Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.62.1.03
IDEOLOGICAL POLARIZATION AND POLITICAL BIOGRAPHIES IN CROATIA
Josip Pandžić
orcid.org/0000-0002-8265-9452
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The polarization of ideological beliefs, political attitudes and voting preferences in a given society refers to the tendency towards concentration on two opposing extremes according to the options that make up the political spectrum. The causes of polarization mainly concern disputes over the evaluation of topics, events, problems, discourses and narratives that appear in the public space. However, as a cause of public polarization, especially of the ideological type, political actors have not previously been objects of particular research interest. Biographies of prominent politicians represent material suitable for exploring the potential of ideological polarization of the public space, especially if the opinions about them are extremely divided. Based on the newly proposed meta-relational content analysis of 59 titles of biographical provenance of Croatian and Yugoslav political figures and 65 reviews and accounts, as well as polemics connected with them, published in Croatia in the period 1990-2024, the conclusion is reached that the potential for ideological polarization of this type of literature is extremely weak, almost negligible, because its authors only confirm the already existing ideological polarization through the biographical genre.
Keywords
Polarization; Politics; Ideology; Croatia; Biographies
Hrčak ID:
333830
URI
Publication date:
18.7.2025.
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