The transition process of postsocialist countries since the 1990s towards western-style democracies and their integration into a global economy has been the topic of numerous studies. One is tempted to ask why it is worth reading another account about—in this case—Serbia's “failure to catch up” with the west. But Marek Mikuš, because he critically engages with the transition debates with detail and does so from an anthropological perspective, demonstrates that it is not only worth exploring the transformations of post-Milošević Serbia further, but also that it is possible to do so in more nuanced ways. He meticulously carves out the contradictions and ambiguities that emerge from his empirical research. Using multi-sited ethnography and microhistories as methods, his focus is on civil society, which is involved in the practices and discourses of reforms that he analyzes. Taking a Gramscian perspective, Mikuš sees civil society as a “terrain on which social forces develop political strategies oriented to the state” (35). The main actors analyzed are NGOs that in different and often ambiguous ways emulate their western (neo-)liberal counterparts. He argues that the NGO sector in 2010/11—the period of his fieldwork—is very different than in the 1990s: it is characterized by an ambiguous strategy that includes an increased orientation towards the state, on the one hand, and attempts to “indigenize” NGOs by rooting them in national society instead of relying on foreign funding, on the other (6).

After an extensive introduction in Part I, Part II discusses Serbia's trajectory of transnational integration from two contrasting perspectives: the liberal, pro-European NGO sector and counter-hegemonic nationalist civil society. Unsurprisingly, the liberal NGOs are complicit in a hegemonic project of European integration. Of interest here is, first, that Mikuš shows the tensions in the NGOs’ internal discussions about whether or not to take a pro-European stance. He concludes that “the hegemonic narratives about ‘Europe’ and transition, as well as the political identity and political economy of the NGO sector, imposed ideological, social and material limits on such radical critiques [of the EU, IMF] in public” (105). Second, Mikuš analyzes some of the transnational entanglements by studying the NGO-run Slovak-Serbian EU Enlargement Fund and Slovakia's development aid to Serbia. The Slovakian government and NGOs aimed to become brokers of democratization and EU integration, especially for Serbia. Although the fund lobbied for EU integration, the visits of Serbian NGO workers to Slovakia, “ironically, led some of them to question the modernizing impact of integration” (81).

The workings of pro-European discourse are contrasted with an analysis of the opposition to the Pride Parade in Belgrade and the activities during Statehood Day. Mikuš shows the attempts to broaden a popular movement of Serbian ethnonational self-sufficiency and retraditionalization (108) by partly emulating the practices and structures of liberal NGOs (112–13). He casts the right-wing movement as a possible or incipient counter-hegemonic movement to European integration. Remarkable is that the author conducted interviews with both sides—liberal and nationalist NGO representatives—which allows him to show the dynamics on both sides.

Part III studies some of the effects of Serbia's neoliberal, pro-European course for the NGO sector. In Chapter 4, Mikuš discusses the neoliberal jargon of partnerships and transparency and analyzes the role of NGOs in reform processes. Although NGOs are vehicles of neoliberal reforms, the author claims that a small circle of NGOs dominate the reform process and thereby subvert the neoliberal principles of market competition and transparency. Chapter 5 can again be read as a contrasting case because the author deliberately picked a “traditional,” post-Yugoslav organization to show how its position is challenged by new NGOs and how it manages to adapt its work.

Part IV considers the relationship between liberal civil society (NGOs) and the wider society. In light of decreasing foreign funding, NGOs increased their efforts to overcome the suspicion in the population towards them. The outcome seems to be that their neoliberal attitude (“strategic planning and market-style communication” [231]) falls apart and that they have to rely on traditional forms of philanthropy, which they tend to oppose ideologically. A case of public advocacy also shows the limits of neoliberalization and that it has not taken deep roots in Serbian society. The book is clearly written for a readership in anthropology. But political scientists and sociologists and scholars who are interested to learn about EU-Europeanization from a critical perspective on the concrete workings of neoliberalization and its effects on society will also find plenty of insights.