This work presents the results of empirical research of the relation among authoritarianism, political worldview, and party choice. Based on the existing research, the starting assumption is that authoritarianism is largely typical for the electoral body of the "right-wing" parties as well as for the conservative worldview. The specially designed scale for measuring authoritarian/conformist tendencies has shown a marked mono- dimensionality and inner consistency. The findings have confirmed the initial assumption; they have also shown a relatively regular correspondence between a party's p0sition on the "left-right" spectrum and the degree of authoritarianism of its electoral body. The sole exception is a higher degree of authoritarianism of HDZ's electoral body than that of HSP's, which may be explained by the fact that the applied scale has measured solely the attitude towards authority and conformity and not the attitude towards minority groups, which is a component of the famous "F" scale. Also, it has been shown that the voters of the so-called "modernist" worldviews (liberal, social-democratic) are significantly less authoritarian than the voters of the so-called "conservative" worldviews (democratic-Christian, Christian- socialist, traditional, or conservative). (SOI : PM: S. 209)
The subject of this dissertation relates to the study of psychosocial characteristics of military servicemen. The military profession implies significant social and personal responsibilities, requires discipline and unconditional compliance with the hierarchy of the military organization, willingness to be transferred if required, possible separation from the family, changing work environment and difficult working conditions, sometimes hazardous to health and life, and often quoted is also a limited freedom to express personal opinions and to participate in trade unions and politics. The military profession has undergone numerous transformations in the contemporary environment. Family tradition, which contributes to the development of the personality profile that predisposes a person to successful military service, has also undergone significant changes. The question is what represents the capacity of the individual to adapt to the military profession in the modern military organization, and what factors contribute to a successful military career. The success rate assessment is important for gaining insight into the proper balance of actual skills, knowledge and behavior patterns of officers possessing the desired standards in the defense system, set by the government and various requirements of international integration processes. Apart from rewarding the work, an adequate success rate assessment is important for personnel development planning, conception and evaluation of educational programs, HR policies, and is particularly important as a validation of selection procedures and in terms of enhancing complexity of the selection criteria for admission to the military (Pajević, 2006). In the military practice thus far, the officers' success has been perceived through the officer's rank, level of education / training, awards, duties that the officer has performed or is currently performing. Family environment, financial solvency and resolved housing issues have been used as the data complementing the picture of the officer, without a deeper analysis of the connection of these factors with motivation and success in the military profession. The PhD dissertation Family Context, Authoritarianism and Success Rate in the Military Profession deals with the success rate of the military profession performance from the perspective of the family and its role in the professional selection, advancement and success. The family context is considered to be both the family of origin and the current officer's family, more precisely, the emotional quality of partner relations. The family of origin is considered through the perceived parental upbringing practices towards children (acceptance and rejection). The current officer's family is considered as a modern institution that meets numerous psychological needs, such as affiliation, loyalty, protection, union, support and intimacy. The quality of emotional relations in partnerships is assessed on the basis of subjective evaluation of mutual respect, communication, understanding, acceptance and agreement in daily emotional partner relations (current families of officers). The main objective of the research is to determine the parameters associated with success in the military profession. In the core of the research is the family, i.e. the perceived parental upbringing styles and practices in the family of origin and their contribution in shaping the personality of a person whose professional choice is the military vocation, performed with more or less success. In addition, the relations between these parameters and the quality and satisfaction with partnerships have been studied, as well as the ways those partnerships contribute to the satisfaction and success in the military profession. Specifically, we were interested whether the contribution of the current partnership to the satisfaction and success in the military profession is more significant than the contribution of the family of origin. A particularly important aim of the research was to study the contribution of upbringing styles and practices in the family of origin in shaping the authoritarian personality structure, as well as the connection between authoritarianism and the parameters of success in the military profession. The study used the Questionnaire on Success in the Military Profession (designed for research purposes), Parental Acceptance/Rejection Questionnaire - PARQ (Rohner, 1984), Revised F scale of authoritarianism (Rot and Havelka, 1973) and Dyadic Adjustment Scale - DAS (Spanier, 1976) to assess the emotional