Confining conditions and breaking with the past: Historical legacies and political learning in transitions to democracy

Democratization

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 36-64

  Pridham, Geoffrey ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIZATION; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; POLITICAL CHANGE; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

EUROPE;

EID: 0033928584     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340008403659     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. J. Santiso, 'Clouds and Clocks: Temporal Dimensions in Latin American Democratization Processes', paper for Second Vienna Dialogue on Democracy, 'Democracy and Time', Vienna, Institute for Advanced Studies, December 1995, p.2.
2. The phrase comes from the title of Misha Glenny's book The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy (London: Penguin Books, 1990), in which he argues that democracy may prove a double-edged sword, for history is not only being made but also Eastern Europe's inter-war history and powerful cultural diversity will continue to shape its future, not least its nationalist conflicts.
3. There is a case for saying that the post-war transitions to democracy after the fall of fascism were at least as dramatically perceived in historical terms because of the circumstances of defeat in total war. There were at the time references back to historical patterns and legacies, notably those of authoritarianism and the problem of democratic traditions in Germany.
4. G. Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: an Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), pp.32 and 33.
5. N. Bermeo, 'Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship', Comparative Politics, Vol.24, No.3 (1992), pp.279, 287.
6. See J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), Ch.4. In this article, however, the term 'authoritarian' is generally used in the text in reference to all types of non-democratic regimes. This is for convenience's sake in comparative discussion, but it does not imply a lack of distinction among such regimes.
7. S.M. Lipset, 'Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy', American Political Science Review, Vol.53, No.1 (1959), pp.69-105.
8. O. Kirchheimer, 'Confining Conditions and Revolutionary Breakthroughs', American Political Science Review, Vol.59, No.4 (1965), pp.964-74.
9. Ibid, pp.964, 965.
10. See D. Rustow, 'Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model', Comparative Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1970), pp.347 and 350-61.
11. P. Converse, 'Of Time and Partisan Stability', Comparative Political Studies, Vol.2, No.2 (1969), p.139.
12. P. Schmitter and J. Santiso, 'Three Temporal Dimensions to the Consolidation of Democracy', International Political Science Review, Vol.19, No.1 (1998), p.1.
13. J. Linz, 'Innovative Leadership in the Transition to Democracy and a New Democracy: The Case of Spain', in G. Sheffer (ed.), Innovative Leaders and International Politics (New York: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp.152, 155.
14. Santiso, 'Clouds and Clocks', p.11.
15. C. Offe, Varieties of Transition: the East European and East German Experience (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p.82.
16. Offe, Varieties of Transition, p.92.
17. Ibid, p.92.
18. For a fuller discussion of these points, see N. Diamandouros and S. Larrabee, 'Democratisation in South Eastern Europe: Theoretical Considerations, Evolving Trends', in G. Pridham and Tom Gallagher (eds.), Experimenting with Democracy: Regime Change in the Balkans (London: Routledge, 1999).
19. See B. Kovrig, 'Marginality Reinforced', in Z. Barany and I. Volgyes (eds.), The Legacies of Communism in Eastern Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), Ch.2.
20. E. Biberaj, 'Albania', in ibid, Ch.13.
21. See the analysis of these events in L. Silber and A. Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin Books, 1995).
22. On the role of 'contemporary myths', see G. Bartram, 'Reconstruction of the Past in Postwar European Culture: A Comparative Approach', in G. Bartram, M. Slawinski and D. Steel (eds.), Reconstructing the Past: Representations of the Fascist Era in Postwar European Culture (Keele: Keele University Press, 1996), pp.13-14.
23. A. Tsipko, 'A Return to Stability', Journal of Democracy, Vol.5, No.2 (1994), p.20, sees this fusion of the concept of democracy and the idea of national revival as in contrast with Russia, where the idea of democracy was linked with the themes of defeat and deterioration, that is the USSR's defeat in the cold war, the discrediting of the October revolution of 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet empire. Of course, the happy fusion of democracy with positive feelings in East-Central Europe, while rather visible and affecting large numbers of people at the moment transition began, ran the risk of evaporating once democratization faced hard times and difficulties of national adjustment.
24. J. Herz, 'Denazification and Related Policies', in J. Herz (ed.), From Dictatorship to Democracy: Coping with the Legacies of Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), p.32; Bartram, 'Reconstruction of the Past', in Bartram, Slawinski and Steel, op. cit., pp.14, 16.
25. J. Herz, 'Denazification and Related Policies', in J. Herz (ed.), From Dictatorship to Democracy: Coping with the Legacies of Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), p.32; Bartram, 'Reconstruction of the Past', in Bartram, Slawinski and Steel, op. cit., pp.14, 16.
