“Tapping the Potential”: From Remittances to Revisioning Citizenship in Croatia

Terms such as “international competitiveness”,  “innovation clusters” and “knowledge mobilization” have become the mantra of post-socialist governments anxious to participate in the global economy, particularly in Croatia. Preparation for Croatia’s 2013 accession to the European Union meant the creation or revision of government policies including the development of minority rights legislation, provisions regarding the judiciary, human rights as well as changes to monetary policy and the free movement of capital and labour. What have also changed are citizenship laws specifically in the designation of minorities, naturalization and immigration, changes that have generated criticism for their potential to discriminate against non-ethnic Croats (cf. Štiks, 2010, Koska, 2011, Ragazzi, 2009).

In this paper, I extend current debates on recent citizenship amendments to consider the impacts of policy directions of international financial and governance bodies like the EU, OECD, UNDP and others to target diasporas as national development tools. I argue that the rush to adopt (or to capitulate) to neoliberal restructuring policies and priorities, contributes to the further entrenchment of an ethnicized constitution and nation-building process. Far from thinking of ethnicity as an inherently retrograde identification hampering inclusivity in the European Union, Croatian political leaders continue to draft and/or approve citizenship amendments and provisions along ethnic lines, with diaspora Croats figuring prominently in their policies and politics. What do the particularities of the Croatian case reveal about similar citizenship strategies in a region increasingly facing and/or absorbed into the orbit of global development processes.