+Citizenship and Social Welfare in Croatia: Clientelism and the limits of 'Europeanisation'

Paul Stubbs and Sinia ZrinakEdinburgh June 2013

+From Regimes to Assemblages

n Emphasis on hybridity, heterogeneity, fluidity, instability and unfinished nature of both citizenship and welfare rarely coherent and unitary regimes

n Conjunctural analysis /thick contextualisation open to the play of contingency

n Europeanisation (de-/re-)constructs subjectivities, identities and policy domains

n No necessary correspondence between legal regulations and lived practices importance of talking back

n Citizenship and welfare framed by relationality and multiscalarity

+Clientelism: Governance, Citizenship and Redistribution n Political science: clientelism as patronage and exchange

n Linked to capture of state, public administration, judiciary, mass media, etc., even within formally democratic systems

n Particularistic governance Exclusivist citizenship Asymmetrical (re-)distribution

n Kitschelt and Wilkinson: contingent; direct; viable; predictable; compliance; monitoring; enforcement

n Clientelism within welfare assemblages Southern European and post-communist models

+Political Clientelism in Croatia

n Tuman HDZ: authoritarian nationalism and charismatic clientelism state subsidies; public sector jobs; privatisation proceeds

n Sanader HDZ: modernising, Europeanising and/or re-scaling clientelism?

n Origins in political capitalism (upanov)

n Sub-national clientelisms: cities, regions, minority parties

n Enrolment of diaspora and Bosnian Croats

n Importance of veterans associations

+Social Clientelism in Croatia I

n Thesis of social welfare and radical break too simplistic

n Centres for Social Work rationing in war conditions: categorical (displaced refugees), symbolic (deserving/undeserving) and instrumental-particularistic (veze)

n Bosnian Croats: dual citizenship/residence allows access to welfare benefits and services; Cro budget spending on Cantonal health and education programmes

n Croatian Serbs: slow removal of de jure obstacles to welfare benefits; de facto obstacles remain; little or no recognition of fluidity of return and settlement

+Social Clientelism in Croatia II

n War veterans: symbolic category (0.5 m. on register); partially hidden in constructed categories of benefit recipients

n Passive, compensational approach not geared to reintegration of ex-combatants

n Evidence: 2013: new Govt 8,689 pupil-student scholarships cost 5.4m (avge 620); 2012: War pensions (HV) 70,579 beneficiaries (avge 700); 2011: 12,000 disability pensions per 100,000 pop; 138,962/328,018 war-related; 2010: 51.7% of social protection expenditure on sickness/healthcare and disability

+Conclusions and Dilemmas

n Does the concept of clientelism help or hinder analysis

n Problems of statistics/data/evidence hidden as a result of the same processes

n Relationship between welfare clientelism and residual/neo-liberal approaches to social policy not clear

n Role of international actors: EU, World Bank and relationship to economic and financial crisis/austerity/new European periphery needs more exploration

n Importance of wider regional/post-Yu context

+Thank you for your attention

n pstubbs@eizg.hr

n sinisa.zrinscak@zg.t-com.hr