engleski

Croatia’s referendum on a golf project: voters’ motivations

In April of 2013 citizen and non-governmental organisations initiated a referendum over a golf project planned to be built on the plateau of Srdj above the city of Dubrovnik in Croatia. Public opinion was divided over the issue. Proponents of the project emphasized new working opportunities, extension of the tourist season and decoration of the plateau as the main arguments in favor of the project, while opponents highlighted non-transparent decision-making, privatization of public spaces and negative environmental consequences as main reasons for opposing the project. In order to get a better insight in psychological determinants of opposition and acceptability of golf project a field research was conducted in a form of exit polls. Due to environmental consequences of a planned project, voting in referendum was defined as a specific type of pro-environmental behaviour (Stern, 2000), namely non-activist behaviour in the public sphere. Data were collected on a 10 different polling locations selected to reflect varieties in socioeconomic status of the city, on a total of 418 participants in age range from 18 to 89. Respondents were approached after they had answered the referendum question whether they supported the construction of a golf course and accomodating facilities, and asked to fill out a pen and paper survey. Applied survey measured value orientations, specific beliefs, personal norms, trust in municipality, as well as distributive, procedural and environmental justice. Opponents of the proposed golf project had stronger altruistic and biospheric values, and scored lower on egoistic values in comparison to proponents group. They also had more negative specific beliefs regarding golf project, less trust in municipality and stronger personal norms than pro-project group. Further, they assessed the project as less fair on all three fairness principles in comparison to pro-project group. These results indicated that those who voted against the golf project considered the moral considerations strongly. However, given that the election threshold was not met (31% voted, whereas the threshold was 50%), the moral considerations were not strong enough in a majority of the population to motivate them to vote against the golf course. More results and implications will be discussed with special reference to possible interventions, mostly regarding citizens’ participation, and the referendum design.

referendum; Croatia; golf project; pro-environmental behaviour; values; beliefs; personal norms; trust; justice

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