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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Polit. Sci.

Sec. Political Participation

Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1675685

This article is part of the Research TopicConfigurations for Democratic, Economic and Policy Shifts after Popular Uprisings in European NeighbourhoodView all 4 articles

Preconditions for Success or Failure: Analysing the Mechanisms Enabling or Blocking Democratic Openings in North Macedonia's 2015 Mass Mobilization

Provisionally accepted
Ioannis  ArmakolasIoannis Armakolas*Ana  KrstinovskaAna Krstinovska*
  • Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, Athens, Greece

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This article examines the 2015 mass mobilization in North Macedonia, a landmark episode in the country’s democratic trajectory. Triggered by the release of wiretaps implicating top government officials in corruption and abuse, the protests united diverse societal groups in opposition to the ruling VMRO-DPMNE-led regime. While the movement succeeded in delegitimizing authoritarian rule and forcing political negotiations, it fell short of securing meaningful representation for grassroots actors in the resolution process. Using Michel Dobry’s framework of multisectoral mobilization and drawing on interviews, media reports, and academic analyses, the article explores the internal dynamics of the protest coalition. It contrasts the informal, grassroots-driven Protestiram movement with the more institutionalized Citizens for Macedonia (CfM) coalition, supported by opposition parties and foreign donors. Although both shared a demand for democratization, differing priorities and unequal access to resources led to the marginalization of leftist grassroots groups. The article also assesses the European Union’s role in the crisis. While EU mediation and the Priebe Report were pivotal in resolving the standoff and diagnosing institutional weaknesses, the EU’s emphasis on elite negotiations and stability over participatory reform reinforced existing asymmetries within civil society and limited the transformative impact of the protests. Ultimately, the article argues that the 2015 mobilization was a critical moment of democratic resistance, but its potential was undercut by internal fragmentation, political co-optation, and externally mediated solutions that excluded bottom-up actors from meaningful influence.

Keywords: Mass mobilization, North Macedonia, colourful revolution, Democratization, EU democracy promotion

Received: 29 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Armakolas and Krstinovska. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Ioannis Armakolas, iarmakolas@gmail.com
Ana Krstinovska, blazheska84@gmail.com

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