engleski

Egalitarian values and modernization in post- transitional Croatia: Static or dynamic egalitarianism?

Josip Županov’s egalitarian syndrome is one of the most influential and most contested concepts coming from East European sociology. Its aim was to identify reasons why Croatia, and by extension, former Yugoslav countries, are lagging behind in economic development and it is defined as a cluster of egalitarian beliefs hindering economy and private initiative. It has been thoroughly researched but not in the context of other modernization theories. Using findings from a nationally representative survey (N=1000) we will try to demonstrate that the configuration of egalitarian values has changed during time and that path dependency approach fails to explain the change from “blanket” egalitarism of the older generations to value orientation more resembling Inglehart’s theory of modernization in which egalitarian values form the base of modern tolerant and expressive values. Results show that although egalitarian values decrease in younger generations, they tend to be more connected to other modern values like gender equality, meaning that there is a slow transition from overarching egalitarianism towards more nuanced and, within the context of Inglehart’s theory, modern concept of equality.

egalitarian syndrome, evolutionary modernization theory, Croatia, gender equality, postsocialism

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