Most scholars of the recent history of Yugoslavia and its successor states tend to focus on nationalism and its hegemonic role in the region. However, it is prudent to examine the role of subnational regionalism on the politics of the region as well. This article analyzes Istrian regionalism in Croatian politics during the 1990s. It investigates the struggle between the Croatian ruling nationalist party, the Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ), and its primary regionalist opponent, the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS). While the HDZ generally maintained a hegemonic position in much of Croatia, the IDS resisted with a hegemonic hold on the region of Istria. Ultimately, both parties’ popularity fell in the late 1990s with the upswing in the Croatian economy. The article concludes that in specific regions and under particular circumstances, regionalism can be as hegemonic as nationalism and should be taken into consideration when studying modern politics and the politicization of identities.
Brian Herbert, Kevin Anderson, and Frank Herbert, Road to Dune (New York: Tor Books, 2005), 182-182.
2.
and Pamela Ballinger, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
3.
V. P. Gagnon, “Ethnic Conflict as an Intra-group Phenomenon: A Preliminary Framework,”Reviija za sociologiju26:1-2 (1995): 85-86.
4.
This is not to suggest the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS) simply created and instrumentalized some type of “Istrianity” simply as a vehicle to secure power on the peninsula. It has been argued in a number of academic works, including Boris Banovac’s Društvena pripadnost, identitet, teritorij (Rijeka, Croatia: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, 1998); Petar Janko’s, O Istri i istrijanstvu je rije? (Pula, Croatia: CASH, 1998); and Fulvio Suran, “Istrijanstvo kao slabiji (odnosno jači) identitet,” Društvena istra ivanja 2:4-5(1993): 769-82, that “Istrianity” was well developed, a real cultural and everyday experience, and existed prior to the development of the party. Emilio Cocco, too, argues that Istrianity is a distinct and tangible hybrid culture in Metamorfosi dell’Adriatico orientale (Faenza, Italy: Homeless Book, 2002), 172. The regional party, made up of Istrians and, as believers in this concept of Istrianity, simply used it to motivate the Istrian population to support its defense of this identity through its platforms.
5.
Daniel Bell, “Ethnicity and Social Change,” In Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan, eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 141-174.
6.
Eugen Pusič, “Identitet-diverzitet-kapacitet,” Erasmus: Časopis za kulturu demokracije 11 (1995): 3.
7.
Janusz Bugajski, Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe: A Guide to Nationality Politics, Organizations, and Parties (Armonk, NY: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994), xii-xii.
8.
Nenad Zakošek, “Odabir političkih institucija u postsocijalizmu i formiranje hrvatskog političkog sistema,” Politička misao 29 (1992): 84-89.
9.
Though paying lip service to the liberal ideology of political pluralism, selected aspects of Western style pluralism were implemented only in some economic endeavors, and then inconsistently (Svetozar Mirkovic, “Pluralizam na balkanski nacin,” Dometi 23:4-6[1990]: 371-72).
10.
Gagnon, “Ethnic Conflict,” 85-86.
11.
Nenad Zakošek, “Organizirani interesi u Hrvatskoj,” Erasmus: Časopis za kulturu demokracije 3 (1995): 29.
12.
Zvonko Posavec, “Parlamentarna opozicija,” Politička misao 32:3(1995): 9.
13.
Dragan Antulov, “Regionalism in Croatia: Between Tradition and Reality,” Central European Review 2:19(15 May, 2000), www.ce-review.org/00/19/antulov19.html (accessed 20 July 2004).
14.
Robert Hayden, “Constitutional Nationalism in the Formerly Yugoslav Republics,”Slavic Review51:4 (1992): 655-655.
15.
Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, Article 8, Law on Citizenship, Republic of Croatia.
16.
Chris Cviić, “Opozicija u lijevim i desnim diktaturama,” Politička misao 33:1(1996): 79.
17.