quality of partnerships. The reliability of the applied tools is high (Cronbach's alpha coefficients range from 0.744 to 0.893). The sample is purposive and composed of the Serbian Armed Forces officers (443 in total), divided into three subsamples (successful, average, and unsuccessful) in accordance with the criteria set by the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Armed Forces. The correlation analysis results have shown a statistically significant positive correlation between the perception of the parental acceptance (mother, father), on the one hand, and educational and professional success, positive perception of the job and people, good cooperation and communication with both superiors and subordinates, on the other hand. Also, a statistically significant negative correlation between the authoritarian personality structure – authoritarianism, and the criteria of objective and subjective success was found. The respondents with higher levels of authoritarianism are more commonly found in the lower ranks and have lower performance grades, while the respondents with average (lower) levels of authoritarianism have higher ranks and higher performance grades. The respondents with higher levels of authoritarianism assessed the cooperation with the subordinates in helping to resolve personal problems with higher scores. In addition, it has been determined that there are complex relations between the conformity of intimate partners and success in performing their jobs. A statistically significant correlation between the conformity of the partners and the objective elements of success was determined. Officers with higher performance grades perceive a greater cohesion in partnerships, while the lower ranked officers of more satisfied with agreement in the partnership dyad and emotional expression. Also, there was a statistically significant correlation found between the conformity of intimate partners and the subjective success rates. The respondents with higher self-assessment of their professional performance, knowledge of the rules and regulations of the military service, good relations with the subordinates are more satisfied in the partnership dyad. A statistically significant correlation between the perceived parental acceptance / rejection and authoritarianism was determined. The respondents who perceive their parents as rejecting and hostile have a more pronounced authoritarian personality structure. Also, the respondents who assessed their parents as accepting have established a better conformity with their intimate partners in all aspects. The results of multiple regression analysis show that authoritarianism is a significant predictor of the objective success rate, while the emotional quality of partner relations is a significant predictor of the subjective success in the military profession. The obtained results conform with all of the hypotheses and previous research suggesting that the professional success depends on a proper balance between the family and professional roles. In addition, the results and conclusions can be further developed on the basis of research of other relevant factors of professional success, such as: psychological personality profile, system of values, social and emotional intelligence, communication skills. Also, the results enhance the knowledge about the factors of the general professional success, including the military profession (especially in terms of the development of authoritarian personality structure from the perspective of the parental acceptance / rejection theory, as well as the importance of the emotional quality of partner relations) in order to implement them in the military education curricula (primarily in the Military psychology subject) and training plans for the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Armed Forces personnel, innovation in the selection processes and modification of the psychological selection criteria, and career management.
Demokratski optimizam devedestih godina prošlog veka zamenjuje osobita forma javnog razočarenja u demokratiju. Kriza demokratije praćena institucionalnim deficitima, konfuzijom, niskim stepenom upravljačke sposobnosti da se rešavaju pitanja siromaštva, nezaposlenosti, imigracije, korupcije, simptomi su ovoga stanja. Globalni val populizma najizoštreniji je izraz ove političke patologije. Početak novoga veka rađa uzlet otvorenog neprijateljstva prema demokratiji. Deskriptivni pristupi oslonjeni na proceduralnu dimenziju režima moći ("hibridni režimi", "ograničena demokratija" "iliberalna demokratija", "kompetitivni autoritarizam" ) pokazuju se nedostatnim. U ovome radu autor se vraća klasičnom konceptu "despotizma" i pokazuje normative i teorisjke prednosti ovoga koncepta ("novi despotizam") u analizi novoga režima moći koji izrasta na pretpostvkama sve šireg nepoverenja u demokratske instituciije. ; The democratic optimism of the 1990s has been replaced by a particular form of public disillusionment with democracy. The crisis of democracy, accompanied by institutional deficits, confusion, low levels of management capacity to tackle poverty, unemployment, immigration, corruption, are symptoms of this condition. The global wave of populism is the sharpest expression of this political pathology. The beginning of the new century has given birth to an open hostility to democracy. Descriptive approaches based on the procedural dimension of the regime of power ("hybrid regimes", "limited democracy", "liberal democracy", "competitive authoritarianism") are proving insufficient to capture the new political system. In this paper, the author returns to the classical concept of "despotism" and shows the normative and theoretical advantages of this concept ("new despotism") in the analysis of a new regime of power that grows on the premise of growing distrust of democratic institutions.
