ABSTRACT
AT THE END OF THE 1980s, MOST OF THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND Eastern Europe had begun their transition to democracy. While in most cases this was a relatively rapid and peaceful process, subsequent democratic consolidation was not infrequently thwarted with complexity and real threats of ‘democratic erosion’ (Schedler 1998). For example, during the 1990s the Mecˇiar government in Slovakia marked ‘the most serious threat to postcommunist Slovakia’s Democratic Development’ (Deegan-Krause 2004, p. 264). However, while this specific case could be explained with its temporal proximity to the end of the authoritarian regime in Czechoslovakia and the problems of nation building, the successive crises in other countries are more difficult to account for. For instance, from 2006 to 2007 the Kaczyn´ski government in Poland constituted a break in Polish politics as a result of its tendency to concentrate power in the hands of the executive (Millard 2008, p. 72). More recently, the Orba´n government in Hungary has attracted the attention of the other European countries and the European Union because of its authoritarian and majoritarian conception of democracy (Ko¨ro¨se´nyi 1999) accompanied by a ‘systematic destruction of checks and balances in the government’ (Hack 2011). Actually, in order to fully understand these phenomena, they have to be considered within
the broader context of the foregoing democratic consolidation process. As correctly argued by Pridham, ‘democratic consolidation may take minimally a decade and maximally two or more decades’ (Pridham 2001, p. 5). The opportunity to take into account two decades of long-term
perspective process in Central and Eastern Europe ran its course. Unlike other regions such as southern Europe or Latin America, in Central and Eastern Europe democratic consolidation has in some cases involved three dimensions: the state, the political system and the economy. Slovakia, and to a lesser extent the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries, are all examples of this triple process of transition and consolidation that has encompassed the creation of a market economy, a liberal democracy, new state institutions and the solution of nationality issues. The vivid memory of the communist regime has allowed the new democracies to enjoy a
high rate of legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion.1 This fact was extremely important, especially in light of a weakened civil society in the wake of the authoritarian experience, low political participation, weak and unconsolidated political parties, and inefficient institutions. For these reasons, the role of external actors, primarily the European Union, in some cases has been crucial in ensuring the success of democratic consolidation. Joining the EU has been considered to be an indication of the end of the consolidation process (Vachudova 2005; Cameron 2007): ‘the inclusion of ten post-communist countries into the European Union is probably the best indicator of democratic consolidation in these countries’ (Linde 2009, p. 2). If that is so, how does one account for the apparent end of the process of democratic consolidation and, at the same time, the problems involving national governance that affected several Central and Eastern European countries during the past 20 years? This is the puzzle to which this article will try to give an answer. To achieve this goal, this essay will compare three different countries in the region:
Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, for a period of 20 years starting at the beginning of the 1990s (the end of the transition period). These three cases differ in respect of a number of factors so that, through the comparative method, it is possible to produce exportable results on the whole sample of Central and Eastern European countries. This variation exists with regard to a wide variety of factors: the form of government (parliamentary in all three cases, but with strong presidentialist elements in Poland and Bulgaria); the party system and the political players in governments; the nature of the previous communist regime (authoritarianism in Poland, ‘frozen’ post-totalitarian in Czechoslovakia, and ‘embryonic’ post-totalitarian in Bulgaria) (Linz & Stepan 1996a); the model of transition to democracy (negotiated transition in Poland, fall of the regime in Czechoslovakia, and transition controlled by the regime’s elite in Bulgaria); the difference between the countries in terms of their economies (more advanced and dynamic in Poland and Slovakia, facing difficulties and economic backwardness in Bulgaria); religious traditions (Orthodoxy in Bulgaria, Catholicism in Poland); national identity (the strong national tradition in Poland and Bulgaria, and the new independence of Slovakia); ethnic composition (homogeneity in Poland, and the presence of strong ethnic or linguistic minorities in Bulgaria and Slovakia); and finally different relationships with the EU (Poland was a frontrunner in the accession process, while Slovakia, because of the problems caused by the authoritarian government of Vladimir Mecˇiar, failed to start negotiations in 1998-even though as a result of the 1998 change of government the country complied very quickly with all requests of the European Union and was able to enter the EU with the first group in 2004-and the path to
membership and did not join the EU until 2007). Through the use of different primary and secondary sources such as election results,
opinion polls, interviews, national official documents, reports of NGOs and international institutions, and EU documents, the essay will develop the argument in three distinct sections. In the first section, the paper addresses the theoretical issues of this research, taking stock of the studies on democratic consolidation and clarifying the chosen approach. The second section is devoted to an empirical study of the three selected case studies and, finally, the third part contains the conclusions and the findings of the paper.
