Polculture

Davorka Matić

Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

For much of the last decade of the 20th century scholars have debated whether former communist countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe that experienced dramatic political, economic and social changes brought about by the collapse of communism could be transformed, with time, into full-fledged democracies similar to those in the Western world. The initial optimism regarding the possibilities of democratic transformation of once totalitarian polities was soon replaced with more sober analyses that called for caution and warned against a tendency to succumb to the “electoral fallacy”, the belief in which a multiparty elections are seen not only as a necessary but also a sufficient condition for democracy. The vast literature on transition and democratic consolidation makes a clear distinction between the collapse of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes and the establishment of democratic ones, emphasizing the fact that the transition from old structures and processes into new ones does not necessarily lead to a democratic polity.1 In other words, a country can cease to be authoritarian but fail to achieve a firmly established, consolidated democracy in which internal consensus has been forged on an agreed set of political procedures for electing government, a relatively autonomous and valued democratic political society has formed, a robust and vibrant civil society has emerged and the rule of law ensures and protects citizens’ freedoms, all proceeding within the framework of an institutionalized economic society. 2 The optimism that greeted post-communist transition was based not on analysis of the internal conditions and capacities for democratization of transitional societies but on a belief in the key role played by ideological and international factors. Fukuyama declared the universal victory of liberal democracy3 and Huntington’s notion of a “third wave” of democratization has in it the imagery of democracy as an international ideology, penetrating the most distant parts of the globe and becoming the dominant paradigm in world politics. This international ideological hegemony of democracy backed by strong international pressure for democratic change were understood to be those factors that would facilitate democratic transformation of post-communist polities and accelerate their incorporation into the democratic fold. But as so often happens, practice fell short of ideals. When certain events throughout the post-communist world proved that transition would be much more difficult and painful than initially thought, optimism gave way to pessimism. While the optimists believed that democratization depends on the willingness of elites to introduce constitutional, political, legal, judicial, and market

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oriented reforms that are necessary for building institutions conducive to democracy and market economy4, pessimists stressed the internal limitations and obstacles to democracy, considering them almost insuperable. In their views, former post-communist countries have little prospects of becoming liberal democracies not for lack of good will but primarily because of their specific history and negative cultural heritage. Communism left deep imprints on society and in the ways people think, feel and behave, producing atomized and weak civil societies, uncooperative and passive citizens and a general culture of distrust, envy and intolerance. The inherited values of authoritarian egalitarianism, hostility towards minority cultures, lack of individual initiative, an inclination towards state paternalism, widespread opportunism and low level of social capital are recognized as the main socio-cultural sources of resistance to market reforms and serious obstacles to acceptance and the proper functioning of institutions of political democracy. Hence, according to George Schöpflin, post-communism should be viewed not as a system gradually approaching western-like democracy but as a system sui generis, as a hybrid system incorporating elements of both democracy and authoritarianism.5 But there is more to the story. Since the break-down of communism had an explicit national element and since for all of the former communist countries the exit from communism was not only an issue of regime change but also one of casting off foreign domination6, nationalism had become a prominent feature of post-communist politics.

The explosion of ethnic conflicts, suppression of minority rights and growth of xenophobia prompted many to conclude that what we were witnessing in most parts of Eastern Europe are not nascent liberal democracies but the emergence of nationalistic dictatorships7, majoritarian ethnic democracies8 or regimes that are democratic only in form but nationalistic in content9. Others went even further, claiming that ethnic nationalism, as an ideology inherent to the identities of East-European nations, represents the major reason for these nations’ inability to adopt liberal values and develop into democracies10. It seemed as if the post-communist world, due to its own cultural makeup, was destined, for an indefinite period of time, to some form of authoritarian rule and political repression.

True, all of these views were expressed during the last decade of 20th century, at a time when post-communist transition did not seem to have a bright future. The pessimists could draw upon ample evidence of political repression and violence, thwarted reforms, ethnically biased policies, attacks on independent media and organizations of civil society, undemocratic practices of governments and state institutions, etc. Yet today, fifteen years after the collapse of communism, at least in some countries, these gloomy predictions seem to have been refuted and democracy appears to be firmly established and consolidated. Hence, what is the state of democracy in Croatia? Did it become, to use Linz & Stepen’s phrase, “the only game in town”, or is Croatia still in a phase of incomplete transition? The following analysis is limited in scope but will, hopefully, offer us some insights into the current state of Croatian democracy.

Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

“Stateness” and democratic consolidation There are no clear and simple criteria by which we can judge whether a particular transitional regime has entered into a phase of democratic consolidation. Huntington posits two consecutive changes in government through an electoral process as an indicator of consolidation11. For Higley and Gunther consolidated democracy is “a regime that meets all the procedural criteria of democracy and also in which all politically significant groups accept established political institutions and adhere to democratic rules of the game”12 . The most elaborated and instructive definition is one developed by Linz and Stepan in their comprehensive study of democratic transition and consolidation in Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe.

According to these authors, consolidated democracy has behavioral, attitudinal and constitutional dimensions. Behaviorally, democracy is consolidated when “no significant groups seriously attempt to overthrow the democratic regime or secede from the state”.

