Whither Central and Eastern Europe? Post-Communist Politics PMCb1109 Autumn 2024 doc. Marek Rybář, PhD. Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png what is democracy? (an essentially contested concept) ●Robert DAHL: Polyarchy/democracy ●1. Control over governmental decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials ●2. chosen and peacefully removed in relatively frequent, fair and free elections ●3. all adults have the right to vote ●4. most adults also have the right to run for the public offices ●5. citizens have an enforced right to freedom of expression ●6. have access to alternative sources of information ●7. have an enforced right to form political parties and interest groups Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png Preconditions of democracy? ●A) explanations that emphasize deep-seated factors ●economic factors ▶︎ modernization ▶︎ political progress (democracy) ●S.M. Lipset (1959): GDP per capita leads to democratization and strengthens democracy ● criticized by: Przeworski et al.: the birth of democracy is independent of the GDP per capita ●however, the likelihood that democracy survives increases with sustained economic growth Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png Preconditions of democracy? ●Boix a Stokes: it is a mistake to study only cases of democratization after 1950: Countries that were economically developed by 1950 were already democratic by that time ●democratization 1850-1940: a strong correlation between GDP per capita and democracy ●development causes dictatorships to fall to democracy, and causes democracy to last Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png Preconditions of democracy? Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png Preconditions of democracy? ●B) actor-centered explanations of democratic transitions: ●D. Rustow: a dynamic model of transition ●you do not need democrats for democracy to emerge ●A prolonged and inconclusive political struggle between competing groups of elites may lead to a situation that they decide to compromise and adopt democratic forms of rule ●democracy is a result of a conscious decision on the part of elites to adopt impartial rules to resolve their conflicts (POL, HUN?) Map Description automatically generated Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png political regimes in cee 15 years after the end of communism (2005) ●freedom house DATA ●Democracies: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia ●Autocracies: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan ●Defective Democracies: Albania, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Ukraine ●a link between character of the regime and geographical location of the countries ●WHY? Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png deep (structural) explanatory variables 1. Political legacies: ●Based on the status on the two pre-communist attributes of bureaucratic state legacies and the balance of power between communists and their challengers at the introduction of communist rule: ●bureaucratic-authoritarian (Czechoslovakia) and national-accommodative (Hungary) vs. patrimonial communism (Bulgaria) and colonial periphery (Kazakhstan) 2. Modernization: ●the first GDP figures after the breakdown of communism Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png deep (structural) explanatory variables ●3. geography (Vicinity to Western Europe) ●closeness is positively associated with democracy – indicates density of cross-border interactions ●4. The Resource Curse: ●governments are naturally induced to use their revenues from natural resources, (oil), to undermine democratization ●The money can be used to relieve social pressures on government through the provision of patronage and public goods Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png questions ● ●what other deep-seated structural factors could we examine? ● ●how would we operationalize them? Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png proximate (actor-centered) explanatory variables ●1. Displacement of communist incumbents at the first elections? ●an oppositional win over the communist incumbents at the first elections favoured democratization ●2. Economic reform ●economic liberalization has had a positive effect on democratization in the longer term ●the distinction between reformers and non-reformers (shock therapy vs. gradual reforms) ●3. Strong Legislatures / weak presidency ●a high degree of parliamentary power makes for democracy whereas a low degree of parliamentary power makes for autocracy ● Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png questions ● ●what other actor-centered (i.e. short-term) factors could have played a role? ● ●how to operationalize them? Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png assessing the role of structural variables in shaping political regimes ●in 2005, favorable political legacy & modernization & no resource curse & favorable geography --- met by 9 out of 11 cases of democracies, only Romania & Bulgaria had less favorable political legacy ●poor political legacy, low level of modernization & distance from the West is typical of all autocracies (only Russia crossed a minimal level of modernization/GDP per capita) ●defective democracies: none of the six defective democracies either had or lacked all the structural attributes ●when considering all four structural variables, 19 out of 26 countries are classified as anticipated theoretically Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png assessing the role of actor-centered variables in shaping political regimes ●Where all three attributes are present, democracy is the expected political outcome: communist displacement, economic reform and strong legislature – met by 9 democratic countries (not in Rom and Bul) ●communist elite continuity, slow reforms and strong presidents – met by 6 autocratic regimes (and three other cases – ARM, KGZ and RUS only met the first criterion) ●Of the six defective democracies, four have the expected mixed combinations of attributes whereas two (Macedonia and Ukraine) exhibit the respective presence and absence of all attributes ●when considering all actor-centered variables, 19 out of the 26 countries are classified as anticipated theoretically Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png combining structural and actor-centered variables ●all 7 favorable conditions met by CRO, CZE, EST, HUN, LAT, LIT, POL, SVK, SLO; 5 out of 7 met by additional three states (ROM, BUL, MAC) ●no favorable condition existed in 4 cases: AZE, KAZ, TURK, UZB, ●One favorable condition met by TJK, two favorable conditions met by BEL, RUS, ARM, GEO and KIR ●In ROM and BUL, EU political conditionality had played a decisive role (external influence) ●defective democracies characterized by a great internal diversity and heterogeneity Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png What has changed since? Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png What has changed since? Droplets-HD-Content-R1d.png conclusion ●among the countries that were considered stable consolidated democracies, Hungary and Poland stand out as textbook examples of democratic backsliding ●deep structural factors seem to be as important as the actor-centered variables – at least in a short-term perspective ●while Hungary and Poland constitute prominent cases, we also need to examine more subtle defects of CEE democracies but also see the region’s development in a broader (long term) perspective CREDITS: This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, including icons by Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik. THANKS! Please keep this slide for attribution. Thank you for your attention!