Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31297/hkju.20.3.5
Government Stability and Coalition Conflict Management in Croatia
Dario Nikić Čakar
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to explore the stability of coalition governments in Croatia in the period 2000–2020, starting with the premise that cabinet instability is influenced by the limited scope of coalition agreements and ineffective conflict resolution mechanisms. The paper first analyses coalition agreements with regard to their scope and content, and goes on to explore the actual processes of coalition governance that occur within the “black box” by identifying the most common conflicts and the mechanisms which are used to resolve these. The analysis uses original empirical data collected through interviews with former members of coalition governments, as well as coalition agreements, government programmes, the archives of two daily newspapers, and archival databases of the government and parliament. Research results have led to the main conclusion that due to
insufficiently developed and formalised coalition agreements, coalition parties are not successful at managing coalition conflicts, so they resort to the ad hoc mechanism of informal and highly personalised decision-making which is generated by a small group of coalition leaders.
Keywords
coalition governments stability; coalition agreements; inter-party conflicts; coalition governance; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
246016
URI
Publication date:
12.11.2020.
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