The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference between female abstinents in Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of certain demographics (age, education, rural-urban, party and ethnicity) and socio-psychological characteristics (interest in politics, the ways of getting their information about politics, trust in institutions, dogmatism, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, the end justifies the means, the attitude towards the leader, conservatism, liberalism and authoritarianism). The study was conducted in the first half of March 2013, on a sample of 483 adult women who did not plan to vote in the upcoming elections, who in the past six years (three election cycles) either voted occasionally, or they voted, but have no intention of voting again, or they have never voted. We started from the assumption that the different modes of political abstinence differ with respect to the measured variables. The results show that the three categories of women abstinents differ in terms of certain socio-demographic variables: age, education, ethnicity, party affiliation and religious beliefs. There are differences among respondents concerning political interests. The greatest interest was found among the respondents who manipulate their turning out to the polls, followed by those who were disappointed in the elections, while the slightest interest in politics was among the respondents who have never voted. Television is still the dominant medium for getting information about political events, the second and third ones are newspapers and radio, but they are much less influential. Yet among the three categories of women abstinents significant differences were found only regarding television and radio. Three categories of women abstinents differ only in cosmopolitanism and liberalism variables. There is a difference between women abstinents in their confidence in institutions. The most trust in institutions is found in women who occasionally took part in the elections, followed by those who voted, but no longer do so. The least trust in institutions is found among women who have never voted. ; Cilj ovog istraživanja je ustanoviti da li postoji razlika među apstinenticama u Bosni i Hercegovini prema određenim demografskim (starost, obrazovanje, selo-grad, stranačka i etnička pripadnost) i socio-psihološkim karakteristikama (zainteresovanost za politiku, način informisanja o politici, povjerenje u institucije, dogmatizam, nacionalizam, kosmopolitizam, cilj opravdava sredstvo, odnos prema vođi, konzervativizam, konzervativistička autoritarnost i liberalizam). Istraživanje je provedeno u prvoj polovini marta 2013. godine na uzorku od 483 punoljetne žene koje ne planiraju da glasaju na predstojećim izborima, a koje su u posljednjih šest godina (tri izborna ciklusa) nekad glasale, a nekad ne, glasale su, ali više neće, ili nikad nisu glasale. Pošli smo od pretpostavke da će različiti modaliteti političke apstinencije da se razlikuju s obzirom na mjerene varijable. Dobijeni rezultati pokazuju da se tri kategorije apstinentica razlikuju po pojedinim sociodemografskim varijablama: starost, obrazovanje, etnička i stranačka pripadnost i vjerska ubjeđenja. Ispitanice se međusobno razlikuju i zainteresovanošću za politiku. Najveće interesovanje nalazimo kod ispitanica koje manipulišu svojim izlaskom na izbore, a slijede one koje su se razočarale u izbore, dok je zainteresovanost za politiku najmanja kod ispitanica koje uopšte ne glasaju na izborima. Televizija je još uvijek dominantan medij za informisanje o političkim dešavanjima, dok su na drugom i trećem mjestu dnevne novine i radio, ali su znatno manje uticajni. Ipak, između tri kategorije apstinentica nalazimo značajne razlike samo kod televizije i radija. Tri kategorije apstinentica se međusobno razlikuju samo po varijablama kosmopolitizam i liberalizam. Prisutna je i razlika između apstinentica po njihovom povjerenju u institucije. Najviše povjerenja u institucije nalazimo kod ispitanica koje nekad izlaze, a nekad ne izlaze na izbore, slijede ispitanice koje su glasale, ali više neće. Najmanje povjerenja u institucije nalazimo kod ispitanica koje nikad ne glasaju.
