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FROM THE POLITICS OF


STATE-BUILDING TO PROGRAMMATIC
POLITICS
The Post-Federal Experience and the Development
of Centre–Right Party Politics in Croatia and
Slovakia

Tim Haughton and Sharon Fisher

ABSTRACT

The post-federal experience was important in shaping the structure of


party competition in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, particu-
larly on the centre–right. The cases of Slovakia and Croatia demonstrate
not only how and why appeals relating to national autonomy/statehood
became salient in some states in the region, but also why dominant parties
stressing such themes were unable to lock in their support. Strategic
crafting, particularly in the absence of consensus over continuation of
the federation, appears key in explaining the rise of dominant parties in
the two cases. Nonetheless, where appeals to the nation were combined
with illiberalism and were received unfavourably by strategically
important international clubs, public support for such parties declined.
Following removal from power, these dominant parties undertook bouts
of reinvention, attempting to rebrand themselves as mainstream Euro-
pean centre–right parties with mixed results.

KEY WORDS  centre–right  Croatia  dominant parties  post-federal  Slovakia

Introduction

Although the development of party politics in Central and Eastern Europe


(CEE) since 1989 has generated a wealth of scholarly interest (e.g. Lewis,
2000; Millard, 2004), much of the focus has been on the transformation
from state-socialist systems. Many of the former state-socialist regimes of
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CEE, however, were also constituent parts of multinational federations


(Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia), yet the post-federal
experience and its impact on the development of party politics has been
largely ignored. While focus on the post-communist experience is extremely
important for the development of party politics, especially of the left, the
post-federal experience is central to the development of the right. This
article seeks to help fill that gap by exploring the examples of Croatia and
Slovakia. In both cases, party politics was largely structured around appeals
relating to national autonomy/statehood during the 1990s; however, by the
end of that decade, the politics of state-building was gradually being replaced
by programmatic politics. After the dominant party in each of the countries
lost power in 1998–2000, both engaged in a bout of reorientation, branding
themselves as parties of the mainstream European centre–right, although with
varying degrees of success.
Drawing on the Croatian and Slovak experiences, this article examines the
processes of centre–right party formation and development in the countries
that emerged from multinational federal states. We maintain that the post-
federal experience was important in the development of party politics in both
countries. The first section of this article provides a brief political overview
of several post-federal countries, looking at whether the sequencing of the
shift from state-socialism and exit from the federation had an impact on
party development. The remainder of the article focuses primarily on our
two case studies. After outlining the reasons why Slovak and Croatian politics
were initially structured around national autonomy/statehood in the second
section, the third section of the article moves on to a discussion of how the
reinforcement mechanisms that kept the dominant parties in power for
much of the 1990s shifted into mechanisms of change, contributing to their
eventual defeat. The fourth section of the article seeks to explain why both
of the dominant parties undertook a bout of reinvention after losing office,
moving away from their nationalist past.
This article puts forward three main arguments. Firstly, in seeking to
understand the initial state-building phase of politics in countries that were
constituent parts of multinational federal states, the condition of post-
federalism was just as important as the condition of post-communism. That
is particularly true in the initial development of the right, because of the
mobilizing force of appeals to the nation. The potency of the federal experi-
ence for post-communist politics, however, depends partly on the sequence
of the respective exits from federalism and state-socialism, but even more on
the existence or absence of consensus on the continuation of the federal state
and on the strategic choices of politicians. Secondly, although parties such
as the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ)
and the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické
Slovensko, HZDS) maintained their dominant position in politics during
much of the 1990s thanks to identifiable reinforcement mechanisms such as
insider privatization, a discourse directed at the ‘Other’ and a charismatic
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leader, these did not lock in continued success. Indeed, once the process of
European Union (EU) enlargement had begun in earnest in the region, ruling
parties in countries that missed the boat were vulnerable to electoral defeat.
Thirdly, a combination of electoral defeat and the desire for international
respectability led the former ruling parties with strong national appeals to
rethink their political orientation, and both the HDZ and HZDS attempted
to rebrand themselves as mainstream European centre–right parties.

Party Competition in the Post-Federal States of Central


and Eastern Europe

Put simply, in 1989–91 the nascent right in post-communist Europe had


three potential mobilizing narratives: the nation, the market and the ‘Return
to Europe’. The latter two were anti-communist appeals, the first anti-
federal. All three ingredients were used by the emergent parties of the
centre–right in CEE (and sometimes by the left as well), but in different
proportions. By the mid-1990s, politics in some of the countries that emerged
from the multinational communist-era federations – including the Baltic
States and Slovenia – had seen a shift in the balance of political discourse
away from national appeals towards those based on socio-economic themes.
Appeals to the nation, however, were certainly not absent from the rhetoric
of parties (especially those of the right) in these countries. In Estonia, for
example, national appeals remained a core component of the programme
of centre–right parties such as Pro Patria, but party politics were largely
focused on the perceived merits and consequences of rapid marketization
(Kelam, 2004; Smith, 2001; Velliste, 2004). In Slovakia and Croatia, in
contrast, the focus of party politics in much of the 1990s was quite differ-
ent. Instead, those two countries witnessed a prolonged period of state-
building politics in which parties appealing to the nation dominated the
scene until the late 1990s. What, then, explains this development?
The explanation could lie in the sequencing of the exit from state-socialism
and the exit from federalism. Take two possible scenarios: scenario 1, where
states exit both federalism and state-socialism simultaneously, and scenario
2, in which the multinational federal state remains intact beyond the first
free post-communist elections. We hypothesize that since independence has
already been achieved in the former, national questions will either decline
in salience or be transmogrified into a different type of mobilization. In the
latter case, national questions will remain salient, directed at the continued
existence or form of the federal state.
Czechoslovakia clearly follows scenario 2. After the Velvet Revolution that
ended communist rule in November 1989, the federal state held two free
elections (1990 and 1992) before the federation was dissolved in January
1993. Just months after the 1989 Revolution, politicians began arguing about
the future of Czechoslovakia. A key concern of Slovak politicians was a
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revised institutional framework that would provide Slovakia with greater