Attitudinally, it is consolidated when, “even in the face of severe political and economic crises, the overwhelming majority of people believe that any further political change must emerge within the parameters of democratic formulas”. And, constitutionally, it is consolidated when “all the actors in the polity become habituated to the fact that political conflict will be resolved according to established norms and that violations of these norms are likely to be both ineffective and costly”.13 The behavioral dimension of defining democratic consolidation is important because it stresses what was often neglected in the literature on transition – that democracy cannot be established where national unity is absent, where the state is viewed as illegitimate by large segments of the population and where the state has yet to exercise control over its territory. National unity, therefore, is a fundamental condition for democracy in the sense that a population broadly accepts the existing state as a relevant political community that can attract its loyalty. Hence, Linz and Stepan claim, for democracy to function an agreement about territorial boundaries of the political community’s state and as to who has the right to citizenship in this state is “logically prior to the creation of democratic institutions”14.

The importance of state legitimacy for the establishment and functioning of democracy was recognized by several other democracy analysts. Just prior to the collapse of communism R. Dahl warned that the problems concerning the proper scope and domain of a democratic unit cannot be solved within democratic theory because “the democratic process presuppose the unit. The criteria of the democratic process presuppose the rightfulness of the unit itself. If the unit itself is not considered proper or rightful – if its scope or domain is not justifiable – then it cannot be made rightful simply by democratic procedure”.15 This seems to echo David Easton’s view. Differentiating between the three levels of a political system – the political community, the regime and political authority – and, correspondingly, between three types of legitimacy, Easton attributes the utmost importance to the legitimacy of the political community16. Since it functions as a foundation for democracy, agreement about the nature and range of

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the political community cannot be reduced at or derived from support for either regime or government. If we know that common political values, rights and ideals are not sufficient conditions for building a sense of communal belonging and that democracy in itself does not represent a political community, then it becomes crystal clear that democracy-building presupposes solving problems of legitimacy and loyalty to the political community.

Here we come to the issue of common identity. At this point, there is no need to embark upon a comprehensive analysis of the term “political community” to agree that in the modern world it took the form of the nation-state. Since the essence of the nation is a sense of belonging derived from a common identity and the essence of the state is power, where these two concepts diverge or never achieve a certain degree of cohesion, the polity will face a serious crisis of legitimacy, or what Linz and Stepan term a “stateness” problem17. As Kymlicka emphasizes repeatedly, institutionalization and the wide acceptance of democratic political values did not reduce the importance of national or ethno-cultural identities among the Western nations and has not made these nations willing to forego their national independence.18 In societies that lack a common national identity, maintaining a healthy democracy becomes a difficult, almost impossible, task to achieve and where there is no common identity capable of bridging various ethnic, regional or religious identities, “politics is likely to be reduced to a mere modus vivendi amongst groups that barely tolerate, let alone cooperate with, each other”.19 It was exactly this willingness and readiness for political cooperation that Almond and Verba declared a critical feature of democratic political culture. In their classical study The Civic Culture20 they showed that political cooperation is a specifically national dimension of politics and that stable democracy requires a developed sense of common national identity and a high level of national pride. According to Verba, national identity is the most important component of political identity that, as such, impacts seriously on a state’s politics.

Drawing from the cases of Germany, Italy and many colonial states, he concluded that answering the question “What is my state?” has priority over all other questions and that as long as crucial identity problems of unity and independence are not resolved, questions of democracy and reforms are of secondary importance. 21 Viewed from this perspective, it becomes clear why Croatia’s transition to democracy has been so slow and difficult. Starting with its first multiparty election in April 1990, democratic transition involved problems associated not only with regime change and economic transformation but also, after May 1991, with the creation of an independent state. If these tasks were not difficult enough, they proceeded under conditions of profound disagreements between the Croat majority and Serb minority about who constitute the demos and where to set the borders of the newly created state. These disagreements gradually evolved into full-scale war between Croatian forces and Serb rebels backed by Serb-dominated Yugoslav forces in the summer 1991. The resulting occupation of one third of Croatia’s territory in late 1991, large-scale destruction of properties, losses of many civilian lives and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of refugees, caused issues of democratic reforms and human rights and liberties to be

Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

superceded by the needs to secure the survival of the state. So, the main precondition for democracy – the existence of a sovereign state whose legitimacy to exercise control over the whole of its territory is accepted by all of its significant groups – was not present at the time Croatia entered into transition. Under conditions of war, ethnic polarization and general existential insecurity, where both political elites and citizens had to commit a significant amount of time and energy to state-building and state-securing efforts, it became very difficult to attend to the demands of democratization. During this period of conflict, the then ruling HDZ (Croatian Democratic Community) invited the opposition to enter into a broad coalition government of national unity. Necessary at the time, it suspended normal political competition and opened space for non-democratic practices. That this occurred is not surprising since, as Linz & Stepan pointed out, even in democratic regimes, when faced with a significant minority that challenges the legitimacy of the state, the response of central democratic governments has often been, as in Northern Ireland, the suppression of the democratic process in the territory and sometimes serious violations of civil liberties and even human rights22 .

