Democracy and Democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe

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Democracy and Democratisation in Central and
Eastern Europe
In Poland democratisation took 10 years, in
Hungary 10 months, in East Germany 10 weeks, in
Czechoslovakia 10 days, and in Romania 10
hours. Timothy Garton Ash in The New York Review
of Books January 18th 1990
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Crucial events

• Collapse of Non-democratic Regime
• The Last Days of Communist Rule
• Through Establishing Rules of the Game
• The Roundtables
• Towards Generally Accepted Changes of Power based
  on Democratic Elections
• 2. or 3. Election

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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
Governmental Consensus?
Civil War Repression
Voluntary Mediation?
HR tribunal/ Round Table/ Truth Commission
International Military Intervention
War Crimes tribunal/ International
detention/ Exiling
New regime government comprised of former
dissidents
Acceptance by Old regime?
Breakdown
Breakdown
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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
Governmental Consensus?
All party government comprised of former enemies
Rules established! From Transition phase
to Consolidation phase
Constitutional Convention?
New regime government comprised of former
dissidents
Acceptance by Old regime?
Breakdown
Post-revolutionary authoritarian regime New
elite rule
Breakdown
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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
Practicing inclusive citizenship rights?
Rules established! From Transition phase
to Consolidation phase
Democracy based on universal citizenship
Ethnic or Sexist democracy
Inter- national monitoring and/or sanctions?
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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
Not actively discouraging Civil Society?
Supporting an independent Judiciary?
Participatory democracy with active organizations
Democracy based on the Rule of Law
Democracy based on universal citizenship
Elitist or personalized democracy
Politicized Judiciary
Inter- national monitoring and/or sanctions?
Inter- national monitoring and/or sanctions?
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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
Creating Good Governance?
Enacting standards of social and economic welfare?
Bureaucratic, predictable and sound government
Democracy based on the Rule of Law
Redistributive democracy
Particularism and corruption
Poverty and exploitation
Inter- national monitoring and/or sanctions?
Inter- national monitoring and/or sanctions?
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Transition to and Consolidation of Democracy
Promoting indulgence in terms of culture and
gender?
Acceptable standards for the electoral process?
Tolerant and emancipated democracy
Redistributive democracy
Free and fair elections
Cultural and sexual repression
Fraudulent or partly fraudulent elections
Inter- national monitoring and/or sanctions?
Allowing international election observers?
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Transition
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-

Turkmenistan Kazakhstan
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Old Brezhnev appointees keep ruling
-


-
Initial agree- ment with dissidents
Lukashenko after 2. election
Belarus

-
-
-
Dudayev Russian intervention
Chechnya


-
-
NATO intervention in Serbia
Bosnia/ Herzegovina
The Dayton Accord



-
All other countries
Roundtable
Consensus and tacit agreement
Constitution or democratic interpretation
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Problems of Consolidation

• Universal Citizenship
• All residents are citizens
• Active organisations
• Civil Society
• The Rule of Law
• Independent Judiciary
• Non-Corruption
• Good governance
• Redistributive capacity
• Welfare state
• Non-Discrimination
• Ethnic and Gender Equality
• Non-Fraudulent
• Free and fair elections

Particular problems in Estonia and
Latvia (Russians) and for Roma and Sinti in the
South-East
Many small organisations, but a low membership
rate in the population. A general problem
Strong variations. Judicial competence and
independence are related phenomena
Corruption generally conforms to an west to east
and a north to south pattern in Europe
Weakest in some of the most modern countries,
somewhat stronger in a few of the least developed
countries
Historical and cultural variations
Electoral fraud occurs, but by far the most
common problem are mistakes caused by
inexperience and incompetance
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The History of Democratisation

• 1900-1914
• Reforms in all four Empires which dominated the
  region
• 1917-1939
• A steadily reduced number of surviving
  democracies established after WWI
• 1945-1947/48
• Aborted democratisation after WWII and before the
  Cold War
• 1956 and 1968
• Crushed democratic rebellions in Hungary and
  Czechoslovakia
• 1989-
• Present democratisation period
• Post Communist until 1994/95
• Pre EU/NATO after 1995

