History matters: development and institutional persistence of the Habsburg Military Frontier in Croatia

Abstract

In this paper we explore the effect of the long-gone Habsburg Military Frontier on modern institutions in Croatia. We use the Life in Transition Survey and geographic regression discontinuity design to identify the causal mechanism between historical institutions and attitudes towards trust and corruption. We find that the areas of the former Military Frontier are underdeveloped and poorer with worse economic performance indicators. Our results suggest that respondents living in the former Military Frontier territory have lower levels of interpersonal trust, a higher level of trust in public authorities, but also tend to bribe those institutions more often when they interact with them. We claim that the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s is not just a confounding factor in the analysis but also a potential channel and find evidence that attitudes towards bribery can survive even harsh wars, while trust in public institutions collapses during extreme events of violence.

Choosing Women in Postwar Elections: Exposure to War Violence, Ideology, and Voters’ Gender Bias

“…In other words, it was independent of the local population’s possible gender bias. However, it is also the case that the violence was higher in areas that were comparatively less socioeconomically developed, with some areas having a history of armed conflict and militarized public administration going back to Habsburg times (Tkalec 2020)—lower levels of socioeconomic development and history of militarized social organization being factors that may have led to more traditional gender norms when it comes to involvement in politics. Some of these problems should be alleviated by our inclusion of municipality-level variables for education , unemployment , and urbanization , whose geographic pattern today is little different than it was decades ago.…”

The interpretation of Andrić's doctoral dissertation through the theory of historical institutionalism

“…46 Marina Tkalec u istraživanju koje je sprovela istražujući institucionalni utjecaj Vojne krajine na moderne institucije u Hrvatskoj, navodi da ljudi koji su došli sa istoka u Vojnu krajinu su sa sobom donijeli kulturu Istoka i Osmanlija, i kako Tkalec dalje obrazlaže, budući da Osmanskim carstvom, za razliku od Habsburškog, nije vladao zakon, ne iznenađuje da se podmićivanje na tim prostorima duže održalo. 47 Na ovakvu tezu uslijedio je odgovor društva turkologa i historičara koji su osporili tezu Tkalec da u Osmanskom carstvu nije vladao zakon. Kako se navodi u tom odgovoru:…”

“…46 In a research that focused on the institutional effects of the Military Frontier on the modern institutions of Croatia, Marina Tkalec states that people who settled in the Military Frontier from the east brought with them the culture of the East and the Ottomans, and, as Tkalec further explains, given that the Ottoman Empire, unlike the Habsburg one, was not ruled by law, it is not surprising that corruption held on for a longer period of time in those areas. 47 This thesis was responded to by a society of Turkologists and historians who disputed Tkalec's claim that the Ottoman Empire was not ruled by law. As stated in the response, "...In the 16th century, when the majority of Croatian territories came into contact with the Ottomans, the Ottoman Empire was one of the best organized state structures, a fully formed society with a legal and governance system.…”

Contextualizing Anti-Immigrant Attitudes of East Europeans

“…The LITS, which was conducted in three waves in 2006, 2010, and 2016, is commonly used by social scientists to investigate economic, political, and social issues related to the post-communist transition (e.g. Anderson, 2017;Bandelj, 2016;Bandelj & Finley, 2019;Cojocaru, 2014aCojocaru, , 2014bCojocaru & Diagne, 2015;Djankov, Nikolova, & Zilinsky, 2016;Guriev & Melnikov, 2018;Habibov, Auchynnikava, & Luo, 2019;Korosteleva & Stepien-Baig, 2020;Nikolova & Sanfrey, 2016;Sanfrey, 2013;Schneider, 2017;Spoor, Tasciotti, & Peleah, 2014;Tertytchnaya, Vries, Solaz, & Doyle, 2018;Tkalec, 2020). To investigate the impact of the 2015 European migrant crisis, we used data from the 2010 and 2016 waves.…”