In this case, it was obvious that the Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ) was as corrupt as the previous ruling party. According to Alan Little and Laura Silber, many urban Croats, by 1995, saw “a few people, hand-picked by the regime, get rich off the war, while most plunged into impoverishment” (Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, revised and updated ed. [New York: Penguin, 1997], 383).
18.
Antulov, “Regionalism.”
19.
Zakošek, “Organizirani,” 29. Gagnon, too, deals with this issue of a restricted media in the former Yugoslavia (“Ethnic Conflict,” 85-86). In Istria, this is highlighted by Pamela Ballinger, who provides a brief discussion on the HDZ’s attempts to shut down Novi list and Glas Istre, two independent news sources, in 1996 (“‘Authentic Hybrids’ in the Balkan Borderlands,” Current Anthropology 45:1[2004]: 40-41).
20.
For example, the IDS claimed that dishonest, predatory parties used the war in Croatia to further their goals in Istria. The IDS members believed that these same parties wished to destabilize Istria with such war rhetoric (Selvina Benić, “Mirno protiv novih granica,” Glas Istre, 5 October 1991, 6).
21.
For numerous examples of the West’s distaste with the Tuđman regime and his support of Herceg Bosna, see Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, 292-93, 320-22, 360, and 389, just to cite a few.
22.
Gojko Marinković, “Does Croatia Wish to Join the Council of Europe?” AIM (Zagreb edition), 11 February 1996, http://www.aimpress.com (accessed 19 September 2004). European leaders pointed out the HDZ penchant for dominating all administrative institutions, its attacks on the independent media, censorship, its patronage network, and the lack of transparent privatization.
23.
Janusz Bugajski, Political Parties of Eastern Europe: A Guide to Politics in the Post-Communist Era (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), 598-599. It did not help Croatia’s image that the media of Slovenia, a country admitted to the Council of Europe in 1993 and the EU in 2004, labeled Croatia’s president and government fascist. In fact, Slovenia’s president, Milan Kučan, dissociated himself with Croatia’s “nondemocratic” government, and its policies in Bosnia-Hercegovia (Gojko Marinković, “The Slovenian Pot on the Croatian Stove,” AIM [Zagreb edition], 8 June 1994, http://www.aimpress.com (accessed 19 September 2004).
24.
Goran Prodan, “Pulski slučaj dobar je za razvoj demokracije u Istri,” Glas Istre, 19 October 1996, 10.
25.
Boris Banovac, “Etničnost i regionalizam u Istri: Povijesni rakurs i suvremeni kontekst,” Migracijske teme 12:4(1996): 280.
26.
Nenad Bulat and Damir Štrelov, “Dimenzije političkog prostora i izborni učinci,” In Srđan Vrcan, ed., Pohod na glasače: Izbori u Hrvatskoj 1990-1993 (Split, Croatia: Puls, 1995), 315.
27.
Gojko Marinković, “Istria Defies Zagreb,” AIM (Zagreb edition), 4 July 1995, http://www.aimpress.com (accessed 19 September 2004).
28.
I. Volčić, “Istarska beseda u Saboru,” Glas Istre, 25 July 1992, 9.
29.
“Pauletta u HPG,” Glas Istre, 6 March 1991, 3.
30.
Bugajski, Ethnic Politics, 65.
31.
Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: University of California Press, 1994), 1-1.
32.
Ibid., 13.
33.
Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 11-20 and 57-58.
34.
Ibid., 32-34.
35.
Ibid., 140-60.
36.
Alexander Kiossev also uses the phrase nesting balkanism (“The Dark Intimacy: Maps, Identities, Acts of Identification,” In Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002], 188 n. 41).
37.
Bakić-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms,” 922. A nice empirical example where Slovenes “balkanized” Croats can be found in Rastko Močnik, “The Balkans as an Element in Ideological Mechanisms,” In Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 92.
38.
Bakić-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms,” 930.
39.
Ibid., 918-19
40.