It was only after Croatian forces liberated most of the occupied territory in 199523 and the subsequent peaceful integration of Eastern Slavonia in early 1998 that Croatia established itself as a proper sovereign state. As the “stateness” problem no longer dominated the country’s political agenda, it was expected that democratic transition would regain its speed. But changing the course of undemocratic political practices that took roots during years of war and occupation proved difficult. Part of the reason was due to the country’s semi-presidential constitutional framework and characteristics of its electoral system. The semi-presidential system gave extensive executive authorities to the president and made him, in fact, unaccountable to any other institution in the political system. Throughout the 1990’s President Franjo Tuđman acted simultaneously as Head of state and Head of the ruling HDZ party that in three consecutive elections (in 1990, 1992 and 1995), won relative majorities of the vote and, as a result, took the majority of parliamentary seats to form a strong government. With governmental power secured, the stable functioning of a political system needed for successful state-building during a time of occupation had negative effects upon the democratization process. It had empowered the President and his party to ignore the opposition and impose a wide spectrum of measures aimed at strengthening their hold on power. The very nature of the HDZ was another factor contributing to an impaired democratization process. A prominent Croatian political analyst described HDZ as a “charismatic-clientelistic” party. 24 The HDZ owed most of its electoral success to the personal charisma of its president who ran the party as an autocrat, installing and removing its top leaders as he judged fit to ensure the implementation of his political vision. The centralization of party power meant that the president and only a few of his confidants controlled the party’s network of clientlike supporters, informal groups and parallel organization and, thus, wielded significant influence over the country’s political and economic development.

For most of the 1990’s then prospects for democratic consolidation in Croatia seemed weak. The country’s politics were dominated by “stateness” problems that prioritized

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security and territorial integrity over demands for democratization, engendering a semi-authoritarian form of political behavior. That, in turn, reduced the overall level of societal tolerance that made many Croatian citizens indifferent to human rights violations and the plights of minorities. However, the picture was not completely grim. The early 1990’s also saw the introduction of fundamental democratic political institutions such as political pluralism, multiparty election and the division of power as well as privatization and market reforms. This institutionalization of liberal-democratic principles, guaranteed by the Constitution and operating through the Parliament, was of great significance since it placed serious obstacles to any eventual relapse into authoritarianism and served as a firm basis for further democratization. However flawed, parliamentary and presidential elections where regularly held, contributing to a growing awareness of the importance of political pluralism and electoral competition, all within a framework of legally established rules and procedures.

Towards institutional consolidation With the full integration of Croatia’s territory within its legal framework in January 1998, debate about human rights and civic liberties, social justice, economic recovery and overall democratization began to dominate Croatia’s political arena. Civil society forces, nongovernmental and human rights organizations and a free media that the government had successfully stifled during the difficult years of war and occupation grew stronger and their critical voices found receptive audiences among large segments of the public. Impoverished by war and crony privatization and having witnessed widespread corruption within the ranks of the government and state apparatus, international isolation and arrogance of the ruling elite, Croatian citizens changed the course of Croatian politics by voting the HDZ out of office in parliamentary elections held in January 2000. Elections brought a center-left coalition government to power, with Ivica Račan, leader of the SDP (Social Democratic Party) as prime minister. That same month opposition candidate Stipe Mesić was elected president, sealing HDZ’s total electoral defeat. 25 The generally free and fair manners in which elections took place was a sign that Croatia had entered into a new phase of political development characterized by reforms, an increase in transparency of executive offices and renewed efforts to integrate Croatia into the international community.

During this period HDZ experienced a profound transformation from a nationalistic clientelist party into a modern European-type center-right party. Under the leadership of moderate conservative Ivo Sanader, the party was purged of its hard-line elements and it softened its antagonistic stance towards the international community, thus contributing to the overall normalization of Croatia’s political processes. When subsequent parliamentary election were held in November 2003 voters returned HDZ to power. The HDZ continued the previous government’s policies of democratic reforms, European integration, cooperation with The Hague Tribunal and improved relations with the Serb

Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

minority. One of the new, now non-nationalistic, HDZ-run government’s first actions was to initiate dialogue with political representatives of the country’s Serb minority.

This resulted in a number of measures aimed at facilitating the return of Serb refugees as well as a cooperation agreement with the minority’s main political organization, the Independent Democratic Serb Party.

The international community was not blind to the positive changes in Croatian politics which took place in the wake of Tudjman’s death. In May 2000, Croatia was accepted into NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. The following year, it signed a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union and obtained applicant status for membership in the EU. The 2002 European Commission report on Croatia stated that, on the whole, democratic institutions in Croatia function well but emphasized the need for radical reforms of its judicial system since it “suffers from serious problems of organization, procedural inefficiency, lack of expertise and the excessive length of procedure”. 26 Croatia submitted its application for joining the EU on February 2003 and on 20 April 2004 the European Commission decided that Croatia had fulfilled the political and economic criteria required for initiating negotiations on accession. On June 18 the European Council decided to grant Croatia the Status of official candidate for EU entry and scheduled accession talks for early 2005. Although negotiations have been postponed following a critical report by The Hague Tribunal that charged the government of insufficient cooperation to arrest its remaining indicted fugitive, there is little doubt that Croatia’s international standing had significantly improved due primarily to its political stabilization and success in implementing democratic reforms.

Returning to Linz & Stepan’s criteria for democratic consolidation it can be argued that, behaviorally and constitutionally, Croatia is entering 2006 as a consolidated democracy. There are no significant groups seeking some form of non-democratic regime, the “stateness” problem has been resolved and all relevant political forces accept legally and institutionally sanctioned methods and procedures of political activity as the only legitimate means for resolving conflicts. Croatia’s democratic political system has achieved the necessary degree of institutional stability. Democracy has become internalized among the main political actors as “the only game in town”.

