Trajectories of Post-Communist Transformation: Myths and Rival Theories about Change in Central and Southeastern Europe

Abstract

The collapse of communism in Central and Southeastern Europe has given rise to various myths and debates. This article undertakes to examine and debunk two myths and to summarise and assess four debates. The two myths are, first, that no one foresaw the collapse of communism or offered any clear prediction of that eventuality in the decade preceding 1989, and, second, that what occurred in the region between 1989 and 1991 could not be described as a revolution since, allegedly, it was masterminded by the communist authorities themselves; this article refutes these two myths. The four debates concern whether to describe the processes of change since 1989 as a transition or a transformation, what to count as democratic consolidation, and what to understand as the reasons for differences in paths of transition or transformation , and as reasons for differences in the level of success with democratisation. The article includes some comparative measures of regional progress since 1989

Keywords

• Transformation, transition, democratisation, communism, post-communism, myths.

References

1. Ivan Volgyes, “Hungary: Before the Storm Breaks”, Current History, Vol. 86, No. 523 (November 1987), p. 373.
2. Anneli Ute Gabanyi, “Ceauşescu und kein Ende? Der Kampf um die Nachfolge hat bereits begonnen”, Südosteuropa, Vol. 37, No. 9 (September 1988).
3. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Failure: Communism’s Terminal Crisis, New York, Scribner’s, 1989, pp. 135-136.
4. Vladimir Tismăneanu (ed.), In Search of Civil Society: Independent Peace Movements in the Soviet Bloc, New York, Routledge, 1990.
5. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?”, The National Interest, No. 14 (Summer 1989).
6. Robert Conquest, “Who Was Right, Who Was Wrong, and Why?”, Encounter, (July- August 1990), pp. 3-18.
7. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1968, p. 1. 17 Ibid., p. 336. 18 Ibid., p. 264.
8. Steven D. Roper, “The Romanian Revolution from a Theoretical Perspective”, Communist and Post-Communist Perspectives, Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 1994), p. 402.

