Introduction Croatia after Tuđman: Encounters with the Consequences of Conflict and Authoritarianism

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Notes

¹Our reference to the new generation of a post-conflict elite aims to distinguish between individuals who were key political actors during Croatia's 1990 transition and the subsequent 1991–1995 conflict and individuals who only became key actors after the conflict. For example, Stjepan Mesić, Croatia's first post-Tuđman president, would fall amongst the former since he was formerly a leading figure within Tuđman's wartime government before breaking with the regime and becoming an opposition figure in 1993. Jadranka Kosor, on the other hand, would constitute an example of the latter as she was first elected to parliament as a Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ) representative in 1995 and was a journalist during the 1991–1995 conflict.

²‘Mesić Dodiku zaprijetio slanjem vojsku!’, Jutarnji list, 19 January 2010, available at: http://www.jutarnji.hr/mesic-dodiku-zaprijetio-slanjem-vojske-/498711/, accessed 15 April 2010.

³According to Ivo Josipović's own campaign website, Josipović took part in the ‘democratic transformation’ of the Croatian League of Communists (Savez komunista Hrvatske, SKH) and the drafting of the first statute of the League's successor party, the Social Democratic Party (Socijaldemokratska partija Hrvatske, SDP). However, he left politics in 1994 and only returned in 2003 (see Ivo Josipović's presidental campaign website, available at: http://www.josipovic.net, accessed 15 April 2010, this website is no longer available).

⁴‘Mesić: Josipović prvi predsjednik koji nije bio u zatvoru’, Jutarnji list, 7 February 2010, available at: http://www.jutarnji.hr/stjepan-mesic–ivo-josipovic-prvi-celnik-hrvatske-koji-nije-bio-u-zatvoru/543914/, accessed 15 April 2010.

⁵Although Jadranka Kosor took issue with Josipović's observation that Croatia waged a war in Bosnia aimed at the break-up of the Bosnian state, Kosor's party, the Croatian Democratic Union, did welcome Josipović's visit to Ahmići (‘HDZ: Hrvatska politika nije požnjela rat, smrt i sakaćenje’, Jutarnji list, 16 April 2010, available at: http://www.jutarnji.hr/hdz--hrvatska-politika-nije-poznjela-rat--smrt-i-sakacenje-/721480/, accessed 16 April 2010).

⁶Nevertheless, the Croatian Party of Rights expressed concern that Josipović's comments constituted a usurpation of the parliamentary government's foreign policy prerogatives. Outside Croatia, the Bosnia Croat Croatian Cultural Council expressed outrage at Josipović's statements and called his alleged intervention in Croatian foreign policy tantamount to a ‘coup d'état’ and called for his impeachment from office (Zelenika 2010). Overall, within Croatia outrage has been considerably more muted than was the case in response to Pusić's condemnation of Croatian involvement in the Bosnian war a decade earlier.

⁷For more on this, see Jović (2006).

⁸This term is borrowed from Jović (2009b).

⁹The 1991–1995 war in Croatia is almost always referred to as the Homeland War.