Social capital, political culture and support for democracy Obviously, democracy requires functioning political institutions and political actors that have become habituated to shaping their actions in accordance with democratic rules and procedures. However, stability and the long-term success of democracy depend also on a popular commitment to democratic values and on public support and psychological internalization of democratic norms and values. As emphasized by Almond & Verba in their study The Civic Culture, the development of a successful and efficient democracy requires a set of political beliefs, social norms and attitudes that they term civic or democratic political culture. Defining this culture as a pluralist culture

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based on social trust and citizens’ cooperative behavior, they concluded that where society lacks such socio-cultural traits it is unlikely that political processes will lead to a functioning democracy. Building on their work, social capital theorists27 departed from a procedural-institutional understanding of democracy and argued that the success or failure of democracy depends on the character of its social structure, on the “degree to which its surroundings approximate the ideal of a ‘civic community’”28. This community consists of citizens who are imbued with civic virtue, who are devoted to public causes, and who are “helpful, respectful and trustful towards one another, even when they differ on matters of substance”29. Civic culture is thus embedded within the social structure that possesses a substantial stock of social capital in the form of trust, norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement. Where social capital is limited, where citizens distrust each other, where the majority expect others to cheat and violate the law, and where, consequently, the general level of trust and civic engagement is low, it is more likely that society will be caught in a vicious cycle of economic stagnation and political instability rather than experience successful democratization and economic development.

Although few would argue against the importance of trust and civic engagement for the development of democracy, the social capital approach is not without its weaknesses.

Some critics find this approach unsatisfactory for methodological and conceptual reasons.30 Namely, according to the main-stream social capital model, democratic political institutions, the public sphere and law do not play any significant role in fostering trust and cooperation among citizens. It is deemed a sole product of local traditions and inherited culture31 that, as such, precede democracy but cannot be created by appropriate institutional design. As I have mentioned elsewhere32 , such a radical historicism does not give much hope to post-communist societies that are characterized by low levels of trust. And if Inglehart is right when he claims that “democratic institutions do not automatically produce trust” and that “there is no institutional quick fix for the problem of creating trust and social capital”33, then we have no option but to conclude that lowtrust societies are cursed by “bad” history and a “wrong” cultural heritage and that their citizens are, hence, sentenced to live out their lives in an atmosphere of fear and distrust within a pseudo-democratic political order.

In spite of these objections, social capital theory does have its merits. It provides good ground for empirical analyses of the socio-cultural aspects of political cultures and thus helps us evaluate whether these are working in favor of or against enhancing democratic processes in transition countries. There is much research that demonstrates the link between trust, respect for social norms and cooperative types of behavior on the one hand, and democracy and economic development on the other. In the following analysis I will rely mainly on data from two cross-national social science research projects – World Values Survey (WVS) – Croatia 1995 and the 1999/2000 wave of European Values Survey (EVS) that covered thirty-three countries34. These surveys were presented in several articles by Croatian researchers.35 As a lubricant of cooperation, trust is considered a key ingredient in the ethos that sustains both dynamic economies and workable democratic institutions. According to

Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

the social capital thesis, the more prosperous and democratic a society is, the higher the level of trust there will be in that society. So far, empirical research has mainly confirmed the this thesis. Data from three different surveys – 1995 WVS, 1999 EVS and the 2003 South East European Survey (SEES) – showed that the level of interpersonal trust in Croatia is quite low, only about 24% of the Croatian citizens believe that strangers can be trusted. Comparative data from the EVS also showed that, irrespective of the variation within the group, interpersonal trust is highest in the fifteen EU countries, while Croatia’s results correspond to an average level of trust found in the eight countries that recently joined the EU (accession countries)36. Although the data indicate that this kind of trust is widespread only among the citizens of Northern-European countries, it is important to note that the EU average is twice as high as that in Croatia. Citizens in EU countries also show higher trust in their institutions (54% of EU citizens compared to about 40% of citizens of Croatia and of accession countries).37 But what is more disturbing are the negative changes in the level of trust in institutions.

As shown in Table 1, since 1995 trust in the key institutions of the political system in Croatia has significantly dropped.

Table1. Trust in key institutions of political system38 1995

1999

2003

Trust in

Very high / high %

Low / no trust %

Very high / high %

Low / no trust %

Very high / high %

Low / no trust %

Judiciary

58.5

41.5

30.5

69.5

26.6

73.4

Government

59.5

40.5

/

/

32.5

67.5

Parliament

48.6

51.4

20.1

79.9

30.5

69.5

This, of course, in itself, does not necessarily mean that Croatia is experiencing a “crisis of democracy”, that its citizens are increasingly rejecting the democratic rules of the game. Taking into consideration the difficulties associated with transitional costs, the prolonged economic crisis, widespread corruption, high unemployment, weak institutional performance, increased social inequality and international isolation, it seems only rational that peopče would lose trust in institutions they view as incompetent and responsible for many of their problems. Another explanation can be found in Inglehart’s theory of social change. Reflecting upon the noticable decrease of trust in political parties and the government in Western democracies, he concluded that the developed world is experiencing a “silence revolution” in the cultural sphere that is manifesting itself in new values adopted by generations socialized in societies characterized by affluence and social security. According to him, changes that some interpret as a crisis of democracy represent, in fact, a cultural shift from values of materialism to values of post-materialism. New generations tend to be more critical of old-styled politics and

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its representatives and demand more inclusiveness and participatory forms of politics that emphasizes values of self-actualization, meaning and quality of life. The decline in institutional trust, therefore, should not be interpreted necessarily as a loss of faith in democracy but more so as a decline in respect for authority. The same people that are becoming increasingly critical of hierarchical authority are also becoming increasingly resistant to authoritarian government, more interested in political life, and more apt to play an active role in politics.39 Both surveys measured the spread of materialism and post-materialism by a standard recoding of respondents’ answers concerning preferred goals for their countries.

