Politička kultura građana i anketna istraživanja u Hrvatskoj
Political Culture of Citizens and the Sample Inquiries in Croatia

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of two inquiries of reactions of the inquired on inquiries in Croatia there has been gathered a set of data which have been analyzed by the method of the contents analysis. Wanting to perform analysis according regions, communities in Croatia have been divided into Panonia, Dinarids and the Seaside region, to be possible to find eventual difference which spring out of the mentality of population. The conclusions of this investigation are Firstly suppositions which have to be proved in further work by similar but different — more complete — investigations, whether they relate only to the reactions of the inquired upon the inquiries or, wider, to political culture or social mentality of po¬pulation. 1) General back wardness or surroundings wherein inquiring was made especially of those which are in the phase of depopulation or of those districts which have been treated as underdeveloped, is such a problem to take care about, not only from the view of inquiries and variability of results. Rural population is specially shut in relation to inquiries; so one can make out of it their being shut in relation to the new streams in social life. On the other side process or perhaps only a slight phenomenon has been observed that the population of the urban regions or some parts of them have also been shut in relation to the public. While in the former case the reason for such a reaction is the traditional mentality and political experience of rural communities, which were almost autarchic until recently, in the latter one. among the urban population. there might be the case of shutting such surroundings in relation to the public as a result of civilization and hence privatization. 2) The female population, especially from the country is reserved and suspicious — with a more considerable misunderstanding of social and political problems, and in particular cases the husband still has to give approval to his wife or daughter to answer the inquiry. 3) Our citizens are evidently in lack, in many cases, even of fundamental information about particular questions of social and political life, so that also those notions are strange to them which are in the everyday use. 4) Distrust towards the inquiry is one of the characteristics of reactions of population which has become probably as a result of some bad or no political experiences, but also as the traditional distrust towards a stranger. These are probably some of the causes of hiding true material condition and income, which appears as a consequence of experience of our man who always whenever one came to the village to note something, peasants usually had to give something. 5) Political situation in the world and in our country is also reflected in the inquiries, in two forms: a) political situation in some cases enlarges the restraint of the inquired in relation to the inquiries, citizens become distrustful; b) political situation according to the data which are presented in the moment of danger for the system — society — homogenizes attitudes in the direction of self-governing socialism, but on the other side, the inner problems of development cause vacillation and uncertainty of population. The last mentioned leads to the conclusion that in spite of low political culture, which can be manifested and registered by using different methods, upon the bases of earlier political experiences — of the mentality of population — we also find elements of political sensibility of people concerning social, economic and political events and problems, but not such understanding which might be given by better information and higher level of political culture.

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