The Ghosts of the Past: 20 years after the Fall of Communism in Europe. (original) (raw)
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20 Years After the Collapse of Communism. Expectations, achievements and disillusions of 1989
2011
Obviously, the Europeanization process has not yet brought the expected “common house of Europe” with all the freedoms and values linked to the symbol of 1989. It is true that Europe has been able to give important support to the transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe. But it is equally true that the underlying ideas of Europe have not found their way to almost all countries of the former Soviet Union. In this regard Russia stands for an ideologically and power oriented regime, contrasting its authoritarian “model” to the Europeanization process and particularly to all the “coloured” democratic experiments in its neighbourhood. The eastwards movement of experiments with democracy, as it could be observed in the “colour revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia, is challenged by a westwards movement of the quasiauthoritarian Russian model. The recent repressions in Belarus followed by the rigged elections in December 2010 obviously stand for the westwards move of the Russian model. And it remains to be seen to what extent the achievements of the “colour revolutions” can be at least partially maintained in Ukraine and in Georgia. Freedom is not an uncontested value in the post-Soviet space. But it has been claimed at its periphery where a lot of hybrid and transitional situations can still be observed. Typically countries characterised by transitional or hybrid regimes are oscillating somewhere in a grey zone between the democratic and the authoritarian poles. They may have halted, delayed or impeded their transformation process. In order to prevent the risk of an authoritarian backlash, an European democracy promotion strategy would make sense in those countries that show unclear prospects for democracy. This would be in line with what 1989 was about: overcoming the division of Europe and avoiding new division lines between East and West. It is precisely the challenges of ambiguous transitions that the contributions to the volume try to address from their various regional and disciplinary perspectives. The book is organized into three larger parts, respectively, (1) covering ambiguities of unfinished transformations, (2) attempting to make sense of the past and its implications for the present, and (3) deliberating over values and meanings in changing contexts. They do not assemble the countries regionally, but rather attempt to organize various narratives around problems, as there seem to be three large areas of difficulties experienced along the different paths of transformation.
Center of Eastern Studies, U. of Warsaw, 2020
The book is based on the author's recurrent guest lectures at the U. of Warsaw delivered throughout the past decade. It examines political processes in Eastern Europe after the fall of the communist system and collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989-1991. It explores both the structural factors that determined very different development of postcommunist states and the role of domestic and international actors that influenced the direction and speed and scope of postcommunist transformations. While the author keeps all the East Europe in mind, the main focus is on the post-Soviet part of the Eastern Europe, specifically on Ukraine as the most complicated, ambivalent, and graphical case of both the decommunization and decolonization. The process tracing is combined in the study with political analysis of historical developments in the postcommunist Eastern Europe drawn primarily on the theories of hybrid regimes, illiberal democracies, path-dependence and revolutionary breakthroughs.
From Revolution to ‘Counter-Revolution’: Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe 30 Years On
Europe-Asia Studies, 2020
The essay explains the origin, scope and forms of the anti-liberal surge taking place in Central and Eastern Europe. Why have voters across the region deserted the liberal politicians who managed to secure peace and prosperity on the ashes of communism? Does the erosion of democratic values and institutions lead to autocracy, or something novel? Special attention will be devoted to the issue of order and chaos in the broader European setting. Can order be maintained without shared values across EU member states? The conclusions will point to the variety of hybrid regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and assess their impact. CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE IS AGAIN MAKING HEADLINES, but for very different reasons than was the case in the years following 1989. After years of impressive progress in which communist states were transformed into liberal ones, the region now has taken another turn, this time towards a new version of authoritarian politics. After dismantling the walls dividing states and societies, Central and Eastern Europe is now erecting new walls, albeit in different forms and places. After making enormous efforts to join European institutions, the region is now undermining these institutions. After struggling for the human and civil rights denied by communism, the region now promotes exclusive versions of national and religious communities. The pandemic has only reinforced the authoritarian tendencies in the region, with some of the governments using the emergency powers for their partisan political ends (Martin 2020). At the helm of this 'counter-revolution' against the fruits of the liberal revolutions of 1989 are not old communists trying to regain power but people who were among those who initiated the region's 'return to Europe' three decades earlier; Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński are the most prominent among them. The revolutions of 1989 progressed through mass mobilisation and negotiation; the counter-revolution currently taking place is being forged through the ballot box. Populist politicians do not organise strikes or build barricades: they simply win elections. The revolutions of 1989 caused disruption and economic pain, whilst the current counter-revolution can pride itself on enjoying economic growth. The revolutions of 1989 were about 'catching up' with Europe, sometimes in demeaning conditions. The current counter-revolution is about restoring local pride and
The paper examines the recent developments in Ukraine as a third attempt to complete the unfinished business of the East European revolutions which succeeded in 1989 in Central East Europe and the Baltics but brought mixed results in the Balkans and the former Soviet Repub- lics. While the Balkan states, with the Western assistance, have been pulled onto the track of a rather successful postcommunist transformation, the post-Soviet states, left in the cold, moved into the opposite direction – of authoritarian consolidation. Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia re- main the only post-Soviet states where pro-Western, pro-democracy forces defy authoritarian tendencies and keep political space rather open and competitive. The relative openness and resilience of Ukrainian and Moldovan societies can be partly attributed to their non-Soviet ex- perience in the past and therefore a higher share of westernized population, but also, as Lucan Way argues, to a significant identity split that facilitates a peculiar “pluralism by default” in both countries. Besides these two factors, the paper addresses the third and perhaps the most im- portant one – the gradual shift of values and value-based attitudes that occurred in Ukraine in the last decade and that can be described in Ronald Inglehart’s terms as a shift from survival values to self-realization values.