autonomy (e.g. Stein, 1997). The failure to reach agreement ensured that
the future of Czechoslovakia was a central theme of the 1992 parliamentary
elections in Slovakia. Parties such as HZDS that were critical of the existing
federal framework and seeking independence or greater autonomy were
able to use national appeals for electoral gain, as described in more detail
in the next section.
While Slovakia is a paradigmatic example of scenario 2, Croatia does not
fit quite so well. The 1990 elections in Croatia took place as Yugoslavia was
beginning to disintegrate. Slobodan Milošević’s rhetoric broadcast nightly
on federal television ‘gave credence to those who demanded that Croatia
should abandon Yugoslavia in order to get out from under the Serbian heel’
(Silber and Little, 1996: 83). As in Czechoslovakia two years later, the future
of the respective federal state was central to the election campaign in 1990.
As we discuss below, a party critical of the existing federal framework, HDZ,
used national appeals to gain power. Still, Croatia’s exit from federalism
was a drawn out and complicated process; although independence was
declared in 1991, and international recognition was gained soon after, the
country remained under partial Serbian occupation until 1995.
For further insight, it is instructive to investigate the situation in two other
states that emerged from Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia: the Czech Republic
and Slovenia. Slovenia’s exit from federalism and state-socialism formally
coincided with that of Croatia. A broad-based coalition called the Demo-
cratic Opposition of Slovenia led the republic out of the Yugoslav federa-
tion, and politics became dominated during the following decade by the
Liberal Democratic Party (after 1994 known as Liberal Democracy) and its
leader Janez Drnovšek. Drnovšek skilfully fashioned a broad-based appeal
centred on gradualist economic reform and integration into European struc-
tures, while his political guile also helped to keep opponents divided. In
contrast to Croatia, however, Slovenia’s war for independence lasted just
10 days, ending in early July 1991 and allowing the new country to shift
its focus away from issues relating to national sovereignty towards other
concerns, such as market and democratic reforms.
The Czech Republic emerged as an independent state on the same day as
Slovakia, but unlike its former federal partner, Czech politics was not
structured around appeals relating to national autonomy/statehood for
two key reasons. Firstly, the Czechs were the dominant ethnic group in
Czechoslovakia and hence anti-federal national appeals had limited reso-
nance, although the Slovak half of the federation was portrayed as a brake
on economic development. Secondly, the centre–right Civic Democratic
Party dominated Czech politics in the early and mid-1990s. Thanks to a
mixture of ideological conviction and a desire for success at the ballot
box, its leader Václav Klaus wove together an appeal based on the desire
to distance the country from the communist past and the aim of (re)inte-
grating Czechs into the Western world (Hanley, 2004), although Klaus was
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not averse to using national themes to bolster his support (Klaus, 1994;
Williams, 1997).
The cases of Slovenia and the Czech Republic, therefore, seem to highlight
the salience of strategic calculations and political positioning. In contrast to
Croatia and Slovakia, however, appeals based on the nation had less reso-
nance. Neither Czechs nor Slovenes felt the need to distance themselves to
such an extent from their former federal partners, perhaps in part because
they were economically more advanced. The Slovenes, for instance, were
eager to continue business and trade ties with all parts of former Yugoslavia.
The post-communist, and even more so the post-federal, experience
accorded politicians significant power and opportunities in the early tran-
sition years as they established the basis for new states. While in countries
like Croatia and Slovakia, such opportunities were grasped by those pursuing
an illiberal agenda, in the Czech Republic and Slovenia, Western-oriented
politicians took control and managed to shut out the illiberal nationalists.
As we outline below, in both Croatia and Slovakia parties crafting their
programmes around a critique of the existing federal framework and seeking
independence or greater autonomy were able to use national appeals for
electoral gain. The political potency of such appeals was much stronger in
Croatia and Slovakia because unlike in other post-federal countries, such
as the Baltic States and Slovenia, where there was a general consensus on
the need to exit the federation (Harris, 2002; Smith, 2001), no such consen-
sus existed in Slovakia or Croatia (true in the latter case at least until the
war started).

