Politics in Croatia since 1990

After competitive authoritarianism hybrid regime legacies and the quality of democracy in Croatia

“…The HDZ abused state resources, heavily contributed to make corruption widespread, and used insider privatization to dominate access to private-sector finance. The domination of Tuđman's culture of illegality generated a fertile ground for the spread of corruption (Ramet 2010; Nations in Transit (NIT) 1998). Privatizations contributed the most to the unbalanced access to resources because they were managed through the state-run Privatization Fund and favoured businessmen close to the regime (Ramet 2010;Kearns 1998;Bićanić 1993).…”

“…The domination of Tuđman's culture of illegality generated a fertile ground for the spread of corruption (Ramet 2010; Nations in Transit (NIT) 1998). Privatizations contributed the most to the unbalanced access to resources because they were managed through the state-run Privatization Fund and favoured businessmen close to the regime (Ramet 2010;Kearns 1998;Bićanić 1993). Tuđman's goal was to create a nouveau riche stratum of two hundred families who would assume ownership of a large portion of the country's economy (Ramet 2011), thanks to their personal connections with the leader and in exchange of financial and political support for the HDZ.…”

“…5 According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's 2005 Transition Report, Croatian level of corruption in 2005 was higher than in 2002. During the 2000s most of the efforts to fight corruption have targeted, with few exceptions (Ramet 2010;NIT 2010), mid-and low-level actors. The climax was reached in 2011 when former Prime Minister Sanader was sentenced to ten years in prison for accepting a bribe of five million Euro (NIT 2013; Castaldo and Pinna 2017).…”