engleski

The end of Croatian exceptionalism: anti- establishment backlash and the Human Shield party in Croatia

Croatia was until recently one of the few CEE countries with almost no Eurosceptic and/or anti-systemic parties in parliament. At the same time, it joined the European Union ridden with Euro-apathy and Euro-indifference. However, in the last couple of years, it has faced serious challengers to the established party cartel. One of the most peculiar and successful of these challengers is the Human Shield (Živi zid) party, which emerged from youth protest groups trying to stop evictions caused by foreclosures in the cases of non- performing Swiss Franc loans. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the Eurosceptic turn has brought Croatia closer to similar processes and actors in the countries of the Visegrád Group, or whether its forms of anti-establishment and anti-system politics more closely resemble phenomena from South European countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece. The starting point of this analysis is the viewpoint that the Croatian party system used to be very stable, despite various external changes over the last quarter century. Furthermore, the analysis accepts that Croatian political culture represents a blend of Central European and Mediterranean points of influence. Finally, it roots its explanation in a framework which emphasizes patterns of party competition, cultural peculiarities, historical legacy, path dependency, and elite formation and reproduction.

EU ; Central and Eastern Europe ; populism ; new party ; instability ; youth

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