Use of National Appeals: Explaining the Dominance of


HDZ and HZDS

There was nothing inevitable in HDZ’s and HZDS’s rise to power. In both
Croatia and Slovakia there were many other parties that could have come to
dominate party politics. In 1992 in Slovakia, the HZDS faced competition
on the political stage from other parties that articulated much more vocif-
erous and radical nation-based appeals, with the Slovak National Party’s
(Slovenská národná strana, SNS) demand for independence contrasting with
HZDS’s more moderate appeal for greater autonomy. Likewise, HDZ’s
official position in Croatia’s 1990 elections called for a confederation,
although some party members did make appeals for full independence
(D̄urić et al., 1990; Fisher, 2006). This ambiguity on the issue of statehood
helped both HDZ and HZDS to appear more moderate and avoided alien-
ating voters who favoured options other than outright independence.
The key to both HZDS’s and HDZ’s dominance lay initially in the breadth
of appeal (Fisher, 2006; Haughton, 2001; Kopeček, 2006). HZDS, for
instance, fused an appeal based on the nation with a powerful appeal of
the left in post-communist societies: protection from the consequences of
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economic reform. Not only did this help bolster support for the party, it
enticed potential supporters of the communist-successor party, the Party
of the Democratic Left (Strana demokratickej l’avice, SDL’ ) (Fisher, 2002;
Haughton, 2004a). HDZ drew its initial support from a broad array of voters,
ranging from those who saw the need for a change of government and a
counterbalance to Milošević to those who wished for Croatian indepen-
dence, or a revival of Croatia. The HDZ victory in the first multiparty elec-
tions in 1990 was undoubtedly a protest against the federal government
in Belgrade, but was also based on long-term Croatian frustrations, especi-
ally those that had come to the fore in the previous two years, partly in
terms of the economy but also in the outpouring of Serbian expansionism
(Jajčinović, 1990; Jović, 1990).
The choice of strategy highlights the other key factor: strategic crafting
of the two men who founded and led their respective parties throughout the
1990s. Both HZDS’s Vladimír Mečiar and HDZ’s Franjo Tud̄man exploited
the fluid world of early 1990s’ politics. HDZ was not just the passive bene-
ficiary of Milošević’s nationalism. Strategically judicious decision-making
on the part of Tud̄man (helped by money and assistance from the Croat
émigré community) and mistakes on the part of HDZ’s rivals were signifi-
cant factors influencing the 1990 elections. Unlike its Slovenian counterpart,
the League of Communists of Croatia responded too slowly to unfolding
events, beginning its own transformation too late to impose itself as the main
force in defence of Croatian sovereignty and nascent democracy. HDZ’s
other main rival in 1990, the Coalition of Popular Agreement (Koalicija
narodnog sporazuma, KNS), projected an elitist-intellectual image and
relied too heavily on Savka Dabčević-Kučar, who had been prominent in
the Croatian Spring of 1971 (Fisher, 2006; Pusić, 2004). KNS did use the
national theme, but it placed human and individual rights above the Croatian
national question. Tud̄man, in contrast, saw the issue from the opposite
perspective, while at the same time managing to convince many voters that
his approach was the correct one. HDZ defined Croatia ‘in opposition to,
and as a negation of, Serbia/Yugoslavia’ (Zakošek, 2000: 112). The HDZ
emerged from the 1990 elections with a parliamentary majority.
In Slovakia, the main centre–right party, the Christian Democratic Move-
ment (Krest’anskodemokratické hnutie, KDH), appeared to stand an excellent
chance of becoming one of the most prominent political parties in Slovakia
thanks to its roots in the dissident past and its Catholicism in a country where
a majority of citizens declare themselves to be Catholic (Krivý, 2001: 266).
The party’s initial popularity levels indicated the potential support for KDH
(Innes, 1997: 407), but HZDS rather than KDH won the 1992 elections in
Slovakia. In contrast to HZDS, KDH opted for a strategy of party purity
rather than a broad church (Haughton and Rybář, 2004). This approach
was complicated by a number of strategic mistakes, not least the decision
of KDH leader and founder, Ján Čarnogurský, to become prime minister in
1991 and to pursue a radical policy package full of painful marketization
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measures just months before elections were due. In the June 1992 elections,
KDH mustered a mere 8.9 percent of the vote, while HZDS managed to
garner 37.3 percent.
After the elections that brought HDZ and HZDS to power, several factors
helped to maintain the support of key sections of the electorate. In the early
1990s, Tud̄man and Mečiar were the most charismatic politicians in their
respective countries; they inspired trust and devotion as the founders, leaders
and dominant figures of their respective parties. Moreover, having built a
broad base of support prior to the elections that first brought them to power,
Tud̄man and Mečiar were able to strengthen that support in part through
such methods as insider privatization, benefiting from the plethora of state-
owned companies that were available for sale. Moreover, they also ensured
support through illiberal actions, such as manipulating the media.
In the Croatian case, the war of 1991–92 and its aftermath – triggered
partly on the basis of what were perceived of as anti-Serb policies by the
HDZ regime – provided Tud̄man with the context in which to portray his
party as the defender of Croatia, himself as the father of the Croat nation,
and his political opponents as enemies of the state, while using such rhetoric
in justifying a series of authoritarian actions that invoked international
opprobrium (Pusić, 2004; Uzelak, 1998: 453–9). From the 1990 elections
until the end of the decade, HDZ remained the most popular political party
in Croatia and retained power thanks to a mixture of national mobilization
fuelled by the war, meddling with the electoral system, insider privatization,
lack of media freedom and the charismatic personality of the party leader
(Fisher, 2006).
HZDS did not have a war around which to mobilize the electorate, but
national appeals are central to explaining the party’s level of support, with
Mečiar’s image first projected ‘as the defender of Slovak interests within
Czechoslovakia and later as the protector of the newly independent Slovakia
within a hostile world’ (Deegan-Krause, 2004: 684). Like Tud̄man, Mečiar
liked to portray himself as the father of the nation and his opponents as
enemies of Slovakia (Mečiar, 2000). HZDS’s policies and rhetoric helped
ensure that in the minds of the Slovak electorate socio-economic questions
were overshadowed by questions of the nation and, among critics of the
Slovak prime minister, by the lack of democracy (Deegan Krause, 2000).
In their public discourse, both HDZ and HZDS made use of the ‘Other’
to mobilize supporters. Tud̄man and Mečiar promoted a negatively oriented
national identity by using rhetoric critical of their nations’ external and
internal enemies (Fisher, 2006). In the Croatian case, the new identity was
‘maximally differentiated’ from that of other peoples of former Yugoslavia,
particularly the Serbs (Razsa and Lindstrom, 2004: 634). In the discourse
of HDZ and HZDS, the Other developed in three distinct phases; while
the first period was marked by a focus on the external Other (the federal
governments in Belgrade and Prague), in the second phase attention was
turned to ethnic minorities (Serbs and Hungarians), and the third period
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shifted to the internal enemy within the nation itself (critics of the regime)
(Fisher, 2006). Focus on these Others highlighted real or imaginary threats
to the integrity of the state, and in all phases the ruling parties were assisted
by nationalist cultural organizations and sections of the media. In both
Croatia and Slovakia, independence brought an end to the first phase.
Meanwhile, the threat (or perceived threat, in the latter case) from minority
succession movements did not really recede until 1994–95. In Croatian
public discourse, the threats from ethnic minorities became less prominent
after the 1995 police and military operations, Flash and Storm, which led
to the expulsion of ethnic Serbs from the Krajina region and ended the effec-
tive occupation of a third of the country’s territory. In the Slovak case, the
Hungarian minority became less threatening after the Socialist Party under
Gyula Horn won the 1994 parliamentary elections in neighbouring Hungary,
ushering in a more moderate regime in Budapest. The final phase – charac-
terized by an escalating attack on the Other within the nation itself – signalled
that the ruling parties were becoming increasingly desperate, as national unity
around the HDZ and HZDS was beginning to wane (Fisher, 2006).
During the first half of the 1990s, the dominance of HDZ and HZDS was
facilitated by a weak and divided opposition that made a series of tactical
errors. In fact, the political opposition in Slovakia and Croatia often gave
the impression of helplessness in the face of government policies. Although
having to work under difficult conditions, particularly in light of the politi-
cal atmosphere fostered by the ruling parties, much of the blame for the
opposition’s failure to win broader public support lay with the parties them-
selves. Illustrative of their failure was the short-lived 1994 Jozef Moravčík-
led government in Slovakia. Created after defectors from HZDS and SNS
had united with the opposition to bring down Mečiar’s 1992–94 cabinet in
March, the Moravčík government embarked on a radical reform package
including pain-inducing economic measures, while simultaneously agreeing
to hold early elections rather than serve until the end of the parliamentary
term, which would have allowed the economy more time to recover. The
break from government provided HZDS with an opportunity to regroup,
while also allowing the party to lay the blame for the country’s economic
woes at the feet of the Moravčík-led ruling coalition (Haughton and Rybář,
2004). In both the 1992 and 1994 elections, one of the key reasons for the
Slovak opposition’s failure was its inability to unite, as significant portions
of the vote were lost on parties that failed to surpass the 5 percent electoral
threshold.
In Croatia, the opposition parties were shut out of government through-
out the 1990s, except for a brief period in 1991–92, when they served in
an HDZ-dominated government, seeing national unity as important during
the years of the heaviest fighting with the Serbs. As was the case in Slovakia,
one major failure of the Croatian opposition related to the unwillingness to
cooperate due to personality conflicts and differences in programmes. While
the Croatian opposition parties had difficulties in opposing the HDZ-led
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government on certain national issues, particularly because of the war, they