Respondents were asked to choose two out of four items (maintaining order; greater citizen participation in governmental decisions; fighting inflation; protecting freedom of speech). They were asked to choose the first and second priorities for their country.

The results taken for the 1995 and 1999 surveys are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Important goals 1995

1999

1. choice %

2. choice %

1. choice %

2. choice %

Maintaining order in the country

38.3

21.4

27.1

19.0

Greater citizen participation in governmental decisions

24.7

20.6

44.0

24.0

Fighting inflation

30.3

37.6

16.1

26.3

Protecting freedom of speech

6.6

20.4

10.9

25.6

As we can see from the results, there was an important change in the way the Croatian public view national priorities. Respondents placed greater citizen participation in governmental decision on the top of the country’s priority list. This also indicates that there was a shift from materialist to post-materialist values. The percentage of postmaterialists increased from 11% in 1995 to 20% in 1999, the percentage of materialists dropped from high 38% in 1995 to 15% in 1999, and the percentage of those of mixed orientation increased from 51% in 1995 to 65 in 1991.40 Inglehart’s model would attribute this change in value orientation to economic growth and prosperity, but Croatia seems to defy his hypothesis. The recorded value change in Croatia’s case is more a consequence of an improvement in security than of economic betterment. It should be emphasized that the WVS was conducted immediately after the counter-military operation Storm, a time when “maintaining order in the country”, due to stress associated with war and occupation, figured high on the list of national priorities. Once this stress and its causes were removed, the post-materialist goal of having more influence on governmental decisions predominated. But what is surprising is the finding that the spread of postmaterialist values in Croatia in 1999 is on the level of the EU average, differing markedly from the average of accession countries.

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Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

Table 3. Percentage of materialists, post-materialists and people of mixed value orientation41 (Croatia, the EU average and accession countries average – EVS 1999) Croatia

EU

Accession countries

Materialists %

14

19

34

Post-materialists %

20

20

8

Mixed %

66

61

58

How should we interpret this finding? If economic prosperity is the sole reason for the value shift from materialism to post-materialism, then Croatia is obviously a deviant case.

A possible explanation is the Croatian public’s deep dissatisfaction with government that it judges incompetent, arrogant and detached from its needs and problems. This has produced a loss in respect for the political elites and led respondents to place postmaterialist goals high on the list of priorities.

According to social capital theory, norms of reciprocity and civility represent a public good the absence of which can seriously undermine efforts at building democratic institutions. Expectations that others will probably follow the rules increase the likelihood of cooperation within society. If almost everyone expects others to violate the rules, to avoid paying taxes, disobey traffic laws or welfare rules and engage in bribery, it seems foolish not to do likewise. If one expects everyone else to cheat why not cheat too? The end result is the spread of cynicism and an increase in opportunistic forms of social behavior.

The 1999 EVS comparative data on trust in social norms showed that the perception of civility index42 in Croatia is on a par with the EU average. About 50% of Croatian and EU respondents think that almost everyone or many cheat, compared to 55% of respondents from accession countries, although it should be noted that the lower level of civility in accession countries is skewed downward by public perceptions in Hungary (where almost 60% of respondents think that almost everyone cheats).43 Also, there is a significant variation within EU countries, with Northern-European respondents having the highest level of civility and respondents from Mediterranean countries, with the exception of Spain, having a civility level significantly lower then that in Croatia or in accession countries (excluding Hungary). The most unexpected finding of all concerns Great Britain, the country that Almond and Verba described as a civic community.

Specifically, data showed that the civility index in Britain is very low, with almost 70% of respondents stating that almost everyone or many cheat.

Participation in voluntary associations is the third key dimension of social capital. It is argued that associations, by instilling in their members habits of cooperation, solidarity and public-spiritedness, “contribute to the effectiveness and stability of democratic government”.44 Comparative data from the 1999 EVS showed that the density of social networks, measured by the amount of time that respondents spend in activities 11

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of voluntary organizations45, is highest among EU countries. The level of participation in associational life in Croatia is somewhere in between the average in the EU and in accession countries, as shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Free time spent in voluntary organizations46 (Croatia, EU average and accession countries average – EVS 1999) Every week %

Never %

Croatia

22

46

EU average

26

42

Accession countries average

14

52

So far, the analysis of social capital in Croatia gives us reason for optimism. The data shows that its level of social capital lies somewhere between the average in fifteen EU and eight accession countries. Where Croatia differs the most from EU countries is in the degree of interpersonal trust and trust in institutions. Considering the low levels of these two types of trust, it is somewhat surprising that the perception of the frequency of violations of social norms in Croatia is not higher, being similar to the average level of perception of civility index in EU countries. Also, the spread of post-materialists values in Croatia is of the same scale as in the EU, being significantly higher than in eight accession countries. Judged by this criterion, Croatia is on a good path, with a large segment of the population interested in political life and demanding more accountable government.

