A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?

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Croatian Political Science Review, Vol. 59 No. 4, 2022.

Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10

A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?

Sven Milekić orcid.org/0000-0003-2096-4467 ; Maynooth University, County Kildare, Ireland

Full text: english pdf 4.409 Kb

page 215-250

downloads: 454

APA 6th Edition

Milekić, S. (2022). A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?. Politička misao, 59 (4), 215-250. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10

MLA 8th Edition

Milekić, Sven. "A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?." Politička misao, vol. 59, no. 4, 2022, pp. 215-250. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10. Accessed 20 Dec. 2024.

Chicago 17th Edition

Milekić, Sven. "A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?." Politička misao 59, no. 4 (2022): 215-250. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10

Harvard

Milekić, S. (2022). 'A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?', Politička misao, 59(4), pp. 215-250. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10

Vancouver

Milekić S. A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?. Politička misao [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2024 December 20];59(4):215-250. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10

IEEE

S. Milekić, "A Protest, Coup d’État, or Internal Party Power Struggle: What Motivated Croatian War Veterans to Hit the Streets?", Politička misao, vol.59, no. 4, pp. 215-250, 2022. [Online]. https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.59.4.10

Abstract

The paper investigates war veterans as organisers of contentious politics in ‎post-war Croatia, by looking into two significant protests. Already amid the‎1990s War in Croatia, the first veteran associations were tied to the army or ‎governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). After the HDZ government ‎ignored their demands in 1996, the main association gathering disabled veterans‎ announced a protest, shocking the regime. After defusing the situation ‎by meeting most of veteran demands, the protest against the Government ‎was transformed into a support rally for officials who helped the protesters’‎ cause. In 2014, veteran associations initiated a protest over, at first, officials’‎ speculations about PTSD cases among the local Serb population, framed ‎among the veterans as “aggressors”. As Prime Minister Zoran Milanović refused ‎to dismiss the Minister of Veterans and his associates, the veteran protest ‎outlasted the Government, including violent episodes in the government‎ building’s vicinity and ending in April 2016. The article proceeds to analyse ‎the disruptiveness of the protest, the repertoire and violence used, as well as‎ frames of meaning with which protesters justified their collective actions and‎ wished to appeal to wider constituencies. The article attempts to analyse the‎ motives behind the protest and links of protesters with different political actors‎– mostly HDZ – trying to show if veterans acted as independent political ‎actors or only as an extended arm of politicians. By using veteran associations’‎ documents, archival documents, media reports and literature, the paper‎ wishes to place the two case studies into the body of literature that describes‎ the decades-long patron-client relationship between veterans, HDZ and the‎ state.‎

Keywords

Croatia; Homeland War; Social Movements; War Veterans; Protests; Protest Politics; Memory; Disruptive Politics; Contentious Politics

Hrčak ID:

288225

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/288225

Publication date:

22.12.2022.

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