Ivan Perkov, a sociologist from the Faculty of Croatian Studies, spoke in Novi dan about society in the circumstances of various crises.
“It seems that we live in a period when major global crises happen one after the other, so that we don’t have time to be aware of one, and another one is already coming. We have the feeling that the crisis has been going on for years,” said Perkov.
He adds that there have always been crises, but due to globalization and social changes in the last 30 years, they have become more and more intense and are spilling over national borders more and more quickly.
“We see that this war in Ukraine, which may have seemed far away at the beginning, very quickly began to affect our lives,” said Perkov.
Safety becomes the greatest ideal
He also spoke about the concept of risk society.
“The risk society is a concept that appeared in sociology about 30 years ago, which speaks of the fact that we have begun to value safety as the supreme goal of our lives. While before we thought about how to distribute social justice, goods and wealth, today it becomes important how we will distribute the insecurity and risks that surround us. This theory gained popularity after the Chernobyl disaster, when we realized that the risks that we ourselves have produced have become so intense and strong that they can threaten the quality of life and life on earth itself, and on the other hand, we have the feeling that we no longer have them under control,” he explained. Perkov.
He notes that we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation because safety is becoming the greatest ideal, and we are finding it increasingly difficult.
“So we are ready, we saw in the pandemic, to give up a good part of freedom in exchange for security,” adds this sociologist.
Two key trends
Speaking about why citizens do not change people in power even though they are dissatisfied with the direction they are leading the country, he said that people are looking for stability in a period of crisis.
“We have two key trends on the Croatian political scene, one is positive, the other negative. It is a positive fact that despite the crises, we did not face the growth of extreme political positions and attitudes, which is something that even much more developed democracies have problems with. The second trend is not so good. It is a fact that the opposition is of poor quality, disorganized, fragmented and not a serious threat to the government. In that case, the removal of 20 ministers can be submitted without a serious threat of a change of government. This is what convinces the citizens that stability is better than uncertainty that would bring changes”, said Perkov.
Track N1 via Android apps | iPhone/iPad and social networks Twitter | Facebook | Instagram.
