Südosteuropa 58 (2010), H. 1, S. 83-97
DEMOCRATIC VALUES AND ETHNIC POLARIZATION
ZAN STRABAC, MARKO VALENTA
Ethnic Intolerance, Voting Preferences, and Political Change in Croatia
Abstract. This article examines associations between voting preferences and ethnic intoler- ance in Croatia roughly eight years after the end of the war and four years after the coun- try’s abandonment of the strongly nationalistic and intolerant policies that were pursued in the early post-war period. Using data from a survey conducted in 2003/2004, we examine the level of ethnic intolerance among supporters of some of the major political parties. We particularly focus on the supporters of the Croatian Democratic Union. The results indicate that the HDZ supporters continue to be ethnically intolerant, and that the moderation and liberalization of HDZ policies since the reform of the party by Ivo Sanader have largely been top-down processes.
Zan Strabac is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Marko Valenta is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Department of Social Work and Health Sci- ence at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.
One of the most important changes in Croatia’s recent political history has been the reformation of the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajed- nica, HDZ) by Ivo Sanader and a group of relatively moderate politicians. The HDZ has governed the country for most of the time since Croatia’s declaration of independence in 1991. The ten years of uninterrupted HDZ government between 1990 and 2000 were a very difficult period for the country, with the devastating war in 1991-95, followed by severe internal problems and international isola- tion. Throughout this period, the HDZ had a firm grip on the political power in the country, holding the majority in the government, with party leader Franjo Tuđman acting as president.1 In the parliamentary elections of 2000, the HDZ experienced a devastating defeat, with votes plummeting from a peak of 45.2 % in the 1995 elections to 24.4 % in 2000 and handing over governmental power to
1 Marius Søberg, Croatia since 1989: The HDZ and the Politics of Transition, in: Sabrina P. Ramet / Davorka Matić (eds.), Democratic Transition in Croatia: Value Transformation, Education and Media. College Station/Tx. 2007, 31-62. 84 Zan Strabac, Marko Valenta the centre-left coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP).2 Franjo Tuđman had died at the end of 1999, and the HDZ’s candidate for the 2000 presidential elections, Mate Granić, came in third in the first oundr of elections, with 22,47 % of the vote, and hence did not even make it to the second round.3 Tuđman’s death and the subsequent election defeat spurred the party to reform, and, after a fierce internal power struggle between the hard-liners and the moderates, it re-emerged as a much more moderate political force, under the leadership of Ivo Sanader.4 While in opposition (2000-2003), the party worked on constructing its new democratic and pro European Union image, but continued to flirt with nationalist forces, in order to weaken the SDP-led government. Most notably, at a large nationalist rally in Split in 2001, Sanader strongly criticized the govern- ment for the arrest of the Croatian General Mirko Norac, accused of war crimes, which was an effort to improve the cooperation withthe International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague, as one of the major preconditions for opening Croatia’s accession negotiations to the European Union. In spite of the HDZ’s official pro EU attitude, Sanader declared Norac to be a national hero and called for the government to step down.5 While in power, the SDP-led government enacted a number of economic and political reforms intended to alleviate some of the pressing domestic problems. Although fairly successful in its internal reforms, the SDP-led coalition did not manage to overcome the nationalist opposition against full cooperation with the ICTY and against adequate protection of minority rights in the country. As a result, the EU accession process stalled, and the government failed in its most important foreign policy objective.6 When the reformed HDZ retook governmental power after the 2003 parlia- mentary elections, it did not revert to its authoritarian-style politics of the 1990s. Although sometimes reluctantly, the HDZ did embrace the internal reforms necessary to bring Croatia closer to NATO and EU membership. Perhaps as the biggest surprise, the HDZ government managed to ensure full cooperation with the ICTY, thus clearing the way for accession negotiations with the European Union. In general, Croatia has experienced significant political improvements