26. The examples of these are legion and include the Greek Colonels' self-identification with Hellenic civilisation, the belated attempt by the German Democratic Republic to form links with Martin Luther and the Reformation and Bulgaria's effort under communism to revive memories of a seventh century Bulgarian empire. On the extraordinary extent to which this was carried under Ceauşescu, see T. Gallagher, Romania since Ceausescu: the Politics of Intolerance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), pp.58-60.
27. These various points are made forcefully in the report on the conference in London, September 1996, on 'Collective Memory in Debate: the Politics and Culture of Remembrance in Post-1989 Germany'; see German Historical Institute London Bulletin (May 1997), pp.91-5.
28. Quoted in R. Gunther, G. Sani and G. Shabad, Spain after Franco: The Making of a Competitive Party System (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986), p.13.
29. Ibid, p.118, where the authors recall their interviews with key participants in the consensual process that produced the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
30. N. Diamandouros, 'Transition to, and Consolidation of, Democratic Politics in Greece, 1974-83: A Tentative Assessment', in G. Pridham (ed.), The New Mediterranean Democracies: Regime Transition in Spain, Greece and Portugal (London: Frank Cass,1984), pp.59ff.
31. Gunther, Sani and Shabad, Spain after Franco, pp.67-8.
32. Ibid., pp.222-3.
33. This has been studied in the case of Latin America by Karen Remmer. She found that authoritarian rule there tended to promote political change rather than freeze pre-existing political patterns, by creating discontinuity, introducing new sources of cleavage and conflict, reorientating public policy and leading to the redefinition of political beliefs and loyalties. However, continuities were greatest between pre- and post-authoritarian democracies in countries with older party systems. See K. Remmer, 'Redemocratization and the impact of authoritarian rule in Latin America', Comparative Politics, Vol.17, No.3 (1985), pp.255, 266. If there is any major difference here from European experience, it is likely to revolve around this point, with the tendency in Europe for more structured and durable party systems than in Latin America.
34. See A. Korosenyi, 'Revival of the Past or New Beginning? The Nature of Post-Communist Politics', in A. Bozoki, A. Korosenyi and G. Schöpflin (eds.), Post-Communist Transition: Emerging Pluralism in Hungary (London: Pinter, 1992), pp.121ff.
35. Z. Barany and I. Volgyes (eds.), The Legacies of Communism in Eastern Europe includes all these but also environmental and military and security legacies as the subject of their study of this problem. This only illustrates the magnitude of the problems inherited by the new democracies of Eastern Europe in the 1990s.
36. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, p.452.
37. S. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the late Twentieth Century (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), pp.270-71.
38. This is most likely in the cases of democratic breakdown through foreign intervention, particularly if authoritarian rule (through subsequent foreign occupation) ends partly because of a domestic resistance movement for this can harness national feeling. Of the Eastern European countries, the obvious example is Czechoslovakia which enjoyed democratic rule from its independence in 1919 to the Nazi interventions of 1938 (the Sudetenland) and 1939 (the rest of Czechoslovakia). Of course, there may well have been domestic causes for democracy's weakness in such countries, but the external factor allows for much of the 'blame' to be projected outwards.
39. This point applies particularly to parts of Eastern Europe, see B. Parrott, 'Perspectives on Postcommunist Democratization', in K. Dawisha and B. Parrott (eds.), The Consolidation of Democracy in East-Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p.11.
40. S. Ben-Ami, 'The Legacy of Francoism - General Perspectives', in C. Abel and N. Torrents (eds.), Spain: Conditional Democracy (London: Croom Helm, 1984), Ch.1.
41. On this problem in post-Ceauşescu Romania, see I. Mihailescu, 'Mental Stereotypes in the First Years of Post-totalitarian Romania', in Government and Opposition, Vol.28, No.3 (1993), pp.322-3.
42. The extent of the Stasi apparatus was unparalled and much greater than that of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. It employed a vast network of unofficial informers, amounting in one estimation to over half a million people over the 40 years of the DDR, that is every thirtieth citizen of that country. See M. Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949-1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.50, 52.
43. Sunday Times, 11 March 1990 and The Guardian, 3 April 1990.
44. Sunday Times, 11 March 1990 and The Guardian, 3 April 1990.
45. For example see chapters on post-war Germany (E. Noelle-Neumann) and post-Franco Spain (J. Giner) in R. Worcester, Political Opinion Polling (London: Macmillan, 1983). A similar problem was evident in Eastern Europe during the first free parliamentary elections held in 1990, for example of a report on difficulties of pre-election polling in Hungary, see The Independent, 24 March 1990. The total lack of previous voting patterns but also the high volatility did not help.
46. For example see chapters on post-war Germany (E. Noelle-Neumann) and post-Franco Spain (J. Giner) in R. Worcester, Political Opinion Polling (London: Macmillan, 1983). A similar problem was evident in Eastern Europe during the first free parliamentary elections held in 1990, for example of a report on difficulties of pre-election polling in Hungary, see The Independent, 24 March 1990. The total lack of previous voting patterns but also the high volatility did not help.
47. W. Opello, Portugal's Political Development: A Comparative Approach (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 190-91.