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A revision of Rokkans conceptual map to fit the
situation in Central and Eastern Europe

• External and interface periphery states
• Rokkan treats the eastern periphery states as
  external, while their histories are dominated by
  being interface peripheries between western
  empire stats and eastern historical empires
• Religious extension
• Rokkans map only includes the countries of
  western Christianity
• Orthodoxy must be included as well as
• Islam, to cover the state- and nation-building
  processes of all contemporary European democracies

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A revised conceptual map
Religious heritage
Early states formed in cores of Western seaward
empires
Late, devolved states from Central European
empires
Late, devolved states from Eastern empires
Eastern empires
Late, devolved Western periphery states
City belt Europe
States based on former core nations of Central
European empire states

Protestant counties
Denmark UK Prot.
Finland Prot.
Estonia Latvia Prot.
Iceland Norway (Scotland) (Wales) Prot.
Sweden Prot.

Mixed or substantially secularized countries
France Sec./Cath.
Czechoslov. Czech Rep. Cath./Sec.
Belarus Ukraine Orth./Sec./ Cath
Russia USSR Sec./ Orth.
(Ulster) Prot./Cath.
Netherlands Switzerland Prot./Cath/ Sec.
Germany Prot./Cath./ Sec..
Counter- reformation countries non-secularized O
rthodox countries
Spain Portugal Cath.
Slovakia Rest Italy Slovenia Croatia Cath.
.
Lithuania Poland Cath. Romania Bulgaria Serbia FYR
OM Greece Orth.
Eire Cath.
Belgium N-Italy Cath
Austria Hungary Cath.
.




Turkey Mus./ Sec.
BiH (Fed.) Mus./Sec./ Cath.
Albania Kosovo Mus./Sec.
Muslim countries
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A revised conceptual map
Religious heritage
Late, devolved Western periphery states
Early states formed in cores of Western seaward
empires
City belt Europe
States based on former core nations of Central
European empire states
Late, devolved states from Central European
empires
Late, devolved states from Eastern empires
Eastern empires

Protestant counties
Iceland Norway (Scotland) (Wales) Prot.
Denmark UK Prot.
Sweden Prot.
Finland Prot.
Estonia Latvia Prot.

Mixed or substantially secularized countries
(Ulster) Prot./Cath.
Netherlands Switzerland Prot./Cath/ Sec.
France Sec./Cath.
Germany Prot./Cath./ Sec..
Czechoslov. Czech Rep. Cath./Sec.
Belarus Ukraine Orth./Sec./ Cath
Russia USSR Sec./ Orth.
Counter- reformation countries non-secularized O
rthodox countries
Eire Cath.
Spain Portugal Cath.
Belgium N-Italy Cath
Austria Hungary Cath.
Slovakia Rest Italy Slovenia Croatia Cath.
.
Lithuania Poland Cath. Romania Bulgaria Serbia FYR
OM Greece Orth.
.




Turkey Mus./ Sec.
Albania Kosovo Mus./Sec.
Muslim countries
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The Central and East European Space
Religious heritage
Late, devolved Western periphery states
Early states formed in cores of Western seaward
empires
City belt Europe
States based on former core nations of Central
European empire states
Late, devolved states from Central European
empires
Late, devolved states from Eastern empires
Eastern empires

Protestant counties
Iceland Norway (Scotland) (Wales) Prot.
Denmark UK Prot.
Sweden Prot.
Finland Prot.
Estonia Latvia Prot.