2 Ibid., 36. 3 Hrvatska informacijsko-dokumentacijska referalna agencija, Izbori za predsjednika Re- publike Hrvatske, drugi krug, available at
Ethnic Intolerance in Croatia
The following overview focuses on survey-based analyses of ethnic attitudes of the general population in Croatia, using the term “ethnic intolerance” to de- scribe individuals’ negative attitudes toward members of other ethnic groups. The assumption that deep-rooted ethnic animosities were the main reason for the bloody wars of Yugoslav secession has been repeatedly put forward, though mainly by journalists and other non-specialists.9 Rather, there is a great deal of
7 See the results of a 2003 study by the University of Zagreb reported in Longo, The HDZ’s Embatteled Mandate (above fn. 5), 39-40, particularly with regard to the liberal – conservative scale reported, ibid., 40. 8 For a description of some recent developments, see U.S. Department of State, 2008 Coun- try Reports on Human Rights Practices, Human Rights Report: Croatia, available at
Intolerance and Ethnic Conflict in the Dissolution of Yugoslavia,Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (2006), n. 5, 797-827. 10 Randy Hodson / Duško Sekulić / Garth Massey, National Tolerance in the Former Yugo- slavia, American Journal of Sociology 99 (1994), n. 6, 1534-1558. The study is based on elaborate survey data from 1989/1990. Based on 1985 data from Croatia, similar results are explicated in Sekulić / Massey / Hodson, Ethnic Intolerance and Ethnic Conflict (above fn. 9). 11 Zan Strabac / Kristen Ringdal, Individual and Contextual Influences of War on Ethnic Prejudice in Croatia, The Sociological Quarterly 49 (2008), n. 4, 769-796. See in particular 785- 787 and the results in Table 3. 12 Sekulić / Massey / Hodson, Ethnic Intolerance and Ethnic Conflict (above fn. 9). See particularly 810-811 and Table 2. 13 Ivan Šiber, War and the Changes in Social Distance Toward the Ethnic Minorities in Croatia, Politička misao 34 (1997), n. 5, 3-26. Given that this study is based on samples from the four largest Croatian cities, the levels of intolerance reported probably do not represent the Croatian average. It can only be presumed that a survey including the rural population would have resulted in still higher levels of intolerance. 14 Such findings are confirmed by a study conducted in 2005, Andrija Henjak, Determinante ideološke samoidentifikacije hrvatskih birača na parlamentarnim izborima 2003. godine, Politička misao 42 (2005), n. 1, 85-110. Ethnic Intolerance, Voting Preferences, and Political Change in Croatia 87 Data, Variables and Methods
Our main data source is the 2003/2004 Croatian survey within the Southeast European Social Survey Project (SEESSP), directed by Albert Simkus and funded by the Western Balkan Program of the Research Council of Norway, which included a larger series of surveys in five of Yugoslavia’s successor states and Albania. The total sample (N = 2,500) was split into two subsamples with 1,250 respondents each, and the main variables of interest occur only in the subsample B, on which, accordingly, the present analyses are based. Since the focus lies on the attitudes of the ethnic majority group (Croats) toward ethnic minorities, non-Croat respondents in the sample are disregarded, reducing the sample size from 1,250 to 1,133. For the majority of the analyses, the data are weighted in order to match the distribution of age and educational levels with the best census or with larger survey estimates. If such weighting is not applied for a certain part of the analysis, this will be explicitly mentioned. The starting point for the analyses is a variable measuring the level of ethnic intolerance of the respondents, consisting of a scale measuring the respon- dents’ agreement with the following propositions: (1) “The common origin of our people is the basis for social trust”; (2) “Nationally mixed marriages are by definition more unstable than others”; (3) “People can feel completely safe only when the majority belong to their nation(ality)”; (4) “Among nations it is possible to create cooperation, but not full trust”; (5) “For now, it is best that people work with their own nationalities, and do not try to build relationships with people from other groups”. The answering categories were varying from 1 (“agree strongly”) to 5 (“disagree strongly”). All five variables were reverse coded so that higher values correspond to stronger intolerance. The resulting additive scale was rescaled so that it varies in a range from 0 to 100.15 In other words, an individual having the value 0 for the Ethnic intolerance variable has disagreed strongly with all five propositions mentioned above, while an indi- vidual having a value of 100 for Ethnic intolerance agreed strongly with all five propositions.
