Contradictory tendencies in the political culture of Croatian youth: unexpected anomalies or an expected answer to the social crisis?

ABSTRACT

A successful democratic consolidation of post-socialist societies depends, among other things, on their citizens’ political culture, younger generations included. Moreover, youth civic engagement today and in the future is a guarantee of the continuity and development of democracy, which means that scientists need to gain insight into young people’s political culture. In this paper we look at political values, institutional trust and participation as relevant components of the civic political culture. The analysis is based on quantitative data collected in the empirical studies of Croatian youth, carried out between 1999 and 2013. Based on longitudinal study results, a downward trend is identified regarding selected political culture indicators: acceptance of liberal-democratic values, trust in social and political institutions, interest in politics and party preference. However, there is a simultaneous increase in participation in various types of organizations, especially political parties. The interpretation of established tendencies is placed in a broader context of an inherited democratic deficit, economic recession and social crisis. Current trends are both indicators and consequences of young people’s inadequate political socialization as well as weaknesses of political institutions and various actors during the transition and consolidation period.

KEYWORDS:

• The youth
• political culture
• democratic deficit
• social crisis
• Croatia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Despite the fact that socialism in Croatia (and Yugoslavia) was less dogmatic than in other socialist regimes, comparative studies show that Croatian citizens criticized its economic and political performance more than anybody else. Yet it is indicative that after a few years of living in the newly established democracy, Croatian citizens again expressed the least support for the political system. That was attributed to the negative impact of the homeland war and worsening of the economic crisis which affected a large part of the population (Sekulić and Šporer 1997). Also, it is likely that, before the first multi-party elections, Croatian citizens had great expectations which included peace and security, improvement of living standards and joining the circle of democratic European countries (Grdešić et al. 1991). Those expectations were betrayed due to various unfavorable circumstances which provided fertile ground for discontent. All subsequent research showed permanent dissatisfaction of Croatian citizens with the state of the country (with only small cyclical variations in that respect).

2 In 25 years of democracy in Croatia seven cycles of national parliamentary elections were held and government changed four times. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was in power 18 years in total (from 1990 to 1999 as a single party and from 2004 to 2011 in the centre-right coalition as the strongest party); the Social Democratic Party (SDP) ruled for 7 years (2000–2003 and 2012–2015 as the leading party of the centre-left coalition). The length of time and the circumstances in which HDZ held power, places the biggest responsibility on this party for shaping the political system of Croatia in the transition period (Lalović 2000; Čular 2004).

3 In short, youth political participation in contemporary Croatia is lower than in the socialist period when compared to both younger generations and elderly population. This is manifested in lower levels of political interest, readiness to vote, party affiliation, party membership and representation in government bodies. Young people are also less interested in alternative political engagement than their peers in developed European countries (Ilišin 1999, 2006, 2007a, 2007b).

4 Another important aspect of political participation, representation of young people in government bodies, is not often studied. This is partly because young people are rather rarely members of political parties whose function is to select and nominate representatives of citizens for government agencies and bodies, primarily local and regional authorities. Other reasons are connected with the age stratification and social marginalization of young people. Government bodies are dominated by middle aged politicians (Hague, Harrop, and Breslin 1998); young people's presence is only symbolic, about 2% on average (Schizzeroto and Gasperoni 2001). In Croatia, similarly, young people are under-represented in local government bodies, about 6% (Ilišin 2006), and in the Croatian Parliament up to 2% (Ilišin 2007b; Ilišin and Čular 2014).

5 The data used are collected from two research projects of the Institute for Social Research, Value system of the youth and social changes in Croatia (1999, project leaders Vlasta Ilišin and Furio Radin), Young people and European integration processes (2004, project leader Vlasta Ilišin) and from the project of the Ministry of Social Policy Needs, problems and potentials of Croatian youth (2013, project leaders Vlasta Ilišin and Vedrana Spajić-Vrkaš). The latest survey encompassed young people whose education and socialization took place in the transition period while earlier surveys included those young people who completed their primary or both primary and secondary education in the socialist period.

6 Respondents were not told that those were constitutional values and the question was formulated in the following way: How important are these social and political values to you? A four-degree interval scale was offered (very and mostly important and mostly and completely unimportant) with 10–11 variables (after the Constitution was amended in 2001). Young people found all political values mostly or very important. For 4% (respect for human rights) to 19% (democratic and multi-party system) of young respondents constitutional values were mostly or completely unimportant.

7 Relativization of the importance of democratic and multiparty system can be connected to a decline in voter turnout in national elections. More precisely, in the first and second parliamentary elections (in 1990 and 1992) the turnout was 85% and 75%. In the next four cycles it was about 60% and in the last elections (2011) it dropped to 54%. Moreover, only 25% of voters participated in the elections for the European Parliament in 2014. The fact that in the last three decades the national elections voter turnout has decreased by 10%–20% in established democracies (Bruter and Harrison 2009) suggests that the situation in Croatia and other European countries is rather similar. The only difference is that ‘exercise in democracy’ has lasted in Croatia for a rather short period of time and the point of satiation should not have been reached so soon. We do not have any data on Croatian youth turnout but there are some data on their somewhat weaker readiness to take part in elections in comparison to adults (Ilišin 2007a).