48. M. Waller, 'Party Inheritances and Party Identities', in G. Pridham and P. Lewis (eds.), Stabilising Fragile Democracies: Comparing New Party Systems in Southern and Eastern Europe (London: Routledge, 1996), p.30.
49. In Romania, for instance, one year after the revolution of December 1989, two-thirds of the public believed democracy to be the guarantee of a job and a reduction in unemployment. I. Mihailescu, 'Mental Stereotypes', op. cit., p.319.
50. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, pp.143-7.
51. T. Baylis, 'Eastern Germany', in Barany and Volgyes, The Legacies of Communism in Eastern Europe, p.121.
52. Centre of Social Practices, Sofia, Politics, Reform and Daily Life: Evolution of Popular Attitudes to Key Issues in the Reform Process in Bulgaria, 1993-94 (Sofia, 1995), pp.12-13.
53. These are covered in some of the democratization literature. See, for instance, S. Huntington, The Third Wave, Ch.5; C. Offe, Varieties of Transition, Ch.5; and, the three articles on 'Confronting the Past' by J. Benomar, R. Alfonsin and A. Michnik and V. Havel in Journal of Democracy, Vol.4 (1993). See also J. Torpey, 'Coming to terms with the Communist Past: East Germany in Comparative Perspective', German Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1993), pp.415-35, which discusses Huntington's arguments as well as looking at the German case.
54. These are covered in some of the democratization literature. See, for instance, S. Huntington, The Third Wave, Ch.5; C. Offe, Varieties of Transition, Ch.5; and, the three articles on 'Confronting the Past' by J. Benomar, R. Alfonsin and A. Michnik and V. Havel in Journal of Democracy, Vol.4 (1993). See also J. Torpey, 'Coming to terms with the Communist Past: East Germany in Comparative Perspective', German Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1993), pp.415-35, which discusses Huntington's arguments as well as looking at the German case.
55. These are covered in some of the democratization literature. See, for instance, S. Huntington, The Third Wave, Ch.5; C. Offe, Varieties of Transition, Ch.5; and, the three articles on 'Confronting the Past' by J. Benomar, R. Alfonsin and A. Michnik and V. Havel in Journal of Democracy, Vol.4 (1993). See also J. Torpey, 'Coming to terms with the Communist Past: East Germany in Comparative Perspective', German Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1993), pp.415-35, which discusses Huntington's arguments as well as looking at the German case.
56. These are covered in some of the democratization literature. See, for instance, S. Huntington, The Third Wave, Ch.5; C. Offe, Varieties of Transition, Ch.5; and, the three articles on 'Confronting the Past' by J. Benomar, R. Alfonsin and A. Michnik and V. Havel in Journal of Democracy, Vol.4 (1993). See also J. Torpey, 'Coming to terms with the Communist Past: East Germany in Comparative Perspective', German Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1993), pp.415-35, which discusses Huntington's arguments as well as looking at the German case.
57. Quoted in Huntington, The Third Wave, p.214.
58. On the various complexities here, see C. Offe, Varieties of Transition, pp.97-8.
59. J. Rupnik, 'The Post-totalitarian Blues', Journal of Democracy, Vol.6, No.2 (1995), p.63. In 1997, the newly elected government in Romania following the first alternation in power decided on the opening of the files of the dreaded secret police, the Securitate, in order to make a clear break with the post-communist regime of President Iliescu (The Times, 16 Oct. 1997).
60. J. Rupnik, 'The Post-totalitarian Blues', Journal of Democracy, Vol.6, No.2 (1995), p.63. In 1997, the newly elected government in Romania following the first alternation in power decided on the opening of the files of the dreaded secret police, the Securitate, in order to make a clear break with the post-communist regime of President Iliescu (The Times, 16 Oct. 1997).
61. See J. Torpey, 'Coming to Terms with the Communist Past', German Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1993), pp.421-2.
62. Quoted in N. Bermeo, 'Rethinking Regime Change', Comparative Politics, Vol.22, No.3 (1990), p.372.
63. A. Agh, 'The Revival of Mixed Traditions: Democracy and Authoritarian Renewal in East Central Europe', Budapest Papers on Democratic Transition, No.92 (Budapest: Economics University, 1994), p.1.
64. Nancy Bermeo defines political learning as 'the process through which people modify their political beliefs and tactics as a result of severe crises, frustrations and dramatic changes in environment ... crises often force people to re-evaluate the ideas that they have used as guides to action in the past ... they can be "affected by political events" such as the replacement of one regime with another'. N. Bermeo, 'Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship', Comparative Politics, Vol.24, No.3 (1992), p.274.
65. Ibid, p.273.
66. K. Niclauss, 'Political Reconstruction at Bonn', in Herz, From Dictatorship to Democracy, pp.44-51.
67. R. Taras, 'Leaderships and Executives' in S. White, J. Batt and P. Lewis (eds.), Developments in East European Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993), p.164.
68. A. Lijphart, 'Democratisation and Constitutional Choices in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, 1989-91', in I. Budge and D. McKay (eds.), Developing Democracy: Comparative Research in Honour of J.F.P. Blondel (London: Sage, 1994), p.212.
69. J. Elster, 'Constitution-making in Eastern Europe: Rebuilding the Boat in the Open Sea', in J.J. Hesse (ed.), Administrative Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p.193.
70. N. Bermeo, 'Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship', p.275.
71. A. Michnik and V. Havel, 'Justice or Revenge?', Journal of Democracy, Vol.4, No.1 (1993), pp.21-2.
72. N. Bermeo, 'Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship', p.276.