Democratic Continuity or Regression?: Croatia’s Post-EU Political Trajectory

This article deals with the level of democracy in Croatia after EU accession. The first part presents key events, processes, and actors which have shaped the trajectory of democratic development. The second part discusses the Croatian case in the context of current research on democratic backsliding. The third part tests the idea about democratic backsliding in Croatia by running regression models with democracy indices derived from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset. The findings challenge the idea of democratic backsliding in Croatia. The models do not show a clear association of decreased democracy scores after EU accession but point to a stronger role of the pre-accession period in increasing levels of democracy in Croatia. The models also highlight the explanatory role of executive and public sector corruption regarding democracy levels in Croatia. Instead of speaking of democratic backsliding, the Croatian case can be better described as one experiencing democratic stagnation.