It goes almost without saying that the viability and proper functioning of democracy depends on popular support. If the masses do not believe in the intrinsic value of democratic norms and principles it is hard to imagine that democratic institutions can achieve stability necessary for democratic consolidation. This is why it is argued that democracy, on the popular side, requires patterns of political beliefs and values that facilitate the implementation of democratic reforms and give support to the crafting of democratic political institutions. In order to judge whether the popular political climate works in favor of or against democracy, researchers have developed a set of standardized questions that measure support for democracy. The next two tables present data from the surveys related to support for democracy among Croatian citizens. Frst, respondents were asked to evaluate different political systems based on a four-item scale (from very good to very bad), and than asked if they fully agree, agree, disagree or fully disagree with the statement that “democracy may have its problems but is better then any other political system”.

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Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

Table 5. Evaluation of political systems 1995

1999

Good / very good %

Bad / very bad %

Good / very good %

Bad / very bad %

To have strong leader

36.7

63.3

10.2

89.8

Experts running the country

80.6

19.4

85.9

14.1

To have military rule

19.0

81.0

4.5

95.5

To have democratic system

98.4

1.6

98.1

1.9

Table 6. Democracy may have problems but is better than any other political system 1995

1999

Fully agree/agree %

94.2

93.5

Fully disagree/disagree %

5.8

6.5

As we can see, democracy has very high standing in Croatia. Over 90% of Croatian respondents support democracy and think it is the best type of political system. But what is even more important is the significant change in the evaluation of systems based on a strong leader and military, with a percentage of citizens supporting a strong leader dropping from 36.7 in 1995 to 10.2 in 1999 and of those supporting military rule decreasing from 19.0% to only 4.5%. This change is obviously a result of the country’s improved security situation following the successful territorial and political integration of occupied areas. If the above questions measure adequately what Easton calls democratic legitimacy47, it can be concluded that Croatia has a substantial “reservoir of legitimacy” that can help stabilize its democratic system even under condition of economic distress and widespread dissatisfaction with the system’s overall performance. Yet the Croatian public seems to be quite dissatisfied with the development of their own democracy. In the 1999 EVS survey Croatian respondents displayed the least satisfaction with the current state of democracy in the country, as seen from the table bellow.

Table 7. Satisfaction with democracy in Croatia, and average satisfaction in EU and accession countries (%) Very satisfied

Satisfied

Not very satisfied

Dissatisfied

Croatia

2.2

14.8

58.4

24.6

EU countries average

6.5

54.5

32.1

6.9

Accession countries average

1.4

32.8

51.1

14.7

One reason for the extremely low satisfaction rate is that the data used was collected in the spring of 1999, when frustration with the ruling HDZ party reached its peak, 13

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bringing along its crushing defeat in parliamentary election eight months later. This seems to be corroborated with the finding that respondents expressed correspondingly low satisfaction with government performance. In Croatia, satisfaction with the current government amounts to an average value of 3.4, compared to an average value of 4.1 for accession countries and 5.4 for EU countries.48 Therefore, it is more likely that the low level of satisfaction with the development of democracy in Croatia is a result of situational factors, a reflection of deep dissatisfaction with the speed and character of transition, rather than an indicator of a popular disenchantment with democracy.

The discrepancy between the very high positive evaluation of democracy in general and the extremely low satisfaction with its specific outputs in Croatia is a good example for the case that Dahl described as “a democratic paradox”49. Researches conducted in the last fifteen years in developed industrial countries found a growing level of dissatisfaction with the way democracy is functioning. “A democratic paradox”, thus, refers to the situation in which people believe in democracy but are dissatisfied with its outputs. Summarizing the research results on the satisfaction with democracy in West Europe form 1976 to 1994, Fuchs & Klingemann50 concluded that the year 1989 was the turning point, when the proportion of those dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy for the first time outnumbered the proportion of those that were satisfied. They attributed this change of attitudes to economic factors, arguing that it was the direct consequence of economic crisis and growth of unemployment in Western Europe. But the connection between the satisfaction with the outputs of democracy and the system’s economic performance was not present everywhere. There were countries, such as the United States of America, that registered economic growth but saw growing dissatisfaction with the current state of democracy. According to Inglehart, this trend is a reflection of changing values in affluent western societies. Government’s capacity to secure order and economic security can no longer satisfy post-materialist citizens. What they demand now is more visible and increased participation in political processes and new forms of affiliation and selfactualization.

Taking into consideration that Croatia has a large proportion of citizens of postmaterialist and of mixed value orientation, it seems reasonable to argue that the low satisfaction with the current state of democracy in Croatia is a combined effect of economic factors and post-materialist values. It reflects widespread dissatisfaction with the current incumbent, with the role citizens are able to play in the country’s political processes, and with the system’s poor economic performance. Contrarily, democratic legitimacy, as a form of unconditional support for democratic system, did not show any signs of crisis and seems to remain firm and unaffected by the negative evaluation of its outputs. If authors51 who argue that democratic legitimacy is the most important type of support for democracy are right, if survival of democracy ultimately depends on citizens’ belief in the intrinsic worth of its political attributes and not so much on its social and economic performance, then Croatia has a good chance to establish itself as a stable, consolidated democracy.