9. Poznanski, “An Interpretation”, p. 4. 21 Ibid., p. 5. 22 Ibid., p. 9. 23 Ibid., p. 23.
10. Poznanski, “Transition and its Dissenters”, p. 212. 25 Ibid., p. 219.
11. De Tocqueville, as summarised in Raymond Tanter and Manus Midlarsky, “A Theory of Revolution”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 11, No. 3 (September 1967), p. 265.
12. McFaul, as quoted in Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, “The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidationists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?”, Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Spring 1994), p. 181.
13. Howard Kaminsky, “Chiliasm and the Hussite Revolution”, Church History, Vol. 26, No. 1 (March 1957), p. 62. 29 Ramet
14. Bertram Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History, New York, Dial Press, 1948.
15. See Jiři Lach, James T. LaPlant, Jim Peterson, and David Hill, “The Party Isn’t Over: An Analysis of the Communist Party in the Czech Republic”, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (September 2010), pp. 363-388.
16. Maja Miljković and Marko Hoare, “Crime and the Economy under Milošević and His Successors”, in Sabrina P. Ramet and Vjeran Pavlaković (eds.), Serbia since 1989: Politics and Society under Milošević and After, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2005.
17. See Valerie Bunce, “Should Transitologists be Grounded?”, Slavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Spring 1995); Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism, and What Comes Next?, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1996.
18. Petra Pavlínek, “Alternative Theoretical Approaches to Post-Communist Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe”, Acta Slavica Iaponica, No. 20 (2003), pp. 86-87.
19. Ben Fowkes, The Post-Communist Era: Change and Continuity in Eastern Europe, London and New York, Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press, 1999, p. 3. 36 Ibid., p. 4.
20. Betty Kirkpatrick (ed.), The Cassell Pocket English Dictionary, London, Arrow Books, 1991, p. 876. 38 Ibid., p. 875.
21. Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 1 (January 2002), pp. 6-8.
22. Sabrina P. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918-2005, Washington D.C. & Bloomington, The Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Indiana University Press, 2006, Chapter 16.
23. Jeffrey Kopstein, “Postcommunist Democracy: Legacies and Outcomes”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 35, No. 2 (January 2003); Grigore Pop-Eleches, “Historical Legacies and Post- Communist Regime Change”, Journal of Politics, Vol. 69, No. 4 (November 2007). See also Juliet Johnson, “Path Contingency in Postcommunist Transformations”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (April 2001), pp. 256-258; Michael Minkenberg (ed.), Historical Legacies and the Radical Right in Post-Cold War Central and Eastern Europe, Stuttgart, Ibidem Verlag, 2010.
24. Jordan Gans-Morse, “Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post- Communist Transitions and the Myth of a Dominant Paradigm”, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2004), p. 323.
25. Jeffrey Kopstein, “1989 as a Lens for the Communist Past and Post-Communist Future”, Contemporary European History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (August 2009), p. 291.
26. Gans-Morse, “Searching for Transitologists”, pp. 328, 332.
27. Ibid., pp. 334-335. 46 Verdery, p. 335.
28. Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration after Communism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 3.
29. As quoted in Marta Toch, Reinventing Civil Society: Poland’s Quiet Revolution, 1981-1986, New York, Helsinki Watch, 1986, p. 7.
30. Documented in Sabrina P. Ramet, Social Currents in Eastern Europe: The Sources and Meaning of the Great Transformation, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1991, Chapter 3.
31. See, Janusz Bugajski, Czechoslovakia: Charter 77’s Decade of Dissent, Washington Paper No. 125, New York, Scribner’s, 1987; H. Gordon Skilling, Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe, Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1989.
32. See, Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier, The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe, Ithaca & N.Y., Cornell University Press, 2005.
33. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, London, Penguin Press, 1967, p. 121.
34. As summarised in Annette N. Brown, ‘When is Transition Over?’, Copyright (c) 1999 by W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, at http://www.upjohninst.org/ publications/ch1/brownch1.pdf [last visited 14 April 2009].
35. As quoted in Ibid., p. 6.
36. Ermelinda Meksi and Auron Pasha, “When is Transition Over? Theory versus Reality in [the] Albanian Case”, at http://www.bankofalbania.org/web/pub/meksi_pasha_248_1.pdf [last visited 14 April 2013].
37. Srđan Vrcan, “Elections in Croatia: A Symptomatic Case or an Anomaly?”, in Dragica Vujadinović, Lino Veljak, Vladimir Goati, and Veselin Pavićević (eds.), Between Authoritarianism and Democracy: Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia – Vol. 1, Institutional Framework, Belgrade, CEDET, 2003, p. 243.
38. For discussion, see, Sabrina P. Ramet, “Serbia since July 2008: At the Doorstep of the EU”, Südosteuropa, Vol. 58, No. 1 (2010), pp. 15-40.
39. Večernje novosti (Belgrade), at http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/aktuelno.316. html:378644-Nikolic-Jos-nije-bilo-razgovora-sa-socijalistima-Dacic-O-buducoj-vladi- prvo-sa-DS [last visited 7 December 2012].
40. “EU Set for Serbia Membership Talks”, BBC News, at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-23099379 [last visited 25 July 2013].