were slow to respond even on questions of economic mismanagement. In fact,
it was only after Croatian Archbishop Josip Bozanić in his 1997 Christmas
message pointed to the difficult social situation and criticized the growing
wealth of government officials that the left-wing Social Democratic Party
(Socijaldemokratska partija, SDP) began to present itself as a real social
alternative to the HDZ (Fisher, 2006).

Mechanisms of Reinforcement and Change: the Decline


of HZDS and HDZ in the mid–late 1990s

The elections of 1990 and 1992 could be viewed as setting off path-dependent
processes, given that the electoral victories of HDZ and HZDS, respectively,
helped set the scene for the following decade of politics in both countries,
and subsequent support for the regimes was reinforced through the use of
such policies as media-meddling and insider privatization. Theorists of path
dependence argue that actors’ choices at key formative moments of uncer-
tainty (or ‘critical junctures’) ‘lock in’ many durable, established political
patterns of variance across national cases (Mahoney, 2000; Pierson, 2004).
Such path-setting ‘critical junctures’ have often been identified as occurring
in and just after the period of transition in 1989–90 and have frequently
been used to explain contrasting national patterns of party and party system
formation (e.g. Gryzmała-Busse, 2002).
As Hanley et al. argue elsewhere in this collection, path-dependent accounts
suffer from numerous drawbacks; nevertheless, they do illuminate the role
played by mechanisms that reinforce movement along particular paths.
Although not wishing to stress that party politics in Croatia and Slovakia
from the 1990 and 1992 elections, respectively, were path-dependent
processes, we see the concept of reinforcing mechanisms as a useful tool for
analysing why HDZ and HZDS managed to dominate politics in the 1990s,
before eventually losing control. In both cases, what appeared to be strong
self-reinforcing mechanisms in the early 1990s were in fact not ‘locked in’.
Six reinforcing mechanisms can be identified that helped to ensure HDZ’s
and HZDS’s dominance in the early to mid-1990s (see Table 1). These mech-
anisms, which are briefly discussed in the previous section, include a charis-
matic leadership, a strategy of broad-based appeal, insider privatization,
illiberalism/anti-democratic actions (such as attacks on the media), use of
the Other in public discourse, and a divided opposition. Although these
reinforcing mechanisms acted in concert, they can be treated as separate
analytically.
In the latter half of the decade, each of these was replaced by mechanisms
of change, ensuring that success was not locked in. While Tud̄man and Mečiar
were the most charismatic politicians in their respective countries during the
early 1990s, their charismatic appeal began to wane as the consequences of
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Table 1. Reinforcing and change mechanisms in Slovak and Croatian party politics
Reinforcing mechanisms early–mid 1990s Mechanisms of change mid–late 1990s