Explanatory Variables
The central explanatory variable concerns the respondents’ political party preferences. These are operationalized as a set of “dummy variables”.16 The
15 The scale is reliable (Cronbach’s alpha equals 0.81), and each item has an item-total cor- relation above 0.6. The principal component analysis reveals the scale to be unidimensional. 16 For readers unaccustomed with this kind of variables, a short explanation: A dummy variable usually indicates the presence or absence of a certain trait. The variable can only take two values: “1” indicates presence of the trait, and “0” indicates absence of the trait. The name of the variable usually indicates the trait that is coded with “1”. For example, a dummy 88 Zan Strabac, Marko Valenta starting point for the coding of the dummy variables is the question to which party the respondents feel closest, and including as separate dummy variables all political parties that were supported by more than five percent of the respon- dents in the 2003 parliamentary elections. In addition, the dummy variables Other parties, No party preference, and No answer were included to avoid losing observations. The following dummy variables were coded: The HNS dummy variable is coded “1” for respondents who supported the Croatian People’s Party (Hrvatska Narodna Stranka, HNS); the dummy variable SDP is coded “1” for re- spondents supporting the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (Socijaldemokratska Partija Hrvatske, SDP); the HSS dummy variable is coded “1” for supporters of the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska Seljačka Stranka, HSS); the variable HSP is coded “1” for supporters of the Croatian Party of Rights (Hrvatska Stranka Prava, HSP). The latter party represents the far-right wing in Croatian politics. With the exception of some extremist splinter parties, it is the political party that has most openly displayed symbols associated with the Ustaša movement of the Second World War. In the early 1990s, the party organized paramilitary armed forces (Hrvatske Oružane Snage, HOS) and had some serious clashes with the HDZ-led government. However, since Anto Ðapić took over as party chair, the HSP has not exercized any major influence on Croatian politics. Ultra-nationalist rhetoric has still been regularly used by party members, and Ustaša symbols remain popular.17 Finally, the dummy variable HDZ is coded “1” for support- ers of the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica, HDZ). In order to control for individual traits of respondents we have also included several other variables. Education is measured as a continuous variable, indicat- ing the number of years of full-time education the respondent completed. The Occupational category variables are a set of dummy variables indicating the kind of job and the employment status of the respondent. The following variables are used in the models: Unemployed, Managers and professionals, White collar (reference category), Skilled blue collar, Unskilled blue collar, and Other occupations (“rest category” variable, included in the models to avoid losing observations). Age10 measures the respondent’s age in number of decades; e. g., the value “4” signifies that an individual is 40 years old). Female is a dummy variable coded “1” for females. Urban measures the size of the place of residence of the respondent, with values varying from 1 (“a village with less than 200 people”) to 7 (“Capital city of the country”).
variable describing the gender of the respondent might be coded as: “1” = female; “0” = male. Such a variable would conventionally be named “Female”. 17 Janusz Bugajski even claims that under Anto Ðapić the HSP became “a virtual subordi- nate” of the HDZ, and that it did not aim at challenging the HDZ’s policies or monopoly of power, Janusz Bugajski, Political Parties of Eastern Europe. Armonk/NY 2002, 615. Ethnic Intolerance, Voting Preferences, and Political Change in Croatia 89
Table 1. Descriptive statistics. N Minimum Maximum Mean Standard Deviation Ethnic intolerance 1129 0 100 49.302 21.258 Female 1133 0 1 0.529 0.499 Age10 1130 2 9.1 4.888 1.782 Education 1087 0 32 10.306 4.226 Religiosity 1126 -2.839 1.656 -0.015 0.866 Urban 1119 1 7 3.733 1.939 Soldier 1123 0 1 0.155 0.362 Traumatizing event 1121 0 1 0.766 0.423 Family member killed 1111 0 1 0.059 0.236 Unemployed 1124 0 1 0.120 0.325 Managers and professionals 1133 0 1 0.071 0.257 Skilled blue collar 1133 0 1 0.196 0.397 Unskilled blue collar 1133 0 1 0.120 0.325 Other occupations 1133 0 1 0.250 0.433 White collar (ref. cat.) 1133 0 1 0.251 0.434 HNS 1133 0 1 0.055 0.228 HSP 1133 0 1 0.059 0.236 HSS 1133 0 1 0.057 0.233 SDP 1133 0 1 0.082 0.275 Other parties 1133 0 1 0.079 0.270 No party preference 1133 0 1 0.230 0.421 No answer 1133 0 1 0.179 0.384 HDZ (ref. cat.) 1133 0 1 0.258 0.438 N (listwise) 1018 Note: N – number of valid observation; N (listwise) – number of observations after listwise deletion of the missing observations. Real sample sizes.
