Divergence of public discourse in Croatian and European Union: causes and consequences

In his recent essay Wojciech Sadurski distinguishes between the 'real' and the 'conceptual' conflict, the distinction originally introduced by Bernard Williams. A conflict is `real' when the prospects of another group are also an option for us, meaning that it is reasonably convincing or possible for us to become like them. This does not only imply a comparison between us and the culture or the identity to which, in real life, we could not be similar but also means that we confront a culture, which has some practical implications. Similarly the identity of a community is constituted in opposition to another identity or as a part of another identity. The construction of a community's identity is greatly influenced by social discourse as a set of communications of a certain group related to this group and other social groups it gets into contact with. The author claims that the dominant discourse on the European Union in Croatia hugely differs from the European discourse on the European Union; consequently, there is a difference in the construction of the Croatian and the European identity. This difference in the discourses stands in the way of Croatia's incorporation into the distributive mechanisms of the European Union and the maximization of the membership benefits. Reprinted by permission of Fakultet politickih znanosti u Zagrebu