Charismatic leadership in a leader Declining appeal of this charisma (and in the


dominated party case of Tud̄man, death)
Strategy of broad-based appeal Strategy focused on core constituency
Insider privatization Privatization scandals
Illiberalism/anti-democratic actions Illiberalism/anti-democratic actions provoking
(including control of sections of the international opprobrium and harming
media) European integration aspirations
Use of the Other Decline in potency of discourse of the Other
and the overstepping of boundaries in
nationalist discourse
Divided opposition United opposition

their ruling style became apparent. In addition, their status as the fathers of
their nations had less resonance once independence had been secured (Fisher,
2006; Minarovič, 2004: 52). Moreover, both Tud̄man and Mečiar’s strategy
of building a broad base of support eventually gave way to policies and
rhetoric that appealed to a core constituency. In both countries, insider
privatization yielded a series of scandals illuminating that personal and
clientelistic concerns rather than the national interest were the guiding lights
of policy (Fisher, 2006). Furthermore, the governments’ illiberal acts,
including those directed at the internal Other, such as Mečiar’s campaign
during 1994–98 to undermine and discredit the Slovak President Michal
Kováč, sullied the name of Slovakia and Croatia in international circles,
while at the same time alienating potential domestic supporters. Both HDZ
and HZDS sought EU membership for their respective countries, but were
not willing to make the necessary sacrifices and play by EU rules. The attack
on the Other, in combination with murky privatization deals and a dis-
respect for the constitutional niceties of democratic politics, invoked inter-
national isolation resulting in the EU’s and NATO’s decisions in 1997 not
to begin accession negotiations with Slovakia (Henderson, 1999; Leško,
1998). Meanwhile, despite its relative economic wealth, Croatia was not
even in the running for EU and NATO membership and was instead rele-
gated to a group of poorer Balkan states, much to the chagrin of the country’s
politicians.
The combination of the Slovak government’s illiberalism and the rejec-
tions at the international level persuaded the opposition to put aside their
differences and form the Slovak Democratic Coalition (Slovenská demo-
kratická koalicia, SDK) in 1997 (Kopeček, 1999). Although the coalition
was an umbrella grouping including greens and social democrats, at the core
of SDK was a centre–right coalition of liberals (of both social and economic
varieties) and conservatives from the Christian democratic KDH who had
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grouped together a year earlier in the so-called Blue Coalition. While KDH
had always been strong in its opposition to Mečiar’s policies, clearly profil-
ing itself as a centre–right party (Haughton and Rybář, 2004), a number of
the other prominent politicians in SDK had been allies of the prime minister
in the early 1990s, only quitting HZDS in 1993 or 1994 after they had lost
confidence in Mečiar’s leadership of his party and the country. Although
HZDS scored fractionally more than SDK in the 1998 elections, the coali-
tion joined forces with three other opposition parties to form an ideologi-
cally diverse government: the SDL’ , the Party of the Hungarian Coalition
and the newly formed Party of Civic Understanding.
In Croatia, it took most of the decade for the opposition to emerge as a
credible political force, particularly since the parties had never cooperated
in statewide government. Disagreements within the Croatian opposition
were deep, thanks in part to ideological differences between such parties
as the ex-communist SDP and the conservative Croatian Peasants’ Party
(Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS). While in Slovakia opposition to the
HZDS emerged on both the right and the left, in Croatia the strongest post-
independence opposition groups emerged on the left of the political spectrum,
based not only on the fact that the communist regime had been more liberal
and more popular than in Czechoslovakia, but also in reaction to the percep-
tion of the HDZ as a party of mostly right-wing values. Such a view was
especially apparent in the attitudes of Zagreb intellectuals, many of whom
had a left-wing, anti-nationalist approach. The HSS, which was the biggest
party in Croatia during the inter-war years, had only limited success during
the 1990s, as HDZ took over much of its support base – particularly in
areas with heavy war damage – and other former HSS strongholds natu-
rally disappeared due to demographic changes. In an attempt to differenti-
ate itself from the HDZ, even the HSS was attempting to profile itself as a
centrist party by the late 1990s, focused on the middle class and intellectuals
(Till, 1998). Six opposition parties in Croatia were eventually drawn together
on the issue of electoral reform in September 1998. Nonetheless, the ideo-
logically broad-based Opposition Six was almost torn apart in late January
1999, when SDP and Croatian Social-Liberal Party (Hrvatska socijalno-
liberalna stranka, HSLS) chairmen Ivica Račan and Dražen Budiša, respec-
tively, met with Tud̄man against the wishes of the other parties. Thanks in
part to external factors, including advice provided by Slovaks who had
united against Mečiar, the Opposition Six finally signed an agreement on
post-election cooperation in November 1999 establishing the basis for the
government that was formed in early 2000 (Fisher, 2006).

