THE WORK OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN SERBIA AS A MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF EUROPEAN CULTURAL/PUBLIC POLICIES

Abstract

In this article, the ways in which civil society functions and exercises its goal of implementing EU cultural/public policies in Serbian society are analyzed. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork which includes interviews with the NGO employees. Besides that, I carried out participation-and-observation method by taking part in NGO’s activities, in order to gain a better insight into their work. The main goal of this study was to understand how members of the civil society perceive their role in the European integration of Serbia, what were the effects of their work in the process of europeanization of Serbian society and to what level Serbian cultural identity is being changed by accepting EU cultural/public policies. By using the Raymond Boudon’s theory of rational choice, and the concept of acculturation by Melville Herskovits, I explain the rational aspects of the cooperation between NGO sector and European Union. Considering that implementation of EU cultural/public policies was found rationaly founded, I conclude that by accepting new cultural elements civil society members still wouldn’t change their core Serbian cultural identity, but rather upgrade it with new cultural values.