Previous research on ethnic prejudice and intolerance in Croatia has shown that individuals who are strongly religious tend to hold particularly negative attitudes toward other ethnic groups.18 We measure the intensity of religious beliefs by a scale based on three questions: (1) “What do you think of religion?”, measured on a six-point scale (1 = “I believe it is all true”; 6 = “I am not religious and I oppose religion”); (2) “How often do you pray usually (during the last year)?”, with values varying from 1 (“never“) to 11 (“several times a day”); (3) “How often did you attend religious services during the last year (apart from weddings, baptisms, and funerals)?”, with values varying from 1 (“never”) to 10 (“once a day, every day”). We reverse-coded the first question, and constructed
18 See, for example, Strabac / Ringdal, Individual and Contextual Influences of War (above fn. 11); Sekulić / Massey / Hodson, Ethnic Intolerance and Ethnic Conflict (above fn. 9). 90 Zan Strabac, Marko Valenta an additive scale Religiosity on the basis of standardized values. Higher values for Religiosity indicate a stronger intensity of the religious beliefs of the respondent.19 Surprisingly, the surveys have not corroborated any empirical evidence that individuals who have experienced personal loss or trauma in an ethnic conflict harbour particularly negative attitudes toward the ethnic “other”.20 The fairly large number of questions in the present survey related to wartime experi- ences serve as control variables: the dummy Soldier variable that is coded “1” for respondents who reported that they actively fought in the war; the dummy variable Traumatizing event that is coded “1” for respondents who answered “yes” to the question “Have you experienced or witnessed a war-related event that involved actual or threatened death or injury to which you responded with intense fear, helplessness, or horror?”; the dummy variable Family member killed, coded “1” for respondents who reported that a member of their immedi- ate family was killed in the war. Descriptive statistics for all variables used are presented in Table 1.
Results
Table 2 presents mean values of Ethnic intolerance for supporters of the five political parties: the Croatian People’s Party (HNS), the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP), the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP).
Table 2. Cross-tabulation of political party preferences and mean value of Ethnic intolerance. Party preference HNS SDP HSS HDZ HSP Ethnic intolerance 31.79 40.96 51.17 57.47 51.77
As is evident, there are sizable differences in the level of ethnic intolerance. The HNS supporters exhibit the lowest level with a mean value of around 32 (on a scale from 0 to 100). On the other end of the scale, the mean value of Ethnic intolerance for supporters of the HDZ is almost twice as large, about 57. On the whole and not surprisingly, the supporters of the two leftist parties (HNS and SDP) prove to be the least intolerant, while the supporters of the two rightist parties (HDZ and HSP) gave the most intolerant answers. The supporters of the HSS, although the party was in the centre-left coalition with the SDP at the time the survey was conducted, exhibited levels of ethnic intolerance that were
19 The scale is reliable (Cronbach’s alpha equals 0.81), with all item-total correlations above 0.8. The principal component analysis reveals the scale to be unidimensional. 20 See Strabac / Ringdal, Individual and Contextual Influences of War (above fn. 11), 788- 789, for a brief discussion of this topic. Ethnic Intolerance, Voting Preferences, and Political Change in Croatia 91 close to those of the supporters of the rightist parties.21 The biggest surprise seems to be that HDZ supporters are shown to be clearly the most intolerant, even more so than the supporters of the far-right HSP.22 As also previous research has shown, political affiliations are only one of the relevant explanatory factors for ethnic intolerance. Less educated individuals are often prone to intolerance, and so are inhabitants of rural areas as opposed to city dwellers. Religiosity (or at least some aspects of it) is also commonly found to be associated with higher ethnic intolerance.23 While older individuals tend to be more ethnically intolerant, findings regarding the nterconnectednessi of gender and ethnic intolerance are ambiguous.24 Regarding the HDZ’s supporters, the stereotypical image of a supporter of that party would therefore be that of a low- educated, religious person living in a rural area. It is therefore worth examining whether there are systematic differences in relevant socio-demographic traits among the respondents in our sample. The political party preferences of our respondents were cross-tabulated with their level of education, religiosity, the size of their place of residence, their age and gender (Table 3).
