continued his political activities.Partija u kojoj je Jovo Bakić odložila osnivanje, Danas, 17 December 2019Bakić o ulozi u Partiji radikalne levice: Posvetio bih se obrazovanju kadrova, Danas, 8 September 2020 He left the party in 2021 due to, as he stated, the "insults and moral and political lessons of some members from the top of the party." Bakić added that the presidency of the party was bothered by his criticism of Chinese imperialism, that he was accused of disrespecting the party program in public and that he was reprimanded for alleged antiziganism.
During the anti-corruption protests that followed the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse in November 2024, Bakić emerged as one of the most prominent academic supporters of the student-led movement, speaking at rallies across Serbia. Ahead of the large anti-government rally held in Belgrade on Vidovdan 2025, he compared President Aleksandar Vučić to the Ottoman sultan Murad, stating that "Murad must fall on Vidovdan", a remark that the pro-government daily Večernje novosti portrayed as a call for Vučić's death. In 2025, Bakić stated that he had received multiple threats after local officials of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) published his phone number and address on social media. He said he would not turn to the police, as he believed that "in a hijacked state" he could not seek protection from its institutions, and that he would hold Vučić responsible if anything happened to him. Speaking at a protest organised by the Plenum of Education Workers in Kraljevo in October 2025, he declared that the people of Serbia "will not stop until they take the criminals to court, and then to prison".
In September 2026, Bakić was announced as a candidate on the Student List, the electoral list formed by the student movement for the snap parliamentary election scheduled for 25 October 2026. He was among the first candidates presented at a rally in Novi Sad on 10 September, which formally opened the list's campaign. In his speech, he said that after a student victory, those responsible for the events in Novi Sad and across Serbia should stand trial and, if convicted, end up in Zabela prison. Bakić described his place on the list as "an enormous honour". He also acknowledged that he had initially been vetoed during the candidate selection conducted by the student plenums before being reinstated, describing the vetoes as part of the students' decision-making process. The list, comprising 250 candidates and backed by around 70,000 signatures, was submitted to the Republic Electoral Commission in mid-September 2026, with Bakić placed 76th. His candidacy drew strong criticism from pro-government media, which highlighted earlier statements such as his remark that he hated supporters of the ruling SNS "from the bottom of my soul".
Selected works Bakić, Jovo. Extreme-right ideology, practice and supporters: case study of the Serbian radical party. Journal of contemporary European studies, , 2009, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 193–207. [COBISS.SR-ID 518643351] Bakić, Jovo. Nova Evropa : između prečanskog integralnog i hrvatskog minimalnog jugoslovenstva. U: Nedić, Marko (ur.), Matović, Vesna (ur.). Nova Evropa : 1920-1941 : zbornik radova, (Istorija srpske književne periodike, 21). Beograd: Institut za književnost i umetnost, 2010, pp. 107–122. [COBISS.SR-ID 519947415] Bakić, Jovo. Da li je zapadna javnost u Srbima prepoznala neprijatelja: analiza sadržaja "tanjug press crvenih biltena": (januar 1991 - decembar 1993). Sociološki pregled, , 1998, god. 32, br. 1, pp. 3–29.
References
External links Jovo Bakić at ewb.rs