41. Blic (Belgrade), at http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Politika/326256/Nikolic-Necu-priznati- Kosovo/print [last visited 1 June 2012].
42. For details, see Balkan Insight, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/vucic-hopes- for-better-cooperation-with-russia [last visited 29 August 2012]; Balkans.com, at http:// www.balkans.com/open-news.php?uniquenumber=154602 [last visited 30 August 2012]; and Danas (Belgrade), 4 September 2012, at http://www.danas.rs/danasrs/politika/ rusija_tesno_saradjuje_s_novom_vladom_srbije.56.html?news_id=247022 [last visited 5 September 2012].
43. “SEEMO/IPI Concerned about Proposed Amendments to Serbian Law on Public Information”, Southeast Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), at http://www.seemo.org/ activities/pressfreedom/09/press0932.html [last visited 1 October 2009]; and Siniša Jakov Marušić, ‘Macedonia: NGO Slams Electronic Communications Law’, Balkan Insight, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/28988 [last visited 26 June 2010].
44. See, Phil Cain, ‘Eastern Europe’s private armies’, Global Post, 21 August 2010, at http:// www.globalpost.com/print/5572726 [last visited 22 August 2010].
45. Concerning Bosnia-Herzegovina, see, Ola Listhaug and Sabrina P. Ramet (eds.), Bosnia- Herzegovina since Dayton: Civic and Uncivic Values, Ravenna, Longo Editore, 2013.
46. Sardi, Tamas, “Parliamentary elections in Hungary – The results and political implications”, CEC Government Relations, at http://www.cecgr.com/fileadmin/content/analyses/ Parliamentary%20elections%20in%20Hungary%202010.pdf [last visited 11 September 2012].
47. “Jobbik Gains Ground Among Hungarian Youth in 2011”, Politics.hu, at http://www. politics.hu/20120209/fidesz-firms-lead-in-latest-tarki-poll/ [last visited 11 September 2012].
48. “Destitute Feel the Heat as Law Tightens”, Budapest Times, 18 November 2011.
49. “Jobbik MEPs to Fight for Pre-Trianon Borders”, MTI (Budapest), at http://www.politics. hu/20090615/jobbik-meps-to-fight-for-pretrianon-borders/ [last visited 13 February 2012].
50. “Hungary: Far Right Burns EU Flag and Demands Exit from Bloc”, euronews, at http:// www.euronews.com/2012/01/15/hungary-far-right-burns-eu-flag-and-demands-exit- from-bloc/ [last visited 9 September 2012].
51. “Hungary Nationalists Whip Up Anti-Roma Feelings”, BBC News Europe, at http://www. bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19439679 [last visited 4 September 2012].
52. ‘Rehabilitacija Hortija’, Radio-televizija Srbije, at http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/ story/11/Region/1116310/Rehabilitacija+Hortija.html [ last visited 11 June 2012].
53. Paul G. Lewis, “Theories of Democratization and Patterns of Regime Change in Eastern Europe”, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 13, No. 1 (March 1997), pp. 6-8.
54. Gerardo L. Munck and Carol Skalnik Leff, “Modes of Transition and Democratization: South America and Eastern Europe in Comparative Perspective”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 29, No. 3 (April 1997), pp. 344, 357-359.
55. Helga A. Welsh, “Political Transition Processes in Central and Eastern Europe”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 26, No. 4 (July 1994), p. 379.
56. Prohniţchi, Elena, “Comparative Analysis of the Modes of Transition in Hungary and Poland and their Impact on the Electoral System of these States”, CEU Political Science Journal, No. 3 (2006), p. 5.
57. Keith Darden and Anna Grymala-Busse, “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse”, World Politics, Vol. 59, No. 1 (October 2006). 77 Vachudova, 78 Ibid., p. 21.
58. John T. Ishiyama, “Communist Parties in Transition: Structures, Leaders, and Processes of Democratization in Eastern Europe”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (April 2001), p. 147.
59. Dorothee Bohle and Béla Greskovits, “Neoliberalism, Embedded Neoliberalism and Neocorporatism: Towards Transnational Capitalism in Central Eastern Europe”, West European Politics, Vol. 30, No. 3 (May 2007), p. 445-446, as summarised in Karl Kaser, “Economic Reforms and the Illusion of Transition”, in Sabrina P. Ramet (ed.), Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 92.
60. Bennett Kovrig, “European Integration”, in Aurel Braun and Zoltan Barany (eds.), Dilemmas of Transition: The Hungarian Experience, Lanham, Md., Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, p. 258.
61. Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde, “Explaining Different Paths of Democratization: The Czech and Slovak Republics”, Journal of Communist Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (September 2000), pp. 74, 79.
62. Grigore Pop-Eleches, “Between Historical Legacies and the Promise of Western Integration: Democratic Conditionality after Communism”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Fall 2007), p. 143.
63. Svetozar A. Andreev, “Political Institutions and the Democratisation of Post-Communist Eastern Europe (1989-2000)”, The Romanian Journal of Political Science, No. 1 (2004), p. 38.
64. Valerie Bunce, “Rethinking Recent Democratization: Lessons from the Postcommunist Experiences”, World Politics, Vol. 55, No. 2 (January 2003), p. 177.
65. Grigory Vainshtein, “Totalitarian Public Consciousness in a Post-Totalitarian Society: The Russian Case in the General Context of Post-Communist Developments”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 248, 252, 255; Grzegorz Ekiert, Jan Kubik, and Milana Ana Vachudova, “Democracy in the Post-Communist World: An Unending Quest?”, East European Politics and Societies,Vol. 21, No. 7 (February 2007), p. 18.
