Populism in Croatia: The Curious Case of The Bridge (Most)

Abstract

The main goal of the paper is to establish to which extent it is justified to label a newly established Croatian party The Bridge (Most) a populist party. In order to answer this question, the paper relies on theoretical, methodological and empirical insights from contemporary literature on populism. The study is based on inclusive approach to populism and accordingly developed categories for content analysis. The analysis only partially confirms the assumption that Most is a populist option. The authors suggest that Most is best described as a combination of centrist populism and an anti-establishment reform party. They suggest that populism research would benefit from distinguishing between anti-elitist and anti-establishment position of parties and politicians. Finally, they argue that the ‘curiosity’ of Most stems primarily from their awkward and paradoxical relationship towards Croatian political elite: Most’s politicians criticise political elite for being incompetent and corrupt, while at the same time advocating alliance with this same elite in order to implement reforms and bring prosperity to Croatian society.

Keywords

• Croatia
• Most of independent lists (The Bridge)
• content analysis
• populism
• populist parties
• anti-establishment reform parties