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Croatia: Strong Prime Ministers and Weak Coalitions

Since regaining its independence in 1991, Croatia experienced major transformation of constitutional and political system in 2000, when illiberal semi- presidential rule was replaced with functional parliamentary democracy. These changes also established a new pattern of executive politics, with coalition governments as a norm. Furthermore, in post-2000 period the prime ministerial government was established as the dominant governance model, with prime ministers taking over the leading role in coalition politics. Building on this notion, this chapter identifies several major features of coalition governance in Croatia: very general and rather brief coalition agreements without written rules on cabinet decision-making and on how to resolve internal conflicts ; an informal and personalised way of handling conflicts between coalition parties ; the dominant position of the prime minister and limited ministerial autonomy, and the policy and personnel conflicts between coalition parties as the main reason for cabinet termination. Thus, similarly to some other countries in CEE region, all three stages of coalition governance in Croatia are heavily dominated by top party leaders and particularly prime ministers, thus creating the patterns of informal and personalised coalition decision- making. The prime ministerial dominance is reflected in weak coalition arrangements, with very limited coordination established between coalition parties and the lack of broader conflict resolution mechanisms, which makes coalition cabinets considerably fragile and unstable, particularly when challenged by the inclusion of new parties in government.

Prime ministerial dominance, party system stability, constitutional reform, minority government, new challenger parties, personalised conflict resolution

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