Original scientific paper
National Siege Mentality and the 2008 Presidential Elections in Serbia
Zlatko Šram
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb
Abstract
The aim of this study was (1) to find out whether the dimensions of certain political attitudes are in such mutual relations that they indicate the existence of a latent attitudinal pattern, which might be labelled Serbian national siege mentality; (2) to see the distribution of results obtained on the scale of national siege mentality in the examined population; and, (3) to establish the effect of presidential preferences and sociodemographics on the internalization of political values and attitudes forming the content of the national siege mentality scale in Serbia. The research was carried out on a sample of 1466 adult citizens in Serbia (excluding Kosovo). The correlations between dimensions of political attitudes labelled (a) the perception of collective national endangerment (8 items); (b) readiness to accept international self-isolation and the introduction of a state of emergency in case of a declaration of independence of Kosovo, and its international recognition (8 items); and, (c) acceptance of Milošević's political matrix (5 items) that are of such magnitude that they indicate the existence of a coherent attitudinal pattern labelled national siege mentality. By recomputation of results into the classification groups, we found that one third of adult citizens in Serbia express a high degree of national siege mentality. The results of analysis of variance showed that respondents who support the presidential candidate of the Serbian Radical Party express to a greater extent national siege mentality than those who support the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. Sociodemographics, such as sex, age and school level, have a lesser effect in the prediction of national siege mentality than presidential preferences. The political implications of the obtained results are discussed in terms of a conflict political culture or ideology.
Keywords
siege mentality; national endangerment; international self-isolation; political culture; presidential elections; sociodemographics; Serbia
Hrčak ID:
39821
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2009.
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