ABSTRACT
Prior to the end of state socialism, transition referred primarily to developing countries and the notion of their progress towards a western-style market democracy. This was projected as the default final stage of state-societal organisation. Such a rather one-dimensional understanding of the outcome of societal development was strongly advocated during the 1980s, with the struggle between communism and liberal market democracies now seen as won by the latter. It is against this notion of westernisation that transition and democratisation have been conceptually associated with each other so closely. The term ‘developing’, per se, highlights a transitional, transformational process on the way towards an envisaged desired ‘final’ stage of development (as embodied by the ‘First World’ industrialised
countries). For this to be achieved, the widespread notion had been the need for satisfying certain formal, structural pre-conditions to allow democratisation to take a foothold (see Rustow, 1970, and others below). The implicit understanding is that the relevant countries need to be prepared, that is, shaped by an external force/ influence to get them on track for democracy. This understanding, projecting the notion of a superior West against inferior non-western-style state-societal regimes, was still distinctly evident in the West’s response to the events in Eastern Europe, for naturally having won the battle between the systems, the western paradigm of state-societal organisation, summarised in democratic market economy, was to be adopted in the East wholesale. This paradigmatic doctrine, reinforced by the New Right ideologies of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, had already been questioned in the 1970s, and influenced mid to late 1990s policies. However, as the most recent events and debates around the Iraq War of 2003/4 have demonstrated, a new triumphalist notion of western-style market democracies as the only path to happiness seems to continue to shape international political paradigms.
