Beyond detection: How Serbia’s SNS party mimics authentic support through coordinated inauthentic behaviour
Summary
This paper examines coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) tied to Serbia’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), arguing that its operations constitute a distinctive and harder-to-detect form of digital authoritarianism. Unlike the centralised bot-farm models documented in Russia, China, or Iran, SNS-aligned networks mimic authentic grassroots support, blending into organic political discourse and evading standard detection methods. Drawing on a longitudinal review of largely non-English secondary sources, the authors argue that current analytical frameworks are insufficient for capturing such mimetic, decentralised manipulation, and call for new tools attuned to subtler authoritarian strategies in hybrid regimes.
Key Contributions
- A focused case study of CIB in Serbia, a context underrepresented in the digital authoritarianism literature.
- Conceptual distinction between centralised bot-farm CIB and decentralised, mimetic CIB.
- Methodological argument for the value of non-English secondary sources in studying online manipulation.
- A call for new analytical frameworks capable of detecting authenticity-mimicking coordinated behaviour.
Methods
Longitudinal qualitative synthesis of secondary sources — including investigative journalism, civil society reports, and scholarship rarely translated into English — documenting CIB activity linked to the SNS. The analysis is comparative in framing, contrasting SNS tactics with the more overt, centralised operations typical of other autocratic regimes.
Findings
- SNS-linked networks engage in CIB designed to simulate genuine citizen support rather than amplify content through obvious automation.
- These networks evade detection longer and more effectively than centralised bot-farm operations.
- Serbia exemplifies a decentralised, mimetic mode of digital authoritarianism characteristic of hybrid/electoral authoritarian regimes.
- Reliance on English-language sources alone systematically obscures such manipulation strategies.
Connections
This paper speaks directly to work developing detection methods that go beyond surface automation signals, such as Kuznetsova2025-nu, Luceri2025-tr, and Minici2024-tf, whose frameworks would be tested by the mimetic CIB described here. It also connects to studies of state-aligned and electorally motivated coordinated campaigns in other national contexts — see Kansaon2025-id, Pante2025-pq, Hurcombe2025-cs, and Graham2025-gp — extending that comparative line into the Western Balkans and hybrid-regime settings.