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Croatia’s Post-communist Transition Experience: The Paradox of Initial Advantage Turning into a Middle-Income Trap Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

5. Interest Groups in the Policy-Making Process in Croatia

Authors : Igor Vidačak, Kristijan Kotarski

Published in: Policy-Making at the European Periphery

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter seeks to explore the emergence of the modern landscape of Croatian interest groups and the strategies they use to gain access and exert influence in national policy-making venues. It reflects on specific political and social circumstances that affected the development of the scene of organized interests since the early 1990s. In addition, the article explores elements of different forms of organization and articulation of interests that have become entrenched in policy-making processes in Croatia, ranging from pluralism and neo-corporatism to still widespread clientelistic arrangements with some of the most powerful interest groups. The chapter also provides insights into the main factors that determine interest groups’ influence and choice of lobbying strategies. Finally, it analyses the impact of the EU accession on increasing trends of institutionalization of consultation with interest groups in policy-making and gradual adaptation of interest groups’ influence-seeking behaviour to new policy dynamics at both national and EU levels.

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previous chapter Political Attention of Croatian Governments 1990–2015
next chapter Political Economy of Corruption, Clientelism and Vote-Buying in Croatian Local Government
Footnotes
1
Partly as a consequence of the Act on Social Organisations and Associations of Citizens adopted in 1982 by the Croatian parliament, which provided a legal framework regulating the right to free association, in 1985, six years before the dissolution of the Socialist Yugoslavia, there were 10,844 social organizations and 547 citizens’ associations registered in Croatia (Bežovan 2004).
 
2
Similar to strong identity-based divisions structuring party competition, interest groups’ differentiation is strongly influenced by various identity divisions. Communities that experienced war trauma tend to overwhelmingly vote for the conservative HDZ (party which led the country through the war). Hence, interest groups such as war veterans associations continue to exert a large influence on Croatian politics.
 
3
See section on collective bargaining by Kotarski and Petak in Chap. 1 of this volume.
 
4
In 2014, there were 51,837 citizens’ associations registered in Croatia, 137 foreign associations, 207 foundations, 13 funds, 650 trade unions, 63 employers’ associations, 452 private institutes, 52 religious communities, 377 organizational forms of religious communities and 2038 legal entities of the Catholic Church (Petak and Vidačak 2015).
 
5
Increased frequency of coalition governments accentuated the common-pool problem between ruling parties where each of them will try to benefit their own constituencies through higher government expenditures. This has had a deleterious impact on Croatia’s economic performance.
 
6
Dominant coalition represents an amalgamation of various distributional coalitions.
 
7
We use Strange’s (1988: 31) definition of structural power as a capacity to change the range of choices open to others without apparently putting pressure directly on them to take one decision or to make one choice rather than another. On the other hand, we claim that productive power operates by shaping the actors’ self-understanding and interests (Woll 2014).
 
8
We arrive at this figure by crudely adding 220,000 SOEs’ employees, 80,000 war veterans receiving pensions, part of the disability benefit users who receive it under false pretences, almost 70,000 of employees in local government bodies (which receive more than 50% of financing from the local budget) and local utilities. This is more than 10% of the electorate without members of their families and war veterans’ associations already mentioned above.
 
9
It occurred under both governments led by prosecuted former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader (HDZ).
 
10
Furthermore, this should be put in the context of Croatia having the fourth largest unemployment rate among EU member states during the same period (Eurostat 2017).
 
11
The other main party SDP (Social Democratic Party of Croatia) has been also engaged in this patronage, but to a smaller extent.
 
12
See Official Statistics of Croatian Parliament, www.​sabor.​hr
 
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Metadata
Title
Interest Groups in the Policy-Making Process in Croatia
Authors
Igor Vidačak
Kristijan Kotarski
Copyright Year
2019
Book
Policy-Making at the European Periphery

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73581-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-73582-5

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73582-5_5