With its parliamentary democracy and market economy, the Republic of Croatia is rich in human capital and natural resources, but still lags far behind the most developed countries of the world in realizing its potential.
Despite having all the organic components for the successful development of society, a political stalemate exists between the forces that wish to fully embrace a democratic, productive, demographically inclusive free market economy and those that seek a purely self-interested course, rooted in a past that privileges old elites.
This has resulted in growing dissatisfaction among the populace with governmental decision-making and management, with officials who tolerate and thereby promote mediocrity over excellence, corruption over transparency and accountability, inefficiency over productivity. In an attempt to address this stalemate, to bring science to bear on determining the future of this great country, the University of Zagreb has created a Faculty of Croatian Studies, and recently, a Department of Demography and Croatian Emigration.