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Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia

Conclusion This analysis allows us to conclude that after almost a decade of instability and uncertainty regarding the outcome of democratic transition, Croatia has entered into the new millennium with a certain level of political stability and a firm determination to speed up the implementation of democratic reforms. Measured by behavioral, constitutional and attitudinal criteria, Croatia, at this point, time represents a stable and consolidated democracy. Sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Croatian state have been secured, there are no longer any significant groups trying to return the country towards some form of non-democratic political system, all political actors accept democratic norms and procedures as the only legitimate mean for resolving political conflicts, and there is a widespread and firm belief among its citizens that democracy has no rival, which is to say that it represents the best type of political system.

All this notwithstanding, there are still many problems to solve and many issues to address. As Linz and Stepan stress, consolidated democracies can vary in its quality52 and it would be difficult to argue that Croatia is a high quality democracy. Besides the very poor performance of its economic institutions, Croatia is troubled with an inefficient public administration system and above all an ineffective judicial system. The judiciary, in particular, is characterized by a shortage of experience and knowledge, poor decisionmaking and prolonged court cases that infringe upon the citizens’ right to trial within a reasonable period of time. If we add to this a survey conducted earlier this year by Transparency International in which in Croatia 80.7% of respondents cited the judiciary as the most corrupt institution, than it becomes clear that one of the most urgent task for the current and any future government is comprehensive reforms of the judicial system.

Corruption is another serious problem53. It does not only waste scarce resources and subsequently robs the country of its potentials, but it suffuses cynicism that erodes trust in the system.

As we saw, the Croatian public has a very low trust in the country’s key political institutions and is very dissatisfied with the way democracy is currently functioning in Croatia. But, the quality of Croatia’s social capital is generally favorable to democratic consolidation and its citizens have a substantial “reservoir of legitimacy” that can mitigate the negative effects of public dissatisfaction with the system’s output. Still, this reservoir can be exhausted if existing low levels of social trust and of satisfaction with government performance continue to decline. However, in Croatia democracy has become internalized among the main political actors and citizens alike as “the only game in town”. The today’s Croatia is a consolidated democracy but it has to make another important step of transforming itself from the low quality to high quality democracy whose citizens will be proud of their country’s political, economic and social achievements.

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Davorka Matić NOTES: See Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter & Laurence Whitehead (eds.),

1

Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1986); Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave.

Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Okhlahoma Press, 1991); Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimor and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996).

Linz & Stepan, pp. 7 – 15.

Francis Fukuyma, The End of History and the Last Men (London: Penguin, 1992).

4 This seemed to be the view widely held by representatives of major international intergovernmental bodies such as the World Bank and IMF as well as by activists from international NGOs. 5 George Schöpflin, Nations, Identity, Power: The New Politics of Europe, (London: Hurst & Company, 2000), p. 173.

6 For the former Soviet republics foreign ruler was Russia, for the countries of the former Warsaw Bloc it was the Soviet Union and for the republics of former Yugoslavia it was Serbia.

7 George Soros, Nationalist Dictatorship versus Open Society (New York: Soros Foundation, 1993).

8 Linz & Stepan, p. 430.

9 Schöpflin, p. 173.

10 See, for example, Michael Ignatieff, Blood & Belonging (London: Vintage, 1994) and Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).

11 Huntington, The Third Way, p.267.

12 John Higley & Richard Gunther (eds.), Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 3.

13 Linz & Stepan, p. 5.

14 Ibid, p. 26.

15 Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 207.

16 David Easton, A System Analysis of Political Life, (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965).

17 Linz & Stepan, p. 16.

18 Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995) and Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

19 Will Kimlicka & Wayne Norman “Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concepts”, in: W. Kymlicka & W. Norman (eds.), Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

20 Gabriel A. Almond & Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).

21 Sidney Verba, “Comparative Political Culture”, in: L. W. Pye & S. Verba (eds.) Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 529 – 542.

22 Linz & Stepan, p. 27.

23 Operation Storm that started on August 5, 1995 put an end to the existence of the so-called Republika Srpska Krajina, causing a mass exodus of some 150 000 Serbs.

2 3

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Political Culture, Socio-Cultural Values and Democratic Consolidation in Croatia Mirjana Kasapović, “Demokratska konsolidacija i izborna politika u Hrvatskoj”, in: Mirjana Kasapović (ed.) Hrvatska politika 1990 – 2000 (Zagreb: Politička misao, FPZ, 2001).

25 President Tuđman died of cancer in December 1999, while serving his second term as elected president.

26 Quoted in Siniša Rodin, “Croatian Accession to the European Union: The Transformation of the Legal System”, in: Katarina Ott (ed.) Croatian Accesion to the European Union: Economic and Legal Challenges (Zagreb: Institute fro Public Finance, 2003), p. 230.

27 James Coleman, Foundation of Social Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1990), Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Works (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), Francis Fukuyama, Trust. The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (London: Penguin Books, 1995).

28 Putnam, p. 87.

29 Ibid, pp. 88-89.

30 Jean Cohen, “Trust, voluntary association and workable democracy: the contemporary American discourse of civil society” and Claus Offe, “How can we trust our fellow citizens”, in: Mark E. Warren (ed.) Democracy & Trust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 208 – 248 respectively pp. 42 – 87.

