Original scientific paper
Cultural and political conservatism of the Croatian Bunjevci in Vojvodina
Zlatko Šram
Abstract
On a sample of the Bunjevci Croats in Vojvodina (the Republic of Serbia) we tried to find out (1) how sociodemography and declared religiousness are connected with cultural and political conservatism, (2) the impact of sociodemography and declared religiousness on latent dimensions of cultural and political conservatism, and (3) the anticipated significance of various dimensions of conservatism regarding preferences for different political options.
The data reported here were obtained by standard survey methods on a sample of adult population in Subotica (N=489), where one half of subjects declared themselves Croats and the other half just Bunjevci. The results showed that the political-cultural pattern called “traditional authoritarianism and socialist-communist mentality” was more present in the poorly educated who declared themselves just Bunjevci and at the same time expressed a lower level of religiousness. Political conservatism or socialist-communist mentality, but not cultural conservatism, proved a significant indicator of preferred political options which negate the Bunjevci Croats’ affiliation to the Croatian nation. Political-cultural conservatism of one part of the Croatian Bunjevci should be explained and understood by concepts of authoritarianism, intolerance of ambiguity, avoidance of uncertainty and dogmatism.
Keywords
conservatism; traditional authoritarianism; socialist-communist mentality; political options; Bunjevci Croats; Vojvodina
Hrčak ID:
17653
URI
Publication date:
15.4.2007.
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