Ibid. This is an excellent point. Such ideas about the nature of political ideology illustrated the entire HDZ-IDS struggle, where many Istrians saw the centralism and conservatism of the ruling party as backward and “balkan.”
41.
See Maple Razsa’s Web article, “Balkan Is Beautiful,” at www.arkzin.com/actuallbalkan.html, for his take on the prejudice shown by Croats to their Hercegovinan cousins.
42.
where he suggests that mixed marriages and the social values which developed in urban environments in Bosnia allowed for the emergence of significant numbers of “Yugoslavs” while rural regions were much more ethnically segregated. Also see John Allcock’s work on the rural/urban division in the former Yugoslavia, “Rural-Urban Differences and the Break-Up of Yugoslavia,”Balkanologie6:1-2 (2002): 101-125.
43.
Dušan Bjelić, “Introduction: Blowing up the Bridge,” In Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 3-3.
44.
Michael Herzfeld, “Foreward,” In Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), x.
45.
Ballinger, History, 238-242.
46.
Ballinger, “Authentic Hybrids,” 31-60. Michael Herzfeld would agree with Ballinger’s summary concerning the hypocritical nature of the party leaders and ideologues in that they reflect the same intolerance held by numerous Western intellectuals and politicians. According to Herzfeld, “it is extraordinary that, in an age in which stereotypes and prejudice have long been viewed with a jaundiced eye by those professing to be tolerant and open-minded, these particular attitudes [the stereotyping of people from the Balkans] should have persisted so successfully—often among the people, or in the academic circles, in which the condemnation of prejudice has been loudest. We are tragically familiar with the affectation of those who declare that in their country ‘people are not racists’ but that ‘those people’ (often Balkan people) deserve to be punished, not because of who they are ethnically or culturally, but as criminals or degenerates. Such mealy-mouthed pieties are not confined to the rhetoric of personal self-exoneration, but pervade the spaces of international politics, scholarship, and journalism” (Herzfeld, “Foreward,” x).
47.
Cocco, Metamorfosi, 172; and Banovac, Društvena pripadnost, 223-30.
48.
Maple Razsa (“Regionalism, Memory and Belonging at the Frontiers of the Nation-State,” Anthropological Quarterly 77:1[2004]: 165) argues for a similar approach in his review of Ballinger’s 2003 book.
49.
Bjelić, Introduction,3.
50.
Vesna Goldsworthy, “Invention and In(ter)vention: The Rhetoric of Balkanization,” In Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 27.
51.
Močnik, “The Balkans,” 83, 91, and 93.
52.
Bojan Baskar takes up the issue of how the exodus community from Istria in Trieste portrays the Croats as interlopers and not Mediterranean (or European for that matter) in his article, “Made in Trieste: Geopolitical Fears of an Istrianist Discourse on the Mediterranean,”Narodna umjetnost36:1 (1998): 121-134.
53.
This is not uncommon in Croatian scholarship, which attempts to link the Croatian nation to Europe via Italy. For example, Valentina Gulin Zrnić links Croatia to the Italian Renaissance via the Slavic artists and intellectuals of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dubrovnik in “The Mediterranean from a Mediterranean Angle: Renaissance Dubrovnik,”Narodna umjetnost36:1 (1998): 135-156.
54.
Močnik, “The Balkans,” 103.
55.
Deklaracija o demokratizaciji Republike Hrvatske, 1994.
56.
Programska deklaracija IDS-a, 1990.
57.
Snjezana Pavić, “U Istri nema straha od kroatizacije,” Glas Istre, 12 November 1993, 13.
58.
This was first introduced officially in the Programska deklaracija Istarskog demokratskog sabora, 1991.
59.
V. Medvedec, “Istru zaštititi od rata,” Glas Istre, 14 May 1991, 4. The IDS continued to call for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Croatian soil (Davor Šišović, “Prestanak rata—preduvjet novih izbora,” Glas Istre, 12 January 1992, 4).
60.