Post-Communism and Post-Democracy
The publication of Post Democracy by Colin Crouch in 2004 was symbolic in two ways. First, it synthesised a broad range of ideas through which Western political thought adjusted to post-Cold War changes, usually characterised as globalisation and postmodernisation. The new theoretical developments by social democrats, the new leftism, the welfare state, the legitimation crisis, cartel parties and other streams of thought have been packed into a simple, sharp and cohesive message, as confi rmed by the fact that 7 editions have already been published over 7 years. Second, the book was fi rst published in the year of the main eastward enlargement of the European Union. While the key challenges for Western and Eastern Europe largely diff ered in the 1990s, the next decade witnessed the development of a considerable intersection. This is not only due to Europeanisation (see Ladrech 2010, etc.), but also because of the similarities in the new confi guration of politics and governance. Whe...
Democracy in Eastern Europe as a Civilising Process
The Sociological Review, 2000
In this chapter, Harald Wydra argues that the rise of democracy in Eastern Europe has been a long-term social process interwoven with the collapse of communism whose origins are long before 1989. He challenges the vision of East and West as two isolated blocs that prevailed in the 1950s and the assumption of gradual convergence that became widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. His main focus is upon the East where, he believes, dissident movements created a ‘second reality’, undermining the myths propounded by the official communist establishment. He argues that there was an increase in self-restraint on the part of the communist state accompanied by the growth of civil society and non-violent political opposition. The East experienced a feeling of ‘unrequited love’ in its relationship to the West. Dissidents took their standards and aspirations from Western experience but found themselves largely ignored by the West. Since 1989, democratisation has increased the influence of western m...
Democracy in the Post-Communist World: An Unending Quest?
East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2007
Fifteen years after regime change swept across the former Soviet bloc and contrary to the widely held hopes and expectations at that time, liberal democracy has emerged and taken root only in a small number of post-communist countries. In the majority of former communist states, political transformations have either lost their momentum and resulted in partially democratic systems or have been reversed and brought new authoritarian regimes. Hence, the fundamental puzzle of post-communist politics: why have some countries succeeded and others failed, totally or partially, in building and consolidating liberal democracy? Understanding and explaining this puzzle is a challenge for both scholars and policy makers. The IV General Assembly of the Club of Madrid held in Prague on 9-11 November 2005 brought together academic experts and political leaders to examine the unfolding trajectories and contrasting outcomes of democratization in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as post-Soviet Central Asia. The Club of Madrid members and experts evaluated political lessons emerging from the region and reviewed reform and policy measures that have been relevant for promoting democracy and improving its quality in post-communist Europe and elsewhere. This special issue of EEPS presents nine articles that were originally commissioned as background papers for the Club of Madrid's meeting. Our introduction, drawing on these articles and on the wide-ranging and insightful discussions that took place during the conference, is divided into five parts. 1 The first offers a sketch of the "state of democracy" in postcommunist Europe and introduces our central question: what factors are key in explaining the success or failure of democracy in the post-communist world? The second part reviews some of
Introduction to the Special Issue: "Down with Communism -Power to the People": The legacies of
Social Science Information, 2020
This special issue brings together reflections that mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Revolutions of 1989 and their consequences for understanding European and global society. What seemed for some at least the surprising and rapid collapse of Eastern European state socialism prompted rethinking in social theory about the potential for emancipatory politics and new modes of social and political organization. At the same time there was increased reflection on the nature of varieties of capitalism and the meaning of socialism beyond the failure of at least its etatist and autarkic mode. The five articles here and the editors’ introduction address themes such as utopian hopes, civil society, the transformation of Europe, the world beyond 1989, and new configurations of power and conflict.
Paths to Democracy of the Post-Soviet Republics: Attempt at Conceptualization
In: Ewa Czerwińska-Schupp (ed.), Values and Norms in the Age of Globalization. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007, pp. 529-571. , 2007
The paper conceptualizes five basic developmental paths the post-Soviet republics followed. The conceptual framework of this paper is expanded theory of real socialism in non-Marxian historical materialism, namely proposed the model of secession from socialist empire. The first developmental path was followed by societies in which an independent civil revolution took place. This path of development bifurcates into two furhter sub-variants. Namely civil revolutions in the Baltic republics (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) resulted in the independence and stable democracies. Civil revolution in Caucasus republics (Armenia, Gergia) were partially succesfull because civil movement in these societies were unable to build stable democracies. Countries such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine followed next developmental path. Its characteristic feauture is active participation of republican communist nomenclatures in seceding from the Soviet Union and gaining state independence. In this variant of development, democratization - characteristic for the first period of independence was counterbalanced by the growing autocratization of political system. This path of development was divided into two developmental variants: in one group of countries (Ukraine) the growth of autocratization caused civil resistance (Ukraine), in the rest societies of this group (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova) - not. Finally the countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) followed the fith developmental path. In these societies, independence permitted to preserve dictatorship of local communist nomenclatures.