Original scientific paper
Croatian and Human Rights 1990-1992 – Research framework: Ethnocentrism, Authoritarian Populism, Human Rights and Democracy
Albert Bing
; Croatian Institut for History, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author is concerned with the relevance of human rights for the contemporary history of Croatia as well as the historiographical dimension of the appearance and combination of ethnocentrism and authoritarian populism as a framework for national homogenization in Serbia and Croatia (former Yugoslavia) at the beginning of the 1990s. In the article he attempts to tie together various – above all, political – aspects of the basic theme: the origin and meaning of the ideas of the new political elites, the reception of value positions at a time of transition and war, an understanding of the relationship between national interests and democratization (whose point of contact is the acceptance of the principle of the protection of human rights), etc. In broader terms, he focuses on the problem of the relationship between nationalism and democracy in the discourse of the new political elites after the introduction of political pluralism. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s the process of national homogenization became the dominant social process in Yugoslavia,
and this was confirmed by the appearance of authoritarian populism and ethnocentrism. In a historical sense, these forces had their chronological point of origin in Serbia, and because of a number of historical circumstances – including the reaction to the policies of the Serbian political elite – these developments took particular forms in other Republics (and among other peoples). Modern historiography has to examine and contextualize particular forms of “ethnic cleansing” – the creation of ethnically homogenous areas, as well as
establish the correlation to and historical significance of the “nationalism” that developed among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. The role of the intern
Keywords
The Break-up of Yugoslavia; Human Rights; The Homeland war; European integration; Croat-Serb relations
Hrčak ID:
27115
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2008.
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