Keith Brown, in his analysis of national villains and heroes, illustrates how nationalist political actors portrayed villains as individuals with hybrid identities, demonizing those of mixed blood as a direct threat to the nation and potentially dangerous (“Villains and Symbolic Pollution in the Narratives of Nation: The Case of Boris Sarafov,” In Maria Todorova, ed., National Identities and National Memories in the Balkans [London: Hurst, 2003], 233-52).
61.
V. Medvedec, “Istru,” 4.
62.
“Prezentiran IDS u dajli,” Glas Istre, 18 March 1991, 8. The IDS leadership would later change its tune when Tuđman used the refugees and displaced persons, most of whom looked to the HDZ for monetary support and relocation, for political advantage in Istria. The party also expressed the distaste that many Istrians felt toward the “barbarous” and “uncouth” Croats from Bosnia-Hercegovina.
63.
Again, see Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, 299, 307, 322, 360, and 389, for a few examples.
64.
Nenad Klapčić, “Regionalizacija po uzoru na europske,” Glas Istre, 8 December 1995, 6.
65.
Deklaracija o Istri—Prvi svjetski kongres Istrijana, 1995.
66.
Eni Ambrozić, “Istra kao interrepublička regijač” Glas Istre, 15 November 1991, 4. This included its 1991 cooperation with the Socialists of the Venetian-Julian region (SVJR) in Italy to build Istria into an “economic and cultural laboratory” within an independent and indivisible Croatia.
67.
For example, Vojislav Šešelj’s Radical Party and the Četnik movement, Karadzić’s Serbian Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka-SDP) in Bosnia, Tuđman’s and the Croatian Party of Rights (Hrvatska Stranka Prava—HSP) support of Croatian paramilitary groups in Bosnia, some of which were responsible for atrocities against both Serbs and Muslims in the three-sided 1993 war.
68.
Bakić-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms,” 930.
69.
Boris Banovac, “Etničnost,” 281.
70.
Deklaracija o regionalnom ustrojstvu Republike Hrvatske, 1994.
71.
Goran Prodan, “Protiv granica u Istri,” Glas Istre, 12 December 1991, 8.
72.
Deklaracija o regionalnom ustrojstvu Republike Hrvatske, 1994.
73.
Sanja Modrić and Igor Vukić, “Grubo suzanvanje demokracije,” Glas Istre, 8 March 1995, 7. Croatian Spring hero Miko Tripalo and soon-to-be president of Croatia Stipe Mesić both on separate occasions suggested that the HDZ-owned media prevented opposition opinions from being aired during the decade (pp. 7-8).
74.
Bugajski, Ethnic Politics, 65. Part of this smear campaign involved linking the IDS and its program of autonomy to separatism promoted by Italian fascists and the Serbian government.
75.
This council is an advisory body to the economic and political institutions of the EU and became increasingly important in the 1980s and 90s.
76.
See Theo Stammen, “Politische Ordnungsvorstellungen des Europäischen Regionalismus im Vergleich,” In Regija—Snaga razvoja (Osijek, Croatia: Sveučilište u Osijeku, 1992), 63- 69; Colin William, “European Regionalism and the Search for New Representational Spaces,” Annales 10 (1997): 265-74; and Hermann Lübbe, “Veliki i mali svijet: Regionalizam kao europski pokret,” In Anđelko Milardović, ed., Regionalizam kao europski izazov (Osijek, Croatia: PanLiber, 1995), 34-49.
Ivan Jakovčić, Furio Radin, and Dino Debeljuh, “Istra,” Erasmus: Časopis za kulturu demokracije 3 (May 1995): 25 and 11-12. Jakovčić, Radin, and Debeljuh, all leaders of the IDS in 1995, gave this interview to the Croatian journal, Erasmus, a journal supposedly dedicated to ideas of modern democracy and humanism. The favorable introduction by the interviewer painted a somewhat glorified picture of the three party leaders as liberators and modern-day European liberals. In such a journal as Erasmus, by painting a bright picture of the party, it was hoped the party could garner more support from the self-proclaimed supporters of increased democracy, based on the European model, within the Croatian academic community. If their illustrations and explanations were presented to this community, or so they thought, without the filtering of the mostly state controlled media, readers might form a different opinion of the regional party.