8 Social trust among Croatian youth is low as well (Ilišin et al. 2013; Gvozdanović 2014). More precisely, people trust family members, friends and relatives most. Unlike particularized trust, generalized trust is quite low. One quarter of young people trust their colleagues, one fifth their neighbors while only 17% trust people of different religion or political orientation. Also, 9% trust their acquaintances and only 3% trust people they do not know personally. Institutional and social distrust imply that trust levels in Croatia are generally very low.

9 The bad image of politicians among young people was confirmed by the survey conducted among Croatian university students in 2010. The results showed that 60% to 85% of students resented politicians for giving up on their pre-election promises, being only interested in people's votes, not opinions. Students blamed politicians for losing touch with citizens after elections, neglecting public interest and focusing on personal or party interests (Ilišin 2014). Such attitudes towards politicians are not expressed only in Croatia; British youth raise similar objections, to a somewhat lesser extent (Henn, Weinstein, and Forrest 2005; Henn and Foard 2014).

10 It is interesting to notice that in the last decade of socialism 15% of young people expressed high interest in politics and 24% no interest at all (Ilišin 1999). So, despite the fact that political pluralism enriches political life, youth interest in politics has not increased, but significantly decreased. Identical changes have occurred among Slovenian youth (Ule 1996), which suggests that democratic institutions alone do not necessarily guarantee the strengthening of initial capacities for political participation. It is interesting to note that among British youth, for example, who are also disappointed with (traditional) politics, there are only 12% of those who are not interested in politics at all (Henn and Foard 2014).

11 Party membership of Croatian citizens and youth fluctuates: during the 1990s, 24% of young people were members of political parties, then the number dropped to 10% and finally to 5%. At the same time, adult membership decreased from 28% to 17% and then to 10%. During the one-party socialist regime, the Communist party membership was higher, among the youth between 11% and 26% (Ilišin 1999). All these percentages are significantly higher than those in established European democracies (Pedersen et al. 2004; Cross and Young 2008b; Bruter and Harrison 2009; Kestilä-Kekkonen 2009; Marzana, Marta, and Pozzi 2012).

12 The "Copernican Turn" first happened in the survey conducted among Croatian university students in 2010 when their trust in political parties was below 4% and their membership 11% (Ilišin 2014). Based on that survey, it can be assumed that the beginning of the institutional trust erosion and the rise in party membership coincided with the beginning of economic crisis in Croatia. As shown in previous research (Ilišin 2007a), there are similar tendencies in political attitudes of young people and adults. Political participation of adults is generally higher, it is likely that adults join parties even more frequently and are equally distrustful of them.

13 Croatia, a country of about 4,300,000 people, has 52,000 civil society organizations and 144 officially registered political parties out of which around 30% have succeeded in becoming parliamentary parties. The largest among them HDZ (220,000 members) and SDP (40,000 members) have always won seats in the Parliament, together between 60% and 80% of all seats. The power and influence of these two parties are the reason why the country's highly fragmented party system is bipolarized. It is interesting that, besides 50% of young people who do not know what their ideological orientation is, 10% of young people in Croatia position themselves on the left and 10% on the right pole of the ideological scale. One third are in the political center (Ilišin et al. 2013) although parties declared as centrist almost always experience electoral defeat. Analysts point to a significant intra-party democracy deficit in all Croatian political parties. This is particularly noticeable in electoral lists created by presidents and party leaderships. On the one hand, these lists are a great show of power for party leaders and, on the other hand, submissive behavior of party contenders for power and lucrative positions. Also, political party statutes do not allow for fractional organization which is why disagreements often end up in party dissolution. Thus there is a continuous multiplication of new political parties (Kasapović 2001; Zakošek 2002; Čular 2004; Ilišin 2007b; Ilišin and Čular 2014).

14 Disputes about the introduction of civic education in Croatian elementary and high schools have been going on for nearly two decades, with varying intensity. It was only in the 2014/2015 school year that civic education was introduced as a cross-curricular program although experimental implementation of civic education in the 2012/2013 school year, conceived as a separate and compulsory subject, showed its positive influence on pupils’ decision making, social engagement and mutual relationships (Spajić-Vrkaš 2014). In the early 1990s, religion was introduced as an optional subject. It is attended by over 90% of elementary school pupils. In high schools which offer ethics as an alternative, the number of students choosing religion is decreasing.

15 Partitocracy is a visible component of the political system in Croatia (Kasapović 2001; Zakošek 2002; Čular 2004). It is manifested in a powerful influence of political parties on the public sector employment (Bruter and Harrison 2009). The assumption is that this power grows in times of social crisis and consequently expands and strengthens clientelistic behavioral patterns. Namely, political parties are not just instruments to gain specific material benefits and/or springboards for managers, entrepreneurs and those who want to accomplish respectable careers in politics, but they become necessary for getting jobs in the public sector and in private companies which are networked with the political elite. In Croatia, this is especially common in local communities where some parties have been in power continuously, since the beginning of transition, thus creating strong and efficient clientelistic networks. They ensure the survival of a particular political option but also increase the number and appetite of clientelistic groups within the electorate. It is therefore logical to assume that the social crisis has spurred people to join political parties. In socialism, the Communist party membership was a requirement to obtain managing positions in companies as well as in academic institutions. Other jobs were more or less equally available to everyone so as to achieve a higher employment rate. Today parties often decide about all kinds of employment.