Political Opportunities and Intersectional Politics in Croatia

In this chapter we explore how shifting political circumstances impact the dynamics of women’s movements, and the ways in which different women’s movement strategies for achieving political change shape the potential for intersectional politics. By utilizing the theoretical literature on political opportunities and social movement strategies, we research the ways in which these might inform intersectional politics of the Croatian women’s movement in the three specific periods: during the post-conflict period of the late 1990s, the EU accession process of the early 2000s, and the culmination of the accession processes at the time of 2008 economic crisis. We argue that while the first period opened up new inclusionary potential by reaching across the urban-rural divide and facilitating cross-movement coalitional politics, little effort was made to foster intersectional consciousness or to frame and articulate explicit intersectional claims based on multiple axes of identity. These claims became more possible during the second period of EU accession as new channels of influence emerged due to EU formal recognition of intersectional considerations in the policymaking process. At the same time, however, the intra-movement mechanisms for reaching across the rural-urban divide declined, as did cross-movement coalition building. We conclude by considering emerging forms of feminist protest in response to the economic crisis that may open up new possibilities for intersectional praxis.