79.
J. Volčić, “Istra—most prema zapadu,” Glas Istre, 22 July 1992, 4.
80.
Marinković, “Does Croatia?”
81.
Deklaracija o Euroregiji Istri, 1994. Boris Banovac, a Croatian sociologist studying regionalism in Istria in 1995, suggested that the transborder policy and demilitarization of Istria were the most important to party supporters, while increased regionalism was less so (Društvena pripadnost, 236-37). This corresponds to my 2002 argument on the economic nature of the regionalist movement and support for regionalism on the peninsula.
82.
One problem, which was entirely out of IDS hands, was the question of the scandalous Zagreb elections that clearly showed that Croatian democracy was questionable at best (Gabrijela Galić, Tatjana Uvodić-Iveša, and Nino Ðula, “Paket krivičnih zakona—treće čitanje,” Glas Istre, 16 March 1996, 5). It must be pointed out, however, that Istria did become a member of the Assembly of European Regions, a body independent of the EU and seminal in the creation of the Council of Regions, in December 1994.
83.
This disappointment was blamed on the fascist nature of the HDZ and its rule in Croatia. This subject came up in a conversation the author had at the ninth founding day celebration of the IDS with Ivan Jakovčić and Emil Soldatić. They claimed that the HDZ used the same fascist methodology as Vladimír Mečiar, the former right-wing president of Slovakia, before the Slovak elections in 1998. Because of these methods, they explained, Croatia would wait even longer for EU candidacy. They also accused the HDZ of ruling in the manner of a mob syndicate.
84.
Selvina Benić, “Jakovčić: Vlada mora hitno predloziti strategiju priblizavanja hrvatske EU,” Glas Istre, 3 November 1998, 6. In fact, Jakovčić, as late as 2005, became the chair of an organization seeking to link all the coastal regions of the Adriatic into an Adriatic Euroregion. This organization had many of the same goals as those sought earlier in IDS campaigns (http://adriaticeuroregion.org/en/index.aspx?cID=50 [accessed 10 May 2005]).
85.
Davor Šišović, “Prestati s bezumljem,” Glas Istre, 27 May 1991, 6.
86.
Franko Štruman and Ante Rokov, “IDS uzaludno gubi energiju,” Glas Istre, 8 December 1991, 21. This article was published in the name of the Istarska nezavisna stranka (Istrian Independent Party), or INS.
87.
Tihana Tomičić, “Identitet istarskog čovjeka je izgubljen,” Glas Istre, 25 October 1995, 22.
88.
Though not a nationalist, Ivica Račan suggested that IDS and HDZ hegemony in Istria and Croatia, respectively, damaged democracy. He suggested that Istria integrate itself further into the Croatian political and economic system to defend against the bad policies of both parties and their identity politics (Eni Ambrozić, “Hrvatskom narodu više ne treba ‘Japa,’ ” Glas Istre, 13 May 1995, 10).
89.
Štruman and Rokov, “IDS uzaludno,” 21.
90.
Nikola Jelić, “Regionalizam je patološka pojava,” Glas Istre, 19 October 1995, 4.
91.
Mate Čurić, “Demokršćanski oslonci hrvatske politike,” Glas Istre, 12 January 1992, 8-9.
92.
Selvina Benić, “Istra je Hrvatska,” Glas Istre, 25 July 1992, 8.
93.
Snjezana Pavić, “Washingtonski plan je potpisan pod pritiskom,” Glas Istre, 12 September 1994, 16-17.
94.
Tihana Tomičić, “Identitet istarskog čovjeka je izgubljen,” Glas Istre, 25 October 1995, 22.