31 For example, social capital theorists hold that trust is created and transmitted through cultural mechanisms such as religion, tradition or historical habits. According to Fukuyama, trust is not the consequence of rational calculation but is “the product of preexisting communities of shared moral norms or values”. Fukuyama, Trust. The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, p. 336.

32 Davorka Matić, “Democracija, povjerenje i socijalna pravda” (Democracy, Trust and Social Justice), Revija za sociologiju, 2000, no.3 – 4, pp. 183 – 195.

33 Ronald Inglehart, “Trust, well-being and democracy”, in: Mark E. Warren (ed.) Democracy & Trust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 88 – 120, p. 88.

34 Data for Croatia were collected in the spring of 1999.

35 Aleksandar Štulhofer, Krešimir Kufrin, “Od obilja do altruizma. Postmaterijalistički sindrom i ekološke vrijednosti u Hrvatskoj (From affluence to atruism. Post-materialist syndrome and ecological values in Croatia), Socijalna ekologija, 1996, no. 2, pp. 171-184; Aleksandar Štulhofer & Ivan Rimac, “Oportunizam, institucije i moralni troškovi: sociokulturna dimenzija neslužbenog gospodarstva u Hrvatskoj 1995 – 1999 (Opportunism, institutions and moral costs: socio-cultural dimension of the informal economy in Croatia 1995 – 1999), Financijska teorija I praksa, 2002, no. 1, pp. 213 – 228; Aleksandar Štulhofer & Ivan Rimac, “Socio-cultural values, economic development and political stability as correlates of trust in the European Union”, in: Katarina Ott (ed.) Croatian Accession to the European Union: Institutional Challenges (Zagreb: Institute for Public Finance, 2004), pp. 301 – 326; Aleksandar Štulhofer, “Negativna dinamika društvenog kapitala u Hrvatskoj (1995 – 2003) i percepcija korupcije (Negative Dynamics of Social Capital in Croatia (1995 – 2003) and the Perception of Corruption), Politička misao, 2004, no. 3, pp. 156 – 169. See also “Europsko istraživanje vrednota – EVS-1999: Podaci za Hrvatsku – djelomično izvješće” (European Value Survey – EVS-1999: Data for Croatia – partial report), Bogoslovska smotra, 2000, no.2, pp. 173 – 503.

36 These are Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary.

37 Štulhofer & Rimac, 2004, p. 312.

24

17

Davorka Matić Based on data from Štulhofer, 2004, and “Europsko istraživanje vrednota – EVS-1999: Podaci za Hrvatsku”, 2000.

39 Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Societies (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990), Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Changes in 43 Societies (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1997), “Post-modernization bring declining respect for authority but rising support for democracy”, in Pippa Norris (ed.) Critical Citizens: Global Support fro Democratic Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 236 – 256.

40 Respondents that chose the first and third priorities were classified as materialists; those that chose the second and forth priorities were classified as post-materialists; if they chose one materialist and one post-materialist priority they were classified as having a mixed value orientation. See in Štulhofer & Kufrin, 1996 and Štulhofer & Rimac, 2004.

41 Data are taken form Štulhofer & Rimac, 2004, p. 310.

42 Trust in norms was measured indirectly, through respondents’ perception of respect for/ violation of norms in their countries. The perception of civility index is the arithmetical mean of answers on a four point scale (almost all cheat, many cheat, some cheat, almost no one cheats) to ten questions about how widespread are violations of norms is in their country. The index includes the following violations of norms: use of social privileges to which one is not entitled, cheating on taxes, bribing to avoid paying taxes, use of narcotics, dumping trash in public areas, fast driving, drunk driving, avoidance to pay for public transportation, lying for personal gain, and receiving bribes. See in Štulhofer & Rimac, 2004.

43 Štulhofer & Rimac, pp. 313 – 314.

44 R. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, p. 89.

45 Respondents could choose between four answers: never, a few times a year, once or twice a month, every week.

46 Data are taken from Štulhofer & Rimac, 2004, p. 315.

47 David Easton “A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support”, British Journal of political Science, 1975, vol. 5, pp.435 – 457.

48 It was measure on ten-point scale, with 1 being very bad and 10 being very good. See Štulhofer & Rimac, 2004, p. 309 and p. 317.

49 Robert Dahl, “A Democratic Paradox”, Political Science Quarterly, 2000, no.1, pp. 35 – 40.

50 D. Fuchs & H.D. Klingemann “Citizens and the State: A Relationship Transformed”, in: Klingemann & Fuchs Citizens and the State (Oxfoerd: oxford University Press, 1995), pp.

1 – 23.

51 David Easton, 1975, Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1971), F. D. Weil, “Political Culture, Political Structure, and Democracy: The Case of Legitimation and Opposition Structure”, in: F. D. Weill & M. Gautier (eds.), Political Culture and Political Structure (Greenwich/Connecticut, London: JAI Press Inc., 1994), pp. 65 – 115;, Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy.Towards Consolidation (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999).

52 Linz & Stepan, 1996, p. 6.

53 There is a widespread perception among citizens that corruption has penetrated all segments of society. According to a 2005 survey by Transparency International in Croatia, 89% of respondents think that corruption is very or somewhat present.

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