Table 3. Cross-tabulation of political party preferences and education, urbanity, religio- sity, age and gender. Party preference HNS SDP HSS HDZ HSP Education 13.24 11.30 9.20 8.87 12.12 Size of place of residence 4.71 4.46 3.17 3.41 3.83 Religiosity -0.63 -0.48 0.28 0.28 0.04 Age 42.64 48.54 50.35 53.50 41.44 Pct. female 44.34 61.28 60.94 55.27 31.96
In fact, the table confirms that there seem to be systematic left-right differences with regard to education, size of the place of residence, religiosity and age, while there is no clear pattern regarding gender distribution.25 The HDZ supporters in our sample are the least educated ones, with an average value of 8.87 years of completed education, hence only slightly more than the length of the compulsory primary education (8 years). At the other end of the educational distribution are
21 For a brief description of the governing coalition in the 2000-2003 period, see Søberg, Croatia since 1989 (above fn. 1), n. 47. 22 Through the t-test the difference in average levels of ethnic intolerance between HDZ and HSP supporters was checked with regard to its statistical significance. The results are statisti- cally significant at the conventional 0.05 level of significance (p-value = 0.031; two-sided test). 23 A rather detailed discussion about the interconnectedness of religiosity and intolerance can be found in Sekulić / Massey / Hodson, Ethnic Intolerance and Ethnic Conflict (above fn. 9). 24 The literature on ethnic intolerance and prejudice is vast. A relevant summary for the countries of former Yugoslavia can be found in Hodson / Sekulić / Massey, National Toler- ance in the Former Yugoslavia (above fn. 10). 25 The supporters of the HSP do not fit the pattern, and will be discussed separately. 92 Zan Strabac, Marko Valenta the supporters of the HNS, with an average value of 13.24 years. Regarding the size of the place of residence, measured on a scale from 1 to 7, not surprisingly, the supporters of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) prove to be the most likely to live in rural areas. Yet, the supporters of the HDZ are on the average only slightly more “urban” than the HSS supporters. Also with regard to religiosity, HDZ and HSS supporters score highest. On the age scale, HDZ supporters are the oldest, followed by HSS, HSP, and HNS supporters, however the pattern is less obvious than for the other variables, the difference in the average age for example between SDP and HSS supporters being less than two years. Finally, as far as gender is concerned no left-right pattern can be discerned. To summarise, the previously mentioned stereotypes about the “typical” HDZ voters – comparatively lowly educated, rural, religious, and belonging to the older generation – seem to be supported by our data. These traits are part of a broader political left-right pattern, with supporters of leftist parties being more educated and urban, less religious and somewhat younger than the sup- porters of the rightist parties. The one important exception with regard to this left-right pattern are the supporters of the HSP. On religiosity and urbanity, HSP supporters fit the profile of rightist parties, but they are less religious and more urban than the supporters of the HDZ and the HSS. Regarding average age, the HSP supporters are the youngest group. Examining more closely the age distribution of HSP supporters, compared to the HDZ and the HSS, the HSP features a large contingent of younger supporters (about 15 percent are younger than 25 years), a rather large group of supporters in their thirties, and a smaller proportion of elderly supporters. Such an age distribution corresponds, at least partly, to the high average level of education of HSP supporters. Given the fre- quent changes of rhetoric and policies of the HSP and its chairman, Ðapić, it is not easy to assess exactly which groups in Croatia’s population are most likely to support it.26 However, throughout the party’s history, ultra-nationalism and xenophobia have been important ingredients of its policies.27 The HDZ electorate thus tend to have socio-demographical traits that are usually associated with higher intolerance, which means that it is, theoretically, possible that the high levels of intolerance observed among HDZ voters are to a large degree a result of the socio-demographic composition of its voter base,
