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National Threat Perception and Dominance- Submissive Authoritarianism as Predictors of Totalitarian Socialist Ideology

Driven by the constant turmoil between the ethnic majority and minorities in some parts of Croatia, this paper aims to provide an insight into one of the aspects on nature of possible factors affecting the specific ideology behind these conflicts. A structural model for prediction of totalitarian socialist ideology in Croatian and Serbian ethnic groups was developed and evaluated by using full information maximum likelihood estimates obtained from LISREL 8.52 software. Assumption was that both national threat perception and dominance-submissive authoritarianism would have an effect on totalitarian socialist ideology. The data reported were obtained by standard survey methods on a sample of adult population (N=973) in the region where Croats and the members of Serbian ethnic minority have been living together. Based on acceptable fit indices of second-order confirmatory factor analysis totalitarian socialist ideology was defined by three latent variables: political totalitarianism, state economic interventionism, and working-class ruling and egalitarianism. National threat perception was defined by latent variables national siege mentality, European Union threat perception, and support for immigrant persecution, while dominance-submissive authoritarianism by authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission, and dominance orientation. Structural model tested on both Croatian and Serbian samples indicated that independent constructs were significant predictors of a totalitarian socialist ideology, where threat perception indicated a stronger effect than authoritarianism. Goodness- of-fit indices suggested acceptable fit of the model in different ethnic samples. The concept of threat perception, avoidance of uncertainty, authoritarian personality, and the socio-political and historical context were used in interpreting the findings, and indicating their political implications.

totalitarianism; threat perception; authoritarianism; social dominance orientation; structural equation modeling; Croats; Serbian ethnic minority

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