The Development and Position of Political Science in Croatia: Continuity and Discontinuities

Abstract

U članku se povijest i suvremeno stanje političke znanosti u Hrvatskoj razmatra iz perspektive odnosa i utjecaja vanjskih faktora i unutarnjih aktera. U prvom dijelu analizira se kombinacija vanjskih faktora (ponajprije prirode političko-ideološkog sustava i njegovih promjena) i unutarnjih aktera (osobito dviju vodećih grupacija na Fakultetu političkih nauka – filozofa i pravnika, kao nositelja suprotnih pristupa i koncepcija) koja je odredila formativno razdoblje razvoja politologije. U drugom dijelu članka razmatraju se dva diskontinuiteta u razvoju politologije (prvi je nastao sa slomom reformskog pokreta 1971/1972. i njime se prekida formativno razdoblje i počinje doba reideologizacije i marginalizacije discipline i studija, a drugi je nastao sa slomom socijalizma i jugoslavenske države 1991/1992. i njime završava razdoblje marksističke politologije i otpočinje razvoj politologije kao samostalne znanosti u pluralističkom okružju) te se pokazuje određeni kontinuitet koji se očitovao u stalnom, iako neujednačenom, procesu osamostaljivanja politologije kao znanosti, u njezinu metodološkome moderniziranju te u postupnoj prevlasti pozitivizma. U trećem dijeluukazuje se na nastanak politološke ideologije (politologizma) kao obilježja suvremenog stanja politologije te na neke tendencije povezane s tim (marginalizacija političke teorije,tendencija ekskluzivizma i zatvaranja).The paper examines the history and contemporary position of political science in Croatia from the perspective of the relationship and influence between external factors and internal actors. The first part analyses the combination of external factors (in the first place, the nature of the political-ideological system and its changes) and internal actors (particularly the two leading groupings at the Faculty of Political Science – the philosophers and jurists, as bearers of opposite approaches and conceptions), which determined the formative period of the development of political science. The second part of the paper examines two discontinuities in the development of political science (the first one emerged with the breakdown of the reformist movement in 1971/72, by which the formative period terminated and the period of reideologisation and marginalisation of the discipline and studies began, and the second one emerged with the collapse of socialism and the Yugoslav state in 1991/92, and with it the period of Marxist political science terminated and the development of political science as an autonomous discipline in a pluralist environment began), and shows a certain continuity which manifested itself in a permanent, if ununiform, process of increasing the independence of political science as an academic discipline and of its methodological modernisation, as well as in the gradual prevalence of positivism. The third part points to the emergence of a political science ideology (“politologism”) as a feature of the contemporary position of political science, and to some related tendencies (the marginalisation of political theory, tendency toward exclusivism and closure)

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