Programmatic Politics and the Reinvention of HDZ and HZDS

The electoral defeats suffered by HZDS and HDZ in 1998 and 2000, respec-
tively, and their replacement by broad-based governments committed to
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replacing the illiberalism of the past and achieving integration into Western
clubs can be seen as a ‘second transition’ (Deegan Krause, 2003). In the post-
1998 period in Slovakia and the post-2000 period in Croatia, there were two
significant developments in party politics. Firstly, competition became much
more structured along programmatic grounds and, secondly, both HDZ and
HZDS attempted to rebrand themselves as parties of the centre–right in the
mode of West European People’s Parties. HZDS even added the sobriquet
L’ udová strana (Peoples’ Party) to its name. (We return to these transform-
ations below.)
It was not just HZDS that underwent changes, so did SDK. The ideo-
logically broad-based SDK had been created with two goals in mind:
removing Mečiar and his allies from power and integrating Slovakia into
international clubs, especially the EU. With the common enemy defeated in
1998 and EU entry back on track, tensions within SDK came to the fore.
The forces of the right that had subsumed themselves under the umbrella
label began to differentiate themselves. Politicians from KDH, for instance,
demonstrated centrifugal tendencies. Whereas the KDH hardliners, who
had entered SDK with great reluctance, strove to carve out a distinctive
programme based on conservative Catholic values, a wing led by the new
Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda joined forces with liberals within SDK to
form the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (Slovenská demokratická
a krest’anská únia, SDKÚ).
By the time of the 2002 parliamentary elections, SDKÚ’s appeal lay less
in the party’s centre–right ideology than ‘in its role as the guarantor of
Slovakia’s entry into international clubs and as a bulwark against the
unpalatable getting their hands on power’ (Haughton and Rybář, 2004:
130). Nonetheless, with Mečiar and his allies twice kept out of government
and with NATO and EU entry secured by the end of 2002, the second
Dzurinda government was accorded room for manoeuvre to pursue a radical
neoliberal agenda. Driven by a belief in the superiority of the market, the
SDKÚ-led government that held office in 2002–06 embarked on radical
socio-economic reforms, including the introduction of private pension
accounts, changes to the health system, cuts in welfare benefits and the
much-vaunted 19 percent flat-rate tax (Fisher et al., 2007). KDH’s control
of the power ministries of interior and justice accorded its ministers the
opportunity to implement a tough law-and-order agenda inspired by admi-
ration for the American Justice system (Williams, 2004). The ruling coali-
tion’s ability to pursue that policy was facilitated by the lack of effective
opposition, especially from the left (Malová and Haughton, 2006).
Although the 2002–06 centre–right government was arguably the most
ideologically coherent government formed since 1989, differences of opinion
over the role of the church in politics caused tensions not just between
liberals and conservatives, such as over abortion in the summer of 2003,
but also between moderate Christians who had joined SDKÚ and the hard-
liners in KDH. The latter tension eventually contributed to the decision to
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call early elections in June 2006, three months ahead of schedule. Formally,
the early elections were provoked by a dispute over the country’s treaty with
The Vatican, a disagreement that marked the culmination of long-running
tensions between the SDKÚ and KDH, based partly on the latter’s disdain
for Dzurinda’s leadership style (Haughton and Rybář, 2008).
As in the case of Slovakia, Croatia’s opposition had swept ideological
differences under the carpet to defeat HDZ in the 2000 elections. The new
cabinet was led by Prime Minister Račan and initially included all the
parties of the Opposition Six. Nonetheless, in contrast to the 1998–2002
and 2002–06 Slovak governments, the Croatian cabinet was dominated by
leftist rather than centre–right parties. While in Slovakia the first Dzurinda-
led government was united by the continued presence of Mečiar, in Croatia
Tud̄man’s death meant that government unity was initially less important,
particularly since HDZ was in a state of flux following the loss of its leader.
Shortly after the Račan government took office, splits began to appear within
Croatia’s ruling coalition, initially manifested in the government’s inability
to agree on a single candidate for the direct presidential elections, but largely
shaped by debates over the past.
The Račan government was especially fearful of the veterans’ movement
from the wars of the early 1990s (Fisher, 2003), a stance that not only
prevented an honest assessment of Croatia’s past but also blocked further
cooperation with the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) in The Hague. It gradually became clear that the Račan government
was unwilling or incapable of moving Croatia forward in certain respects,
and national questions proved to be a source of significant instability inside
the cabinet (Fisher, 2006). Firstly, the small Istrian party left the ruling coali-
tion in June 2001 over the issue of rights for ethnic Italians and the Italian
language in the Istrian peninsula. In July 2002, the HSLS split over the issue
of cooperation with the ICTY, and 14 of the party’s original parliamentary
deputies left the ruling coalition. With the Račan government overly cautious
regarding a potential nationalist backlash against its decisions, it soon
appeared that only the transformed HDZ itself would have the strength to
undo the sins of the previous regime. In fact, only after the reformed HDZ
returned to power in late 2003 under the leadership of Prime Minister Ivo
Sanader was real progress made in Croatia’s path towards the EU, culmi-
nating in the European Council’s decision to launch accession negotiations
in October 2005.
Both HDZ and HZDS transformed themselves as a result of rejections:
the internal rejection of losing power, combined with the external rejection
of being characterized as unacceptable partners by international clubs.
Rejection provoked soul-searching and a recognition of the need for change.
Both parties attempted to transform themselves into centre–right parties and
sought membership of international groupings such as the EPP. Transform-
ation of HDZ and HZDS was driven by removal from power. In the 1990s,
both parties had been successful electoral machines that tailored their sails
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to catch the electoral winds, particularly in the early part of the decade.
Both parties had come to realize by the end of the 1990s, however, that the
constant repetition of national appeals that had bolstered support for the
parties in the past had lost their appeal; they neither helped to attract new
voters nor were they well received in Western capitals (Deegan-Krause, 2004;
Fisher, 2006).
Leadership dominance played an important role in the transformation of
the two parties. In Slovakia, most parties are dominated by their leaders
(Haughton, 2004b). During the 1990s, opponents of Mečiar in HZDS had
used the exit option, choosing to leave the party after being unable to influ-
ence policy or alter the style of leadership. By the time of the party’s trans-
formation congress in March 2000, therefore, Mečiar was surrounded by
largely compliant colleagues willing to accept the rebranding of HZDS as
a centre–right party, although it is worth stressing that some of the then
leading figures in the party, such as Ol’ga Keltošová (2000), were keen on
the change.
Leadership dominance played a different role in Croatia. The HDZ’s elec-
toral defeat in 2000 had swiftly followed the death of the party’s iconic
founder in December 1999. The newly elected leader Ivo Sanader realized
that a programme of national mobilization and Tud̄man-era policies, which
had worked so well for the party in the 1990s, would in all probability
condemn the party to permanent opposition. Sanader saw an opportunity
to move the party in a new direction, while bringing Croatia towards the
