Voting Rights, Electoral Systems, and Political Representation of Diaspora in Croatia
Voting Rights, Electoral Systems, and Political Representation of Diaspora in Croatia

Summary/Abstract: Croatia represents in many respects a unique case in the world in the way it standardized the right to vote, the electoral model, and the pattern of political representation of the diaspora in the national parliament. Besides standard theoretical arguments that explain the right of diaspora members to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections in the country, the authorities made use of a number of contextually specific political, economic, military, and moral reasons for that. It was shown that principled reasons which were used to justify legalizing diaspora voting rights and institutionalization of special electoral models as well as the patterns of political representation in the Croatian parliament were subordinated to the interests to symbolically integrate the Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the political system of Croatia, who would then, as a sort of generic voters, secure safe votes and bonus seats for the Croatian Democratic Union.

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