26 For a while, the HSP and Ðapić tried to present a more moderate political image. How- ever, Anto Ðapić has recently returned to the use of hard-line rhetoric and to flirting with Ustaša symbols. For an interesting assessment of recent changes see Jelena Lovrić, Ðapićev desni rikverc, Jutarnji List, 2 March 2009, available at
Table 4. Unstandardized parameter estimates from regression analyses of ethnic intoler- ance. Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 b s.e. b s.e. b s.e. (Intercept) 53.97 *** 3.57 51.54 *** 4.48 54.78 *** 4.45 Female -3.88 *** 1.29 -2.90 * 1.45 -2.41 1.43 Age10 1.51 *** 0.43 1.59 *** 0.45 1.70 *** 0.44 Education -0.76 *** 0.20 -0.69 *** 0.22 -0.48 * 0.22 Religiosity 6.16 *** 0.76 6.06 *** 0.77 4.83 *** 0.78 Urban -0.56 0.34 -0.49 0.35 -0.34 0.35 Occupational category (ref. category: White collar) Unemployed 2.74 2.20 3.02 2.16 Managers and professionals -1.13 2.71 -1.24 2.65 Skilled blue collar 2.62 1.95 2.80 1.91 Unskilled blue collar 1.21 2.40 0.89 2.35 Other occupations 0.05 1.78 0.06 1.74 War experiences Soldier 1.29 2.09 0.67 2.06 Traumatizing event -0.98 1.68 -1.02 1.65 Family member killed 1.91 2.79 0.54 2.74 Political party preference (ref. category: HDZ) HNS -18.24 *** 2.89 HSP -4.47 2.89 HSS -7.19 * 2.95 SDP -11.41 *** 2.51 Other parties -10.54 *** 2.42 No party preference -7.55 *** 1.76 No answer -7.33 *** 1.94 R² .152 .157 .203 Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. rather than of the party’s ideology or policies.28 In order to figure out to which degree these socio-demographic traits influence variations in intolerance among supporters of different political parties, several multiple regression models were employed. In the first model, only socio-demographic characteristics are included as explanatory variables. In the second model, two more variables, namely the respondent’s position in the labour market and war-related experi- ences, were added. Finally, in the third model the effect of party preferences
28 For more on the correlation of education, occupation, sex and age with levels of ethnic intolerance see for instance Wallace Dynes, Education and Tolerance: An Analysis of Interven- ing Factors, Social Forces 46 (1967), n. 1, 22-34; Ewa A. Golebiowska, Gender Gap in Political Tolerance, Political Behavior 21 (1999), n. 1, 43-66. 94 Zan Strabac, Marko Valenta is analyzed, as well as the net effects of the other explanatory variables. The results of these regression analyses are presented in Table 4. Model 1 demonstrates that all of the independent variables have statistically significant effects on ethnic intolerance, except for the variableUrban (measur- ing the size of a respondent’s place of residence), and in that contradicts several previous studies.29 To explore this further, a bivariate regression model was run with Urban as the only independent variable, and here the effect of Urban proved both statistically significant and substantially stronger than the effect observed in Model 1 (b = -1,97; p-value < 0.001 in the bivariate model). Simple bivariate correlations were run also between Urban and Education, Urban and Religiosity, Urban and Age10, as well as Urban and Female. Not surprisingly, the population in rural areas tends to be somewhat older, more religious, less educated and with a slightly larger proportion of males than the population in the urban areas. From this data is can be concluded that, although conventional wisdom about rural residents being more intolerant remains valid, the reason for this can mostly be attributed to differences in age, religiosity, education, and gender distribution. In Model 2, additional independent variables related to the respondent’s posi- tion in the labour market and to his or her wartime experiences were included; none of these variables exhibited any statistically significant effect on the level of ethnic