West. By 2002, Sanader had reined in his party and directed it towards the
centre of the spectrum, with right-wing radicals being pushed out of HDZ.
In the November 2003 parliamentary elections, the reformed HDZ prevailed,
based mainly on the population’s economic frustrations, rather than due to
a resurgence of nationalism or nostalgia for the past. Given the left-wing
slant of Croatia’s 2000–03 cabinet, it was only natural that citizens seeking
change would shift towards the centre–right opposition.
In addition to domestic factors, both Sanader and Mečiar’s decision to
rebrand was also affected greatly by the international context. With the
initial national project of achieving and securing independence fulfilled, the
new national project became entry into Western clubs, especially the EU.
The 1998 and 2000 electoral defeats for the HZDS and HDZ, respectively,
had ushered in broad-based governments that placed EU membership high
on their lists of priorities (Kollár and Mesežnikov, 2002). In Slovakia the
1998–2002 SDK-led government achieved remarkable progress in accession
negotiations (Bilčík, 2002). Although progress towards the EU was slow
under Račan’s government, the European Commission acknowledged that
the 2000 elections ‘marked a turning point in relations between the EU and
Croatia’ (European Commission, 2004: 6). In the 1990s, both HDZ and
HZDS had consistently argued in favour of their respective countries joining
the EU (e.g. HZDS, 1994). Indeed, Mečiar had personally submitted Slovakia’s
formal membership application in 1995, while in Croatia’s 2000 election
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campaign, one HDZ campaign poster featured the slogan ‘A vote for Europe’,
with an EU flag in the background. Nevertheless, neither party had been
willing to make the necessary sacrifices domestically. In order to stand a
chance of regaining power in the first decade of the twenty-first century,
both parties needed to gain credibility at the European level. The shift corre-
sponds with Vachudova’s region-wide finding that ‘sooner or later most
political actors see the benefits of moving their political agenda toward
compatibility with the state’s bid for EU membership’ (2005: 5).
In its successful 2003 election campaign, HDZ placed EU membership at
the top of the agenda, forcing the party to perform a volte-face on policies
towards ethnic Serbs and cooperation with the ICTY. International factors
clearly played a role in HDZ’s post-election development as well. While the
EU had few concerns with the reformed HDZ’s return to power in 2003,
given that Tud̄man was no longer on the scene, both Brussels and Wash-
ington influenced the formation of the post-election government, threaten-
ing that Croatia could be faced with international isolation if far-right
Croatian Party of Rights leader Anto D̄apić were included in Sanader’s
cabinet (Kasapović, 2003: 55). As a result, the HDZ government was forced
to rely on an ethnic Serbian party for support. After returning to office,
HDZ proved itself a strong advocate of EU membership, not just in word,
but also in deed, and the party even accepted limitations on national sover-
eignty to help push integration forward. The government not only increased
cooperation with the ICTY, but also tackled other problems relating to
Croatia’s past, including the building of ties with former federal partners in
Serbia (Fisher, 2006).
While electoral arithmetic for Sanader meant that an external image
conversion was key, HZDS’s declining support base meant that a change of
image was also required for the party to have any coalition potential. With
Mečiar’s continued position at the party’s helm and more party defectors
bemoaning the leader’s style as they left in 2002–03, neither international
bodies nor other parties in Slovakia detected any genuine conversion. Indeed,
HZDS found the route to membership in the European People’s Party (EPP)
blocked by centre–right parties from Slovakia that were already in the group.
While HZDS’s route to EPP membership was obstructed, that was not
the case for the HDZ, given the weakness of competition on the centre–right
in Croatia. HDZ was accorded observer status at the October 2002 EPP
congress in Lisbon. Writing in the EPP’s own journal, European View, two
leading EPP officials argue that the EPP ‘helped steer’ HDZ by upgrading
the party from observer to associate member status in April 2004. Moreover,
the authors suggest that ‘our painstaking efforts bore fruit and Croatia is
finally on its way to becoming the 28th EU Member State’ (López-Istúriz and
Sasmatzoglou, 2005: 8). It would be inaccurate, however, to see the EPP as
the only driver of change. On the one hand, EPP pressure encouraged the
HDZ government to address the issue of integrating national minorities, but
EPP membership should be seen rather as a reinforcement factor in three
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key ways. Firstly, it helped Sanader deepen and justify his party’s modern-
ization. Secondly, strong links forged with other parties in the EPP, especi-
ally the German Christian Democrats and the Austrian People’s Party,
helped facilitate the transfer of knowledge and expertise to HDZ (Sanader,
2006). Thirdly, EPP membership helped consolidate HDZ’s position as the
Croatian centre–right party: even by 2006, the HSS still only had observer
status in the organization.
Although electoral defeat and international rejection stimulated both parties
to transform themselves, it does not explain why HZDS, which had projected
itself as centrist in the early and mid-1990s (Haughton, 2001; HZDS, 1994;
Menzies, 2003), chose to rebrand itself as a centre–right party. Indeed, in
terms of electoral arithmetic, a pure vote-seeking explanation would indicate
that a centrist or centre–left positioning might have yielded greater rewards,
as Smer-sociálna demokracia’s electoral success in the 2006 parliamentary
elections indicated (Haughton and Rybář, 2008; Henderson, 2006). The
HZDS repositioning was driven first by the need to become more identifi-
able as a modern and moderate European party, a shift that could be
confirmed by membership of an international party body. That provided
three basic options: social democrat, liberal or centre–right.
Although a year before the HZDS’s transformation congress, some repre-
sentatives were considering the possibility of the social-democratization of the
party (Kopeček, 2006: 254), the HZDS chose the centre–right option for three
reasons. First, the HZDS had always stressed its basis in Christian values (e.g.
HZDS, 1994), hence transforming into a centre–right grouping allowed the
party the chance to emphasize the continuation of its underlying principles
(e.g. HZDS, 2002). Second, conservatism made sense, because leading figures
in the party now wanted to protect themselves and associates who had been
beneficiaries of insider privatization from a potential redistribution of wealth.
Third, a moderate centre–right message appeared best suited to appeal to
HZDS’s voters, many of whom were conservative in the sense of not wanting
change. The decision to attach the label of People’s Party was a deliberate
move. Other options, such as pitching it as a Christian democratic party or
conservative centre–right or liberal, could lose the party support, so HZDS
chose to brand itself as a People’s Party, which had the advantage of ambi-
guity: it could easily be interpreted in different ways (Kopeček, 2006: 254).
The HZDS’s decision to enter a government with Smer and SNS following
Slovakia’s June 2006 parliamentary elections seems to have guaranteed the
party’s exclusion from moderate centre–right groupings in the years to
come. With EU membership achieved, attitudes towards HZDS had begun
to soften, with SDKÚ officials hinting at possible post-election collaboration
with the party, particularly if that partnership would guarantee that the
economic reforms of the 2002–06 government were to remain intact.
Nonetheless, after eight years in opposition, the HZDS seemed more eager
to regain power than to reorient itself as an internationally respected party
of the mainstream centre–right.
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Conclusion: From the Politics of State-Building to


