The trajectory of the post-2000 Croatian radical right ideas: from anti-communism to anti-liberalism

This study examines post-2000 anti-liberal ideological production in Croatia and its links to the rise of radical-right politics. It also places Croatian anti-liberal ideas within the broader anti-liberal ideological trends in Central and Eastern Europe. The article shows that the emergence of anti-liberal ideas corresponded with the country’s successful EU accession in 2013. Anti-liberal ideology first appeared as a backlash against the moderate-right turn of Croatia’s main party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The article explains that the right-wing cultural anti-liberal backlash began as ‘history wars’ over the communist past, challenging the national reconciliation idea established by the first president, Franjo Tuđman. Anti-liberal intellectuals drew on the ‘morality politics’ discourse of the Catholic Church and grassroots Catholic initiatives. Appropriating these influences, the anti-liberal intellectuals conceptualized two distinct ideological frameworks. The first framework was defined as a dichotomy between pro-welfare traditionalists and nationally alienated neoliberals, and the second merged religious radical-right ideas with free-market advocacy. These frameworks were conceptualized as an activist force for social transformation and supplied ideology to the radical-right political parties that emerged in the late 2010s.