Confidence in Institutions, Political Orientations and Attitudes of Croatian Students

After the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia, Croatian society underwent a transformation of its political and economic (sub)systems. Although Croatian society has faced numerous challenges in its transitional development, democracy, democratic rule of law and equality of all citizens have become values that are nowadays advocated, at least declaratively, by the vast majority of political and social actors. Nevertheless, the war and the challenges of transition have led to the fact that a large number of citizens do not have confidence in important social institutions whose functioning is necessary for the operation and legitimation of an effective democratic order. Consequently, in this paper, based on the survey conducted on the student sample (N = 635), we analyze: (1) the level of confidence that students, as part of the "generation" born and raised in the post- socialist period, have in important institutions of Croatian society and (2) their political attitudes. The results show that, on average, students do have not confidence in most institutions: political parties, political institutions, the judiciary, the Church, the media, and trade unions. The institution in which more than a half of the respondents have confidence is education. When it comes to political attitudes, students mostly reject rigid ethnocentrism and clericalism. On the contrary, they accept multiculturalism and are indecisive towards scientism. Statistical analysis shows that the students’ political orientations (left, center, right) and attitudes (worldviews) are corelated to the level of their confidence in social institutions. Given the fact that students express high distrust in key political institutions, it can be concluded that they doubt the efficiency (functionality) of the democratic order in Croatia. At the same time, the expressed confidence in educational institutions and the acceptance of multiculturalism can be the basis for an optimistic conclusion about the existence of potential for strengthening the further democratization of Croatian society