ABSTRACT
Until very recently, Belarus has received relatively little attention from western scholars and policy-makers. However, the political and economic development of Belarus since the fall of communism is eminently worthy of further investigation. First, Belarus, situated in the centre of the European continent, bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, occupies an important geostrategic position, and as the European Union and NATO enlarge, it could have a vital influence on the stability of Europe. Second, Belarus deserves to be better known to the world community because by the beginning of the twenty-first century it appears to be in full retreat from democracy and ruled by an increasingly repressive leadership. Since the rise to power of President Lukashenka in 1994, the country’s constitution has been arbitrarily changed; elections have not been free and fair; parliament and the independent media have been suppressed; opposition leaders have unaccountably disappeared, been arrested or exiled; the authorities have increasingly relied on the security services (the KGB has not even been renamed); and there have been constant violations of human and civil rights. Third, post-communist Belarus provides an interesting case study because of its singular path of political and economic transition. Unlike many other post-communist states, it has defied all expectations and failed to move either in the direction of nationalism or towards democracy and a free market. This book aims to suggest, on the basis of an analysis of the hybrid post-communist regime in Belarus, that such contradictory developments need to be taken into account by general theorists of transition and the process of democratisation. Further, it will pose the question: is Belarus, after the fall of Milosˇevich in Serbia, the last dictatorship in Europe? Or have the preconditions for a democracy already been laid?
