Generators of Social Trust Among Youth in Croatia

Abstract

This article aims to detect the level of Croatian youth’s social trust, as well as to identify the generators or determinants of this phenomenon. It argues that social trust is, following social capital theory and human development theory, determined by institutional and sociocultural contexts, respectively. It is especially important to identify the way it is formed, considering the democratic deficit and the process of retraditionalization that occurred in Croatian society. The results show that both institutional and cultural factors influence the level of social trust in the expected direction. The analysis uses data from a national survey conducted in 2010 (N = 2,000), which is a national representative sample of university students from all public universities in Croatia.

Keywords:

• Croatia
• institutional trust
• retraditionalization
• social trust
• traditionalist orientation
• university students

Notes

This type of trust can be referred to as “generalized” trust (Putnam 2008), but social trust is used here as its synonym.

Some researchers suggest that these differences are simply a reflection of a generational trend (Putnam 2008), and some argue that their key determinants lie in conditions of socialization that have changed considerably from the time when today’s older generations went through their socialization phase (Kaasa and Parts 2008).

Human Rights Watch summary describes the situation in Croatia in the following way: “asylum seekers and other migrants, including unaccompanied children, lack adequate protection and are in some cases forced back to Serbia … . Jews, Roma, and Serbs face discrimination, ethnic intolerance, and hate speech, with thousands of Roma remaining stateless,” retrieved March 11, 2017 (https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/croatia).

It should be mentioned that compared to other socioprofessional subgroups of youth (pupils, employed, and unemployed) university students are on average of a higher social origin, which implies urban provenance, parents with higher education, and higher material standard (Ilišin 2008), which is found in other international studies as well (Adnanes 2007). Furthermore, previous studies have shown that compared to other youth subgroups, university students have a higher level of democratic potential in the sense of showing better understanding of democratic rules, interest in politics, and willingness to participate in social and political activities (Ilišin and Radin 2007; Ilišin 2008).

Moreover, “ethnic homogenization” was also reflected in a relative increase in the number of Croats in the total population, with a simultaneous decrease of the Serb minority by about two thirds (Sekulić 2011).

United States of America Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2016: Croatia. Human Rights Reports, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. Retrieved March 11, 2017 (https://tinyurl.com/yba7fyzy).

For example, discrimination (including hate speech, violent acts, and threats) against Serbs living in Croatia increased by 57 percent in 2016 in comparison to 2015. SNV Bulletin no. 10, “Historic Revisionism, Hate Speech and Violence against Serbs in 2016,” (Serb National Council Bulletin 2017).

Decrease of institutional trust in Croatia in the period from 1995 to 2003 is ascribed to the increased perception of corruption, which implies risk and unpredictability and exacerbates institutional functioning (Štulhofer 2004).

Overall findings are published in the book Sociological Portrait of Croatian University Students (Ilišin 2014).

Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2011). Statistical reports 1441/2011.

Population over 15 years old by highest level of finished education, age, and gender, Census 2011, retrieved April 1, 2017 (http://www.dzs.hr/Hrv/censuses/census2011/results/htm/h01_01_32/h01_01_32_RH.html).

Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2013). The same report shows that in the 1991 Census, 78.1 percent of citizens declared themselves as Croats, and 12.2 percent were Serbs and 9.7 percent were others or unknown (those who declared themselves as Yugoslavs might also be in this category).

This is primarily related to the issue of the official use of minority language and script (which is mainly associated with the Cyrillic script and Serbian language) but also to the right to cultural autonomy (Bagić and Gvozdanović 2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anja Gvozdanović

Anja Gvozdanović is a research associate at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, where she is affiliated with the Center for Youth and Gender Studies. Her main research interests are political culture of youth and social capital.