Stability without adaptation: autopoietic closure in Serbia under Aleksandar Vučić

This article examines Serbia’s political development under Aleksandar Vučić through the lens of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic social systems. It argues that the resilience of Serbia’s hybrid regime is best understood not solely through existing concepts such as competitive authoritarianism or stabilitocracy, but through the regime’s capacity to reproduce itself by transforming external challenges into reaffirmations of its own legitimacy. Adopting a qualitative interpretive case-study approach, the article combines systems theory with empirical analysis of political communication, institutional development, media dynamics, and Serbia’s interactions with international actors. Autopoietic closure is operationalized through four observable mechanisms: communicative monopolization, institutional self-reference, symbolic crisis management, and the selective incorporation of external feedback. The analysis demonstrates how criticism from domestic opposition, civil society, the European Union, and international organizations is routinely reframed within narratives of stability, sovereignty, and national continuity, thereby reinforcing rather than destabilizing the governing order. By situating Serbia within the broader literature on hybrid regimes while emphasizing the communicative logic of systemic self-reproduction, the article contributes a novel theoretical framework for explaining authoritarian resilience. It concludes that Serbia’s political stability increasingly depends on operational closure, a dynamic that simultaneously enhances regime durability and progressively erodes its capacity for adaptive political learning.