Original scientific paper
Crisis of the Croatian Second Republic (1990-1999): Transition to Totalitarianism or to Democracy?
Dragutin Lalović
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Three sets of problems are set forth in detail. These sets outline the most significant totalitarian features of Croatian political and social life between 1990- 1999. The first set is the ideological project of national sovereignty, defined by the political program of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The second set relates to the systemic position of the HDZ’s president as head of state. The third deals with the HDZ’s policy towards the neighbouring state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This analysis shows that the central problem of Croatian political circumstances lay in the inability of HDZ to structure the public and political space as a state, and the social field as a civil society. Thus, the HDZ is the source of totalitarian tendencies in the Croatian state. However, these were not the dominant features of the Croatian political and social order, since HDZ was not ideologically and politically powerful enough to shape the Croatian state and society in its own image. The Croatian Second Republic did not become a totalitarian community, but an authoritarian state with marked totalitarian features, but also with an increasingly more pronounced democratic and liberal potential.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
26738
URI
Publication date:
25.2.2001.
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