Sociology and Space, No. 115-116, 1992.
Original scientific paper
Public opinion about displaced persons
Ivan Magdalenić
Abstract
After a short introduction showing two
different approaches to the phenomenon
of public opinion, the article presents the
results of a small-scale research into the
opinion of citizens about people displaced
from the war areas of Croatia. The
project was carried out in three
communes of north-western Croatia,
which were more or less untouched by
the war, but which gave refuge to a great
number of people who fled from areas in
which there was fighting.
The respondents (about 200 of them)
evaluated the acceptability of 24
statements that expressed different
opinions about displaced persons. Twenty
experts evaluated every statement from
the aspect of whether it speaks in favour
of or against the displaced persons.
The basic finds of the researchers are the
following:
1. There were almost no differences in
the acceptance of certain statements
among various segments of the sample
(younger and older respondents, urban
and rural inhabitants of the three
communes). The differences obtained can
be ascribed solely to the personal
preferences of every individual respondent.
2. Respondents expressed the highest
average degree of acceptance for five
statements that are, in the evaluation of
the experts, emotionally neutral about the
displaced persons (average percentage of
acceptance 76.4, mean rank 9.3). Then
follow 12 statements that speak against
displaced persons (average percentage of
acceptance 70.5%, mean rank 11.9), and
least accepted are seven statements that
are emotionally geared in their favour
(average percentage of acceptance 57.1%,
mean rank 15.8).
The author concludes that after the
strong initial emotional popular
engagement in favour of the displaced
persons, an emotional »cooling« is now
taking place towards them, that this trend
will continue because of the fall of the
standard of living of the population as a
whole and that state strategy in caring for
them must not lean too strongly on the
emotional support of the population,
although that support to a certain
measure still exists.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
119749
URI
Publication date:
12.6.1992.
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