95.
Antulov, “Regionalism.”
96.
This was done as early as 1990 and concerned the renewal of a TV broadcasting license in Pula (Kenneth Basom, “Prospects for Democracy in Serbia and Croatia,” Eastern European Quarterly 29:4[Winter 1995]: 517).
97.
Antulov, “Regionalism.”
98.
Narodne novine nos. 33/01, 60/01, and 106/30. This periodical is a Croatian government publication, which prints new laws and regulations.
99.
Gojko Marinković, “The Score between Zagreb and Istria—18:18,” AIM (Zagreb edition), 20 February 1995, www.aimpress.ch (accessed 14 September 2004).
100.
Ballinger, History, 238-40.
101.
Suran, “Istrijanstvo,” 769-82.
102.
Programska deklaracija IDS-a, 1990, and reaffirmed in the Programska deklaracija Istarskog demokratskog sabora, 1991, and Deklaracija o Istri—Prvi svjetski kongres Istrijana, 1995.
103.
For only a few of the hundreds of published examples, see Janko, O Istri, 135-36; Loredana Bogliun-Debeljuh, “The Istrian Euroregion: Socio-cultural Situation and Problems,” In Stefano Bianchini and Paul Shoup, eds., The Yugoslav War, Europe and the Balkans: How to Achieve Security? (Ravenna, Italy: Longo Editore, 1995), 93-105; Jakovčić, Radin, and Debeljuh, “Istra”; and others.
104.
Jakovčić, Radin, and Debeljuh, “Istra,” 13 and 20.
105.
Drazen Lalić, “Pohod na glasače. Analiza sadrzaja poruka predizbornih kampanje stranaka u Hrvatskoj 1990, 1992, i 1993 godine,” In Srđan Vrcan, ed., Pohod na glasače: Izbori u Hrvatskoj 1990-1993 (Split, Croatia: Puls, 1995), 258.
106.
Jakovčić, Radin, and Debeljuh, “Istra,” 12 and 15.
107.
Ibid.
108.
Ballinger, History. Throughout her book Ballinger provides examples of esuli (the exodus community members) denigrating the Slavs and suggesting that true Istrianity is purely Italian.
109.
Jakovčić, Radin, and Debeljuh, “Istra,” 12. Suran even suggests that regional identity became stronger and more pronounced due to the threat posed against it by Croatian nationalists (“Istrijanstvo,” 769-82).
110.
Ibid., 11, 12, and 16.
111.
Ibid., 11; and Banovac, “Etničnost,” 279-80. For a debate on how tolerant the regionalists were, see Ballinger, “Authentic Hybrids,” 31-60, who criticizes the party’s hypocrisy in claiming toleration, but exhibiting intolerance toward those peoples viewed as “balkan.”
112.
Jakovčić, Radin, and Debeljuh, “Istra,” 13. Debeljuh believed that the HDZ and the other Croatian nationalists challenged his, and other Istrians’, personal identity, and that their denial of the freedom to express regional identity was tragic (p. 14).
113.
Ibid.
114.
Ibid.
115.
Banovac, “Etničnost,” 282. Banovac labels this polycentrality.
116.
Ibid., 283.
117.
Ibid., 286.
118.
For a thorough discussion of the early manipulation of electoral laws, see Srđan Vrcan, “Izbori 1990-1993 između demokratizacije i tehnologije vladanja,” In Srđan Vrcan, ed., Pohod na glasače: Izbori u Hrvatskoj 1990-1993 (Split, Croatia: Puls, 1995), 139-202.
119.
Drazen Herljević, “Rijeka: Europski birački korpus,” Glas Istre, 10 August 1992, 5.
120.
Stan Markotich, “Istria seeks autonomy,” RFL/RE Research Report 2:36(10 September 1993): 22; and Bugajski, Ethnic Politics, 65.
121.
