IS POPULISM PRESENT IN CROATIAN POLITICS? THE ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF MILAN BANDIĆ AND ŽELJKO KERUM

U većini predstavničkih demokracija slijedom brojnih društvenih promjena dolazi do pojave populizma. Iako se etimološki radi o dva slična pojma, oni se ipak uvelike razlikuju. U današnje je vrijeme populizam postao dio demokracije, odnosno pojava koja ukazuje na njezinu krizu, i Hrvatska nije iznimka. Stoga se u ovom radu kvalitativnom analizom sadržaja pokušalo odgovoriti na pitanje možemo li govoriti o populizmu u Hrvatskoj. Analizirale su se poruke u novinskim člancima i plaćenim oglasima u Jutarnjem listu, Večernjem listu i Slobodnoj Dalmaciji tijekom kampanje za lokalne izbore 2009. i 2013. u slučaju Milana Bandića i Željka Keruma, kao i cjelokupne kampanje svakog od kandidata. Analiza je pokazala da u njihovim porukama i oglasima postoje svi indikatori populizma pa možemo zaključiti da u Hrvatskoj postoji populizam.In most representative democracies, due to numerous social changes, the emergence of populism can be detected. Even though these two terms share similar etymological backgrounds, they differ significantly. Today populism is the inherent part of democracy, i.e. the phenomenon that indicates that democracy is in a crisis, and the Republic of Croatia is no exception. That is why, using qualitative content analysis, we wanted to prove that populism is present in Croatia on the basis of indicators of populism that came out of the theoretical part of the thesis. Messages present in newspaper articles and paid ads during election campaigns for local elections in the years 2009 and 2013 in the case of Milan Bandić and Željko Kerum were analysed, as well as their overall campaigns. The analysis showed that we can find all indicators of populism in their messages and ads and therefore it can be concluded that populism in the Republic of Croatia exists