intolerance, though. What is more, the explained variance remained practically the same – it increased from 15.2 percent in Model 1 to 15.7 percent in Model 2. Hence, the effect of the additional variables in Model 2 result practically zero. This is less surprising with regard to variables measuring the respondent’s position in the labour market, given that, in the post-war context, ethnic mi- norities hardly represent any serious competition, and individuals occupying the lower strata in the labour market do not feel economically threatened in that sense. On the other hand, the finding that war-related experiences have no significant effect on ethnic intolerance comes much more as a surprise. Given that this has been corroborated also by other studies based on different data, it clearly seems worth further exploring.30 The variables representing the respondents’ party preferences are included in Model 3. With HDZ supporters taken as the reference category, all of the regres- sion coefficients of party-preference variables are negative, meaning that, also after control for a large number of other explanatory variables, HDZ supporters remain the most intolerant ones. In comparison to the results presented in Table
29 See, for example, Thomas C. Wilson, Urbanism and Tolerance: A Test of Some Hy- potheses Drawn From Wirth and Stouffer, American Sociological Review 50 (1985), n. 1, 17-123. 30 For further details about the surprising lack of interrelatedness of negative war-related experiences and different forms of intolerance and ostilityh see Strabac / Ringdal, Individual and Contextual Influences of War (above fn. 11), 788-789. Ethnic Intolerance, Voting Preferences, and Political Change in Croatia 95
2, the differences between HSP and HDZ supporters are no longer statistically significant, which means HDZ supporters are not more ethnically intolerant than HSP supporters after controlling for relevant socio-demographical traits. Still, these are hardly flattering results for HDZ supporters: They are about as intolerant as supporters of the far-right HSP of the same age, education, gender, and degree of religiosity. And without controlling for these traits, HDZ sup- porters are actually more intolerant. We can see that the coefficients for all party- preference variables other than the HSP are statistically significant, meaning that supporters of these parties are more tolerant than HDZ supporters. The general impression is therefore that the relative position of HDZ supporters improved somewhat after control for other determinants of intolerance, but the improve- ment is only a slight one - while they were the most intolerant group in results presented in Table 2, in Model 3 they share that position with HSP supporters. Regarding the supporters of HSS, after control of the socio-demographic variables, they result about as distant from SDP and HNS supporters as from HDZ and HSP supporters. If thus the party does attract “centrist” voters, the relatively high levels of ethnic intolerance observed in Table 2 should, to a considerable degree, be a result of the socio-demographic composition (more religious, more rural and less educated) of the party’s electorate. The pattern observed in the results presented in Table 2 for the supporters of SDP and HNS has not changed much – HNS supporters are the least ethnically intolerant, followed by SDP supporters. The difference between SDP and HDZ supporters estimated in Model 3 shows to be considerably smaller than the corresponding difference estimated in Table 2, which means that a large part of the differences in the level of intolerance between the supporters of HDZ and SDP can be explained by differences in the socio-demographic composition of the electorate. To summarize, the analysis clearly indicates that HDZ supporters were fairly intolerant toward ethnic minorities at the time our data were collected, which seems to be in contradiction with their party’s pursuit of more moderate, con- ciliatory, and tolerant policies in the time-period preceding our data collection. Which are the possible consequences of this discrepancy?
