Democratic Consolidation and Electoral System Change in Croatia: What Is Wrong with the Proportional Representation?

Abstract

This article focuses on the politics of electoral system change and its effects on the process of democratic consolidation in Croatia. After the first decade of democratisation when electoral rules were strategically engaged in order to secure one-party domination, the consensual introduction of proportional representation in 1999 marked the start of the full-scale consolidation of democracy. However, after only a decade, when faced with strong pressure caused by a deep economic recession and omnipresent political corruption, democracy in Croatia started to deteriorate, followed by significantly lower levels of trust in representative institutions and widespread citizen disaffection with the functioning of democracy. The proportional representation system was identified as the main cause of the crisis of Croatian democracy, raising strong critical voices asking for its reform or even replacement. The Croatian case thus shows that the interplay between electoral institutions and democratic (de)consolidation is far from being straightforward.

Rethinking representative democracy in Croatia

“…2015 marks the start of another significant trend concerning democratic developments, which concerns the rise of new populist and protest parties. This disrupted the dominant position of the two main political parties and brought instability to the government formation process (Nikić Čakar and Čural, 2022). This article examines the evolution of representative democracy in Croatia primarily by evaluating changes in its electoral system.…”

Populist attitudes in Croatia: first analysis with notes on conceptualisation and measurement

“…Other ideological and value divisions are based on these foundations, whereby two main parties act as polarised symbols with strong expressive functions (Henjak 2017). At the same time, research shows that party competition and voter mobilisation on economic grounds in Croatia is absent (Henjak 2005;Nikić Čakar -Čular 2012); moreover, the relationship between socioeconomic mobilisation and party identification is shown to be somewhat inverse, with party identification shaping attitudes about economic issues such as property taxes (Henjak 2007).…”