"High Value" Citizens and the Transnational Ethnic Advantage in Croatia

In the 25 years since Croatia achieved independence, transnational connections among Croatians have shifted dramatically to include a wide spectrum of social, political and economic entanglements that differ markedly from the socialist Yugoslav period. Among these is the intensification of Croatian interest in diaspora Croats as potentially lucrative partners in economic investment. Since the introduction of the Strategy on Relations between the Republic of Croatia and Croats Abroad devised in 2011 by the conservative HDZ party in power, diaspora Croats have become increasingly valorized as essential to Croatia’s well-being. This was in part a manoeuver to redefine and prioritize relationships with ethnic Croats, a strategy that parallels the growing efforts of other nation-states to encourage ‘return’ and to ‘harness’ the economic resources and skills of their diaspora populations (Gamlen 2006). Similar trends can be observed in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and elsewhere in Southeast Europe. While most critics see the inclusion of diasporas in Croatian citizenship laws as ‘ethnic engineering’ (Štiks 2013), I go beyond this assessment to consider the privileging of particularly ‘high value’ ethnic diaspora Croats by those who have a stake in promoting their political and economic agendas through the reconfiguration of transnational ties. The Croatian example demonstrates how citizenship amendments contribute to and exacerbate already existing as well as emergent forms of politically and economically-based forms of inequality (for example, conservatism, exclusionary policies towards minorities and migrants, clientelism and corruption), leading to the further entrenchment of differentiated citizenships in the region and beyond.