Mixed or substantially secularized countries
(Ulster) Prot./Cath.
Netherlands Switzerland Prot./Cath/ Sec.
France Sec./Cath.
Germany Prot./Cath./ Sec..
Czechoslov. Czech Rep. Cath./Sec.
Belarus Ukraine Orth./Sec./ Cath
Russia USSR Sec./ Orth.
Counter- reformation countries non-secularized O
rthodox countries
Eire Cath.
Spain Portugal Cath.
Belgium N-Italy Cath
Austria Hungary Cath.
Slovakia Rest Italy Slovenia Croatia Cath.
.
Lithuania Poland Cath. Romania Bulgaria Serbia FYR
OM Greece Orth.
.




Turkey Mus./ Sec.
Albania Kosovo Mus./Sec.
Muslim countries
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Cultural parameters
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The breakdown of democracy
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Democratic survival classification of European
countries in inter-war Europe (short-lived and
semi-independent state formations are
parenthesized)
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Democratic survival classification of European
countries in inter-war Europe (short-lived and
semi-independent state formations are
parenthesized)
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Democracy and ethnicityDoes nation building
matter?

• Is reduced ethnic strife conducive to democracy?
• Reducing ethnicity has a sombre background

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Ethnic cleansing and resettlement, 194549
Source Crampton and Crampton 1996
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Types of ethnic homogeneity in central and east
european states

• Stable approximate nation-states stable
  definition of the majority nationality, large
  majorities
• Newer approximate nation-states stable
  definition of the majority nationality, large
  majorities today but smaller majorities in the
  inter-war era
• Recent approximate nation-states devolved from
  dissolved Mini-Empires large or medium-large
  majorities today, small majorities or minorities
  prior to the recent dissolution of the
  Mini-Empire states
• Former approximate nation-states with a decreased
  majority population today

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• The censuses of the inter-war period are
  generally unreliable in their estimates of the
  size of ethnic minorities. The figures are,
  nevertheless, interesting as expressions of
  perceived size of regime-proclaimed core
  populations.
• For Bulgarias current ethnic population our
  source only indicates that national minorities
  exceed 10 per cent.
• The Polish inter-war estimates are highly
  questionable. Polish nationality was at last
  partly determined by the ability of the
  respondent to understand the census-taker when
  addressed in Polish.
• Source Berglund and Aarebrot 1997, 161 data
  from Crampton and Crampton 1996

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Classification of countries by ethnic diversity
and diasporas

• Reborn and new states with majoritarian national
  core populations
• Approximate nation states with dominant national
  core populations
• without substantial diasporas in neighbouring
  countries
• with diasporas in neighbouring countries
• States with strong national core populations, but
  with interface minorities from neighbouring
  countries core nationalities
• Reborn states with majoritarian national core
  populations, but with national minorities
  comprising the core populations of neighbouring
  former historical empires
• Former historical empires, presently large states
  with a majoritarian core population

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Ukraine Belarus Russians
Serbia In B-H Albanians
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Challenges to Statehood Territorial integrity
Weak High likelihood of containing challenges as
maifest cleavages within a democratic polity
Strong Possible difficulties in containing
nationalist demands based on seperatism or
irredentism
Challenges to nationhood Secular dominance
Challenges to the nation-state The imperial
heritage
Ukraine Belarus Russians
Strong Possible difficulties in containing
nationalism in combination with religious or
secular cleavages
Very strong in a situation of a possible combined
territorial and religious challenge
Serbia In B-H Albanians
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Political stability and democracy

• Political fragmentation
• An exaggerated problem?
• A temporal problem
• New cleavages rather than historical cleavages
• Is cleavage continuity necessarily a good thing?
• Increasing similarities to the rest of Europe?
• Continuity of political style across regimes

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Three dimensions of continuity and their impact
on the cleavage structure
1900
1939
1989
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Lessons from history

• Central and Eastern European democracy have
  already today endured longer than during the
  inter-war years
• Why? Six possible answers
• European integration and realistic mutual defence
  are real prospects
• A paradoxical legacy of communism High education
  levels and prospective larger middle classes than
  ever before
• Economies less dependent on the primary sector
  than ever before. Modernization
• Stable monetary policies
• Present, but fewer national minorities than
  during the inter-war years
• Secularization, another legacy of communism?