Hrvatski studentski pokret – pokušaj teorijske analize
Croatian Student Movement - An Attempt at Theoretical Analysis

Summary/Abstract: There are various assessments, occasion-related and partial analyses, and even empirical evaluations of the recent collective protest of Croatian students, but there is hardly any attempt of a theoretical clarification and comprehension thereof. Having in mind the largely disparate definitions of social movement, the author is of the opinion that, from the standpoint of theory, the demands of rebelled students, the blockade of the faculty, the plenum decision-making and other forms of collective student activity can best be perceived as a form of student movement. For this reason, he first presents various theories of social movements: the classic American theory of collective behaviour (i.e. its two versions – the breakdown theory and the theory of relative deprivation), the theory of resource mobilization, the theory of new social movements (especially Touraine’s model of understanding new social movements), the theory of networks, the theory of solidarity, and the political-process analysis. Second, the author attempts to apply each of the enumerated conceptual perspectives to the Croatian student movement for charge-free education. Although the presented theories of social movements are critical of one another, this article points out their complementarity. It goes on to show that not all of them are equally adequate for clarification and comprehension of the central issue. In the author’s judgement, one of the key reasons why a multi-perspective approach is necessary is the exceptional, hybrid character of the Croatian student movement, as a mixture of old and new social movements.

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