Discussion
Parts of both the political elites and the ordinary citizens of Croatia exhibited strong nationalistic and ethnically intolerant sentiments in the period following the disintegration of communist rule. While the HSP and some other minor far- right parties were the ones that were most openly expressing intolerant views, it was the HDZ that was responsible for the translation of chauvinist attitudes into state policies. Western countries opposed Croatia’s intolerant policies, both 96 Zan Strabac, Marko Valenta by applying sanctions and by blocking Croatia’s efforts toward EU membership. Nevertheless, the HDZ managed to maintain stable electoral support and to stay in governmental power until the 2000 parliamentary elections. Arguably, the lack of economic progress, the corruption scandals related to the privatization of state-owned companies, and the lack of progress toward membership in the EU were the most important factors to contribute to its defeat. In an interest- ing comparative analysis of the electoral defeat and subsequent reformation of strongly nationalist government parties in Croatia (HDZ), and Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko, HZDS), Tim Haughton and Sharon Fisher argue that it was the prospect of EU membership as well as the desire for an internationally positive acceptance which played a central role.31 The Sanader government made considerable efforts towards moderate poli- cies offering, among other things, an apology to those who suffered under the Tuđman-led HDZ, improving relations with the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY), and promoting the return of Serb refugees.32 Such measures won the country international acclaim, facilitated the joining of NATO and brought it closer to EU admission.33 If indeed large portions of the HDZ’s electorate still have right-wing attitudes and may even be moving further to the right, as Matthew Longo argues, while the party is pursuing centrist policies, this may lead to its loss of governmental power.34 The party with the clearer right-wing agenda, the HSP, could profit from this development. Yet, given the election results from 2007 onwards, this does not seem to be the case. One reason for this might be that, at the level of the political elites, the party’s success in keep- ing governmental power generates continued support for Sanader’s policies. Secondly, while the HDZ has managed to bring the country closer to the EU and NATO, it has followed a much more nationalist, intolerant policy at the local level.35 Allowing, if not fostering, chauvinistic utterances at the local level, especially in rural areas where the support for the party is strongest, has kept the ethnically intolerant portions of its membership reasonably satisfied. Thanks to the fact that political moves on the local level draw much less international attention, the HDZ has successfully maintained its nationalist image here. To summarize, the HDZ has been successful in moderating its own policies and the policies of Croatia on the national level at a moment when this was
31 Tim Haughton / Sharon Fisher, From the Politics of State-Building to Programmatic Politics: The Post-Federal Experience and the Development of Centre-Right Party Politics in Croatia and Slovakia, Party Politics 14 (2008), n. 4, 435-454, 436f. 32 See Søberg, Croatia since 1989 (above fn. 1), 52. 33 See Sabrina P. Ramet, Politics in Croatia since 1990, in: Sabrina P. Ramet / Konrad Clew- ing / Reneo Lukić (eds.), Croatia since Independence: War, Politics, Society, Foreign Relations. München 2008, 31-59, 49-51. 34 See Longo, The HDZ’s Embattled Mandate (above fn. 5), 42-43. 35 See Søberg, Croatia since 1989 (above fn. 1), 52. Ethnic Intolerance, Voting Preferences, and Political Change in Croatia 97 largely in contradiction with the ethnically intolerant attitudes of its elector- ate. By maintaining a more nationalist policy on the local level, the HDZ has succeeded to keep the majority of its voters. For the future, three different developments seem possible. First, the party could continue its present course and, over the years, lose the most intolerant portions of its electorate, ending up as a smaller centre-right political party. However, the local elections of 2009 indicated this to be an unlikely scenario any time soon, as the HDZ in fact managed to dominate in the less developed and rural areas where, according to our data, the most intolerant parts of its electorate are to be found.36 Second, the party could shift its policies back to more intolerant, nationalist attitudes. Should the HDZ lose governmental power and hard-liners take over the party’s leadership, it could feel compelled to move towards the preferences of its vot- ers. And third, more liberal values could gain ground in Croatia, turning the HDZ voters to be more lenient towards the moderate course of their party.37 The two preconditions to make this happen seem to be political and economic stability and the party’s leadership working to achieve attitude changes at the grassroots level. Sekulić, Massey and Hodson have convincingly provided evidence that the strong increase in ethnic intolerance in Croatia before the war in the 1990s was to a large degree due to the manipulation of the general population by the elite.38 If such a top-down process could now be achieved in the reverse, reducing the still existent ethnic intolerance, democracy in Croatia would find a more solid base.
36 The results of the 2009 local elections are available at