engleski

Nationalism in Croatian transition to democracy: Between the structural conditionality and impact of historical and political-cultural legacy

Nationalism has marked a democratic transition of many post-communist societies, including Croatian. On the one hand, it showed its liberal character by fostering democratic change and achieving national independence. On the other hand, it was manifested as an exclusive ethnocentrism, which considerably slowed down the democratization process and imposed itself as its main characteristic. Author challenges the attitude which considers an ethnocentrism as inherent characteristic of the so-called eastern (ethnic) nations, which are consequently undemocratic and prone to ethnic conflicts, while the liberal character is attributed as inherent to nationalism of western (civic) nations. Besides the explanation of the historical, political- cultural and socio-psychological aspects of nationalism in Croatia, author draw attention to its primary structural and contextual conditionality, particularly highlighting the framework of political unfreedom and limited modernization during the period of communism, and specific conditions of democratic transition characterized by process of nation state establishment and war of independence. Nationalism appears there as an expression of patriotism and political identification, but also as a response to social, political and value discontinuity (crisis and disintegration of the old system and unadaptedness to new one), and particularly as reaction to external pressure (war aggression). Author denies its inherency, since it is not some "innate" cultural trait, but a social phenomenon that is dominantly caused by the (internal and international) social and political context. The conclusion is that nationalism in the period of democratic transition in Croatia, despite its undoubtedly ethnocentric manifestations, in essence still was a liberal, on the trace of realization of statehood and establishment of democratic regime. Normalization of social and political life after the war, and renewed processes of democratization during the second decade of transition, contributed to significant decline of ethnocentrism and to strengthening of liberal features of nationalism.

Nationalism (liberal ; ethnic) ; ethnocentrism ; democratic transition ; nation ; nation state ; post-communist societies ; Croatia

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