Media Capture And Corrupt Journalists: How Europeanization Helped Build Façades of Democracy

332 Pages·2022·6.408 MB·English

by  Tomislav Maršić

ST ANTONY’S SERIES
Media Capture And
Corrupt Journalists
How Europeanization
Helped Build Façades
of Democracy
Tomislav Maršić
St Antony’s Series
Series Editors
Dan Healey, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Leigh Payne, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
The St Antony’s Series publishes studies of international affairs of contem-
porary interest to the scholarly community and a general yet informed
readership. Contributors share a connection with St Antony’s College,
a world-renowned centre at the University of Oxford for research and
teaching on global and regional issues. The series covers all parts of the
world through both single-author monographs and edited volumes, and
its titles come from a range of disciplines, including political science,
history, and sociology. Over more than forty years, this partnership
between St Antony’s College and Palgrave Macmillan has produced about
400 publications. This series is indexed by Scopus.
Tomislav Maršic´
Media Capture
And Corrupt
Journalists
How Europeanization Helped Build
Façades of Democracy
Tomislav Maršic´
Berlin, Germany
ISSN 2633-5964 ISSN 2633-5972 (electronic)
St Antony’s Series
ISBN 978-3-031-05034-3 ISBN 978-3-031-05035-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05035-0
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Main Argument in the Wider CEE Context 7
1.1.1 Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom Since
Accession to the EU 9
1.2 Introduction of the Dependent Variable: Levels
of Horizontal Accountability 13
1.2.1 Conceptualizing the Axes of the Typology 14
1.2.2 Specification of Actors and Time Frame 16
1.3 Alternative Explanations 18
1.3.1 Strong Civil Society and Whistle Blowers 18
1.3.2 Economic Crises and Advertisement Spending 19
1.3.3 Media Pluralism and Market Competition 20
1.3.4 Regime Change 21
1.3.5 Europeanization 22
1.3.6 Inter-Party Competition 26
1.4 Developing the Argument 30
1.4.1 Definition of Media Capture of Media Capture
and Collusion 30
1.4.2 The Principal-Agent Perspective on Party
Leadership Selection 34
1.4.3 Explaining Media Capture with Intra-Party
Dynamics 38
1.5 Conclusion 47
References 48
v
vi CONTENTS
2 Measurement and Methods of Data Collection 61
2.1 Introduction 61
2.2 The Case Study Method 61
2.3 Measuring Media Capture 64
2.3.1 Operationalizing Horizontal Accountability 65
2.3.2 Interviews 68
2.3.3 Sentiment Analysis 73
2.4 Measuring the Independent Variable: Intra-Party
Dynamics 80
2.4.1 Dimensions of Intra-Party Accountability 82
2.5 Conclusion 83
Bibliography 84
3 Historical Overview—Establishment of Formal
Particularism and the First Transition in the 1990s 87
3.1 Introduction 87
3.2 The General Context of the First Transition 88
3.2.1 Prologue to Democratic Change (1980–1989) 88
3.2.2 The War and the Setup
of Presidential-Parliamentarism 91
3.2.3 Sweeping Replacement of the Elite 96
3.3 Transition in the Media 99
3.3.1 Putting the Mainstream Media Under State
Control 100
3.3.2 Limiting Freedom for the Private Press 102
3.3.3 The HDZ Controls the Judiciary 104
3.3.4 Tudjman Used Formal Particularism
to Control the Media 106
3.4 The HDZ Loses Popular Support After 1995 107
3.4.1 The Moderates and the Hardliners Use
the Media for Their Infighting 109
3.4.2 Run-Up to the 2000 Elections 111
3.5 Conclusions 112
References 113
CONTENTS vii
4 Ivica Racˇan and Jadranka Kosor: Steps to Universalism 119
4.1 Ivica Racˇan, 12.1999–12.2003 120
4.1.1 The Media Scene at the Outset of the “Second
Transformation” 121
4.1.2 The Grupo Contract and Its Impact
on the Croatian Media Scene 124
4.1.3 The Media-Mafia Conglomerate Around
Nacional 129
4.1.4 PM Racˇan: Careful Universalism 132
4.1.5 President Mesic´ and Nacional 140
4.1.6 Summarizing the Roles of Racˇan and Mesic´ 142
4.1.7 The Effects of Traditional Drivers 143
4.2 Jadranka Kosor, 07.2009–12.2011 145
4.2.1 Kosor’s Relations to Ninoslav Pavic´ and EPH 148
4.2.2 The Effects of Traditional Drivers 152
4.3 Conclusions 153
References 154
5 Ivo Sanader and Zoran Milanovic´: Regression
to Particularism 159
5.1 Formal and Informal Particularism 159
5.2 Ivo Sanader, 12.2003–07.2009 161
5.2.1 Capturing Media Using Informal
Particularism 163
5.2.2 The Effects of Europeanization 183
5.3 Zoran Milanovic´, 12.2011–12.2015 187
5.3.1 Informal Particularism 189
5.3.2 Formal Particularism: Dispensing Rewards
and Sanctions via Formal Policies 192
5.3.3 Ivo Josipovic´ 2011–2015: Informal
Particularism and Collusion 195
5.3.4 The Effects of Europeanization 200
5.4 Conclusions 202
References 202
6 Quantitative Text Analysis 209
6.1 Introduction 209
6.2 Brief Description of Method and Data 210
6.2.1 Method 210
6.2.2 Data 212
viii CONTENTS
6.3 Testing the Hypotheses 214
6.3.1 Media Capture 214
6.4 Summary of the Reliability Assessment 230
6.4.1 Limitations of Method and Data 230
6.5 Conclusions 231
Bibliography 232
7 What Motivated the Shifts Between Particularism
and Universalism? 235
7.1 Introduction 235
7.2 Summary of the Argument 235
7.3 Rootedness Relaxes the Need for Media Control 237
7.3.1 Summary 237
7.3.2 The Way Racˇan Acquired Party Leadership 238
7.3.3 Contestation Was Not Personal But Over
Ideological Questions 238
7.3.4 Permitted Contestation 240
7.3.5 Required Comparatively Little Media Support
from Pavic´ 241
7.4 Party-Internal Contestation and the Need to Control
Media 242
7.4.1 Jadranka Kosor—Weakly Rooted and Highly
Contested 243
7.4.2 Sanader and Milanovic´—Controlling
Contestation for the Leadership 248
7.5 Conclusions 261
References 262
8 Conclusions 267
8.1 Introduction 267
8.2 Synthesis of Empirical Findings 269
8.2.1 Shape and Dynamics of Media Capture
and Collusion 269
8.2.2 Why Did Traditional Drivers Fail and What
Has Been Driving Media Capture Instead? 272
8.3 Theoretical, Conceptual and Methodological
Implications 275
8.3.1 Party Leadership Selection 275
8.3.2 Particularism 277
8.3.3 Sentiment Analysis 279
CONTENTS ix
8.4 Policy Implications and Directions for Further Research 280
8.4.1 Better Measures for Media Independence 280
8.4.2 Testing the Intra-Party Competition Hypothesis
on a Larger N 281
8.4.3 Empirical Research on Informal Rules 281
8.5 Final Remarks 281
References 282
Bibliography 285
Index 319