ECONOMIC ANNALS, Volume LXIV, No. 223 / October – December 2019 UDC: 3.33 ISSN: 0013-3264 https://doi.org/10.2298/EKA1923105S Paul Stubbs* TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WELFARE IN CROATIA ABSTRACT: A political economy of social two broad forces are dominant in shaping welfare in Croatia explores drivers of, and social welfare in Croatia. The first is war impediments to, change, addressing the im- veterans’ associations and their support- pact of processes of neo-liberalisation, the ers, keen to maintain and even extend their complexities of regulatory and institutional significant benefits in return for continued landscapes and the interactions of nation, support for the HDZ party (Croatian Dem- familialism, and class. Instead of a stable ocratic Union), a quasi-institutionalised welfare regime, Croatia’s welfare system form of ‘social clientelism’. The second is is marked by hybridity in the context of a an empowered radical right, promulgating political economy that continues to be cri- a conservative Catholic agenda of a return sis-prone. This paper focuses on the social to ‘traditional’ – that is, heteronormative welfare implications of the mix of ‘crony’, – family values, reinforcing an aggressive ‘authoritarian’ and ‘predatory’ capitalism Croatian nationalism and advocating ‘de- present in Croatia since independence. mographic renewal’. Other than the role of international actors including the World Bank and the Euro- KEY WORDS: welfare, Croatia, political pean Union, and notwithstanding the lack economy, authoritarian neoliberalism of political will for reform, we suggest that JEL CLASSIFICATION: I39 * The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia,
[email protected] 105 Economic Annals, Volume LXIV, No. 223 / October – December 2019 WHITHER POLITICAL ECONOMY? AN INTRODUCTION Croatia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, and is the second most populous country in the post-Yugoslav space with a population estimated at 4.1 million in 2017 (Croatian Bureau of Statistics 2019).