66. Petr Macek and Ivana Marková, “Trust and Distrust in Old and New Democracies”, in Ivana Marková (ed.), Trust and Democratic Transition in Post-Communist Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 173-174.
67. Valerie Bunce, “Comparative Democratization: Big and Bounded Generalizations”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 33, No. 6/7 (August-September 2000), p. 717.
68. See, Wolfgang Höpken, “Between Civic Identity and Nationalism: History Textbooks in East-Central and Southeastern Europe”, in Sabrina P. Ramet and Davorka Matić (eds.), Democratic Transition in Croatia: Value Transformation, Education & Media, College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 2007, especially pp. 171, 174.
69. In the first place Serbia, see, Anna Di Lellio, “The Missing Democratic Revolution and Serbia’s Anti-European Choice: 1989-2008”, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September 2009), pp. 373-384.
70. Danica Fink-Hafner, and Mitja Hafner-Fink, “The Determinants of the Success of Transitions to Democracy”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 61, No. 9 (November 2009), pp. 1613-1614, 1618-1619. 92 Ibid., p. 1607.
71. See, Sandra B. Hrvatin and Brankica Petković, You Call This a Media Market? The Role of the State in the Media Sector in Slovenia, Ljubljana, Peace Institute, 2008.
72. See, Gorazd Meško, Bojan Dobovšek, and Želimir Kešetović, “Measuring Organized Crime in Slovenia”, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 56, No. 2 (March-April 2009), pp. 58-62.
73. Robert D. Kaplan’s widely criticised book is Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1993.
74. Henry R. Cooper, “Review of Robert D. Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts (1993)”, Slavic Review, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn 1993), p. 592.
75. See the discussion in Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević, 4th ed., Boulder, Colo., Westview Press, 2002, p. 72.
76. See, Ibid., p. 239.
77. Warren Zimmerman, Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and its destroyers, New York, Times Books, 1996 ; as quoted in Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 85.
78. Ivo Banac, “What Happened in the Balkans (or Rather ex-Yugoslavia)”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Fall 2009), p. 462.
79. Glaurdić, Josip, “Inside the Serbian War Machine: The Milošević Telephone Intercepts, 1991-1992”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (February 2009), pp. 92- 93.
80. Beverly Crawford, “Explaining Defection from International Cooperation: Germany’s Unilateral Recognition of Croatia”, World Politics, Vol. 48, No. 4 (July 1996), pp. 482-521.
81. See, Lenard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia’s Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition, 2nd ed., Boulder, Colo., Westview Press, 1995, pp. 238-239; Susan J. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War, Washington D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1995, passim; Susan J. Woodward, “International Aspects of the Wars in Former Yugoslavia”, in Jasminka Udovički and James Ridgeway (eds.), Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1997, pp. 223-224.
82. See, John Major, The Autobiography, New York, Harper Collins, 2000, Chapter 22 (“Hell’s Kitchen”). For a detailed demonstration that Germany acted in close partnership with Great Britain, France, and other European states in promoting the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, see, Sabrina P. Ramet and Letty Coffin, “German Foreign Policy vis-á-vis the Yugoslav Successor States, 1991-99”, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 48, No. 1 (January-February 2001), pp. 48-64.
83. For documentation, see, Ramet, Balkan Babel, 4th ed., pp. 58-59; and Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, Chapters 14-15.
84. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia, p. 67.
85. A theory advanced non-exclusively in Lenard J. Cohen, Serpent in the Bosom: The Rise and Fall of Slobodan Milošević, Boulder, Colo., Westview Press, 2001 , pp. 81-82; see also, Cohen, Broken Bonds, pp. 20-21 & 246.
86. See, Susan J. Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1995.
87. Schöpflin, “Political Decay in One-Party Systems”, pp. 309, 312; see also, John Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia, New York, Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 418-423. 428- 429.
88. Dennison Rusinow, “The Avoidable Catastrophe”, in Sabrina Petra Ramet and Ljubiša S. Adamovich (eds.), Beyond Yugoslavia: Politics, Economics, and Culture in a Shattered Community, Boulder, Colo., Westview Press, 1995.
89. See, Raif Dizdarević, Od smrti Tita do smrti Jugoslavije: Svjedočenja, Sarajevo, Svjedok, Massimo Nava, 1999; Milosevic: La tragedia di un popolo, Milano, Rizzoli; Louis Sell, Slobodan Milošević and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 2002.
90. Poznanski, ‘Transition and its Dissenters’, p. 217, as already cited.
91. For detailed discussion, see, Sabrina P. Ramet, “Explaining the Yugoslav meltdown, 1- For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble: Theories about the Roots of the Yugoslav Troubles”, Nationalities Papers, Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 2004), pp. 731-763; Sabrina P. Ramet, “Explaining the Yugoslav meltdown, 2-A Theory about the Causes of the Yugoslav Meltdown: The Serbian National Awakening as a ‘Revitalization Movement’”, Nationalities Papers, Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 2004), pp. 765-779.
92. Ivo Banac, “Post-Communism as Post-Yugoslavism: The Yugoslav Non-Revolutions of 1989-1990”, in Ivo Banac (ed.), Eastern Europe in Revolution, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 2002, p. 187.