Review article
Political Corruption in Transitional Croatia: The Pecularities of a Model
Damir Grubiša
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article addresses the specific characteristics of political
corruption in Croatia, from the time on when the country gained its
independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation
and the “Yugoslav self-managing socialist model”. Political corruption
in Croatia shares common traits with the phenomenon as it appears
in other transitional countries, but it also shows unique characteristics
that derive from a privatization model that was implemented
during unsettled political and social conditions, i.e., the war in former
Yugoslavia and the appearance of a new political class legitimized by
the war and the struggle for independence. The authoritarian political
regime established during and immediately after the war relied,
mostly, on the new political elite that gained enormous wealth owing
to a privatization process that favored the political nomenclature and
nationalist elite and distributed the formerly socially owned capital
into targeted private hands. In the years following the demise of the
Croatian Democratic Union, the nationalist party led by President
Tuđman, political corruption has not been eradicated and it still remains a serious problem that affects the performance of Croatian democracy and its readiness for EU accession. The author tries to identify the causes, the forms and the consequences of political corruption in Croatia, as well as the instruments of combating this phenomenon.
He also aims to specify ways to accommodate to EU conditionality,
and methods of raising awareness to the dangers of political corruption in the political discourse of the country.
Keywords
political corruption; privatization process; political elites; clientelism; transparency; anti-corruption measures
Hrčak ID:
20747
URI
Publication date:
12.6.2006.
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