Lalić, 279. In the presidential race, Istrians supported the liberal Drazen Budiša instead of Franjo Tuđman, again illustrating Istrian resistance to the HDZ (“Uvjerljiva pobjeba kandi-data IDS-a,” Glas Istre, 4 August 1992, 8).
122.
Neven Šantić, “Politički aspekti društvenog razvoja Istre,” Revija za sociologiju 31:3- 4(2000): 157.
123.
Throughout its existence this house was merely an advisory body to the Zastupnički dom.
124.
Markotich, “Istria seeks autonomy,” 22-23.
125.
Šantić, “Politički aspekti,” 157.
126.
Stan Markotich, “Croatia’s Istrian Democratic Alliance,” RFE/RL Research Report 3:33(26 August 1994): 14.
A poll conducted by Globus, a Croatian news magazine, showed that the HDZ, after losing some support due to corruption and failure to deliver on its promises to the Croatian people, regained some of its lost popularity due in part to the successes of 1995 military operations Flash and Storm. Josip Županov, “Recentna zbivanja na hrvatskom političkom trzištu: konjunktura ili temeljna promjena političkih stavovač” Politička misao 32:3(1995): 72.
131.
Šantić, “Politički aspekti,” 157.
132.
Kasapović, “1995 Parliamentary Elections,” 271.
133.
Šantić, “Politički aspekti,” 157.
134.
Figures taken from the IDS Web site at www.ids-ddi.com/itl/izbori.html (accessed 25 December 2004).
135.
Mirjana Kasapović, “Izbori za Županijksi dom Sabora,” Politička misao 34:2(1997): 102-3.
136.
Mirjana Kasapović, “Coalition Governments in Croatia: First Experience 2000-2003,” Politička misao 40:5(2003): 57.
137.
This can be seen as well in that more voters came out to vote in the 2000 election (75.2 percent) than in 1997, and still the IDS lost electoral support.
138.
All election data in this section taken from Croatia’s official Web site for election information at http://www.izbori.hr/ (accessed 25 December 2004).
139.
Markotich, “Croatia’s Istrian,” 18.
140.
Gojko Marinković, “New Croatian Political Geography,” AIM (Zagreb edition), 28 February 1994, http://www.aimpress.ch (accessed on 19 September 2004).
141.
However, Herak was accused by the new government for widespread corruption and misuse of power in this position, was convicted, and sentenced to a short prison term.
142.
Marinko Ćulić, “Tuđman’s List of the Obedient,” AIM (Zagreb edition), 9 October 1995, http://www.aimpress.ch (accessed 19 September 2004).
143.
Bugajski, Political Parties, 621.
144.
Zoran Malenica, “Nove političke stranke u Hrvatskoj (1994-1997),” Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta u Splitu 33 (1996): 523-24.
145.
Zoran Malenica, “Dinamika višestranačja u Hrvatskoj,” Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta u Splitu 34 (1997): 273.
146.
Ballinger, “Authentic Hybrids,” 47-48.
147.
Ibid., 45.
148.
Boris Rašeta, “We’ll Give Up Power, but Not the Statute!” Feral Tribune, 21 April 2001, http://www.ex-yupress.com/feral/feral164.html (accessed 14 April 2005).
149.
“Istrian Party Leaves Croatian Government,” RFE/RL Newsline 5:105(1 June 2001), www.hri.org/news/balkans/rferl/2001/01-06-04.rferl.html (accessed 13 April 2005).
150.
See Vladimir Lay, “Središnja Istra—studija slučaja,” In Ivan Rogić and Maja Štambuk, eds., Duge sjene periferije: Prinos revializaciji hrvatskoga ruba (Zagreb, Croatia: Institut društvenih znanosti, 1998), 111-44, for more on continued underdevelopment in Istrian villages.
151.
Ballinger, “Authentic Hybrids,” 48.
152.
Kasapović, “Coalition,” 63.
153.
The shift of support to independents illustrates the growing distaste for political parties in general in the region.