Programmatic Politics

An examination of the cases of Croatia and Slovakia yields insights into the
development of programmatic politics in states that emerged from multi-
national communist-era federations. Firstly, the federal experience and the
timing and sequence of the first free elections and the extrication from the
federal state helped shape the terrain of party competition, although decisions
by political actors in the early 1990s were key. HDZ and HZDS emphasized
the nation throughout the 1990s, thereby reducing the salience of economic-
based left–right competition and shaping the contours of party competition.
Secondly, even where the appeals to the nation have helped deliver electoral
success in post-federal societies, the examples of Slovakia and Croatia suggest
that where such appeals are combined with illiberalism and are received un-
favourably by strategically important international clubs, they have a limited
shelf life. While support can be reinforced in the short term through such
means as charismatic leadership, a rhetoric directed against an ‘Other’ and
insider privatization, these appear unable to lock in electoral success. Indeed,
use of these tools can stimulate opposition parties to join together to remove
the dominant party from power, helping to facilitate the emergence of
competition based more on left–right programmatic grounds. Thirdly, the
two cases suggest that international organizations and party groupings can
play a transformative role in party politics, not only in providing additional
incentives to form umbrella groupings to enact a second transition, but also
in providing incentives for change when dominant parties lose power.

Notes

Many people have helped during this article’s very long gestation in both the research
and writing stages. In particular, we thank Alenka Krašovec, Marek Rybář, Allan
Sikk, Dragan Stavjanin, Roberta Striga, Aleks Szczerbiak, Milada Anna Vachudova,
Nenad Zakošek, participants at an ESRC funded seminar at University College
London in September 2004 and this journal’s reviewers. Grateful thanks are also
extended to the University of Birmingham’s School of Social Science Research Fund
for funding research trips to Croatia, Estonia and Slovenia. Above all, especial thanks
are extended to Seán Hanley for his frequent encouragement, intellectual rigour and
almost unlimited reserves of patience.

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Agency Argument.

TIM HAUGHTON is Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Central and Eastern Europe
at Birmingham University. He is the author of Constraints and Opportunities of
Leadership in Post-Communist Europe (2005) and has published articles examining
various dimensions of politics in Central and Eastern Europe inter alia in Europe-
Asia Studies, West European Politics and the Journal of Communist Studies and
Transition Politics.
ADDRESS: Centre for Russian and East European Studies, European Research
Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. [email: T.J.Haughton@bham.ac.uk]

SHARON FISHER is Senior Economist with Global Insight’s Country Intelligence


Group in Washington, DC, where she conducts economic and political analysis, risk
assessment, and forecasting on a number of European Union and Balkan countries.
Previously, she served as an analyst at the RFE/RL Research Institute in Munich and
the Open Media Research Institute in Prague. Her extensive list of publications
includes Political Change in Post-Communist Slovakia and Croatia: From Nation-
alist to Europeanist (2006, Palgrave Macmillan).

Paper submitted 2 February 2006; accepted for publication 8 September 2006.


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