How different are postcommunist transitions?

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 7, Issue 4, 1996, Pages

  Nodia, Ghia ^a,b  

^a Department of Political Philosophy   (Georgia)

^b Democr D

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 1842484002     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.1996.0062     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. For this debate, see the following articles in Slavic Review, vols. 52-54: Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, "Thinking About Postcommunist Transitions: How Different Are They?" (Summer 1993), 333-37; Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, "The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt To Go?" (Spring 1994), 173-85; Valerie Bunce, "Should Transitologists Be Grounded?" (Spring 1995), 111-27; Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?" (Winter 1995), 965-78; and Valerie Bunce, "Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers" (Winter 1995), 979-87.
2. For this debate, see the following articles in Slavic Review, vols. 52-54: Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, "Thinking About Postcommunist Transitions: How Different Are They?" (Summer 1993), 333-37; Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, "The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt To Go?" (Spring 1994), 173-85; Valerie Bunce, "Should Transitologists Be Grounded?" (Spring 1995), 111-27; Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?" (Winter 1995), 965-78; and Valerie Bunce, "Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers" (Winter 1995), 979-87.
3. For this debate, see the following articles in Slavic Review, vols. 52-54: Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, "Thinking About Postcommunist Transitions: How Different Are They?" (Summer 1993), 333-37; Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, "The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt To Go?" (Spring 1994), 173-85; Valerie Bunce, "Should Transitologists Be Grounded?" (Spring 1995), 111-27; Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?" (Winter 1995), 965-78; and Valerie Bunce, "Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers" (Winter 1995), 979-87.
4. For this debate, see the following articles in Slavic Review, vols. 52-54: Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, "Thinking About Postcommunist Transitions: How Different Are They?" (Summer 1993), 333-37; Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, "The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt To Go?" (Spring 1994), 173-85; Valerie Bunce, "Should Transitologists Be Grounded?" (Spring 1995), 111-27; Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?" (Winter 1995), 965-78; and Valerie Bunce, "Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers" (Winter 1995), 979-87.
5. For this debate, see the following articles in Slavic Review, vols. 52-54: Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, "Thinking About Postcommunist Transitions: How Different Are They?" (Summer 1993), 333-37; Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, "The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt To Go?" (Spring 1994), 173-85; Valerie Bunce, "Should Transitologists Be Grounded?" (Spring 1995), 111-27; Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?" (Winter 1995), 965-78; and Valerie Bunce, "Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers" (Winter 1995), 979-87.
6. Ghia Nodia, "Nationalism and Democracy," Journal of Democracy 3 (October 1992): 17-21.
7. Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, in "Conceptual Travels" (p. 177), say that a significant number of their interlocutors from the postcommunist world mentioned Spain and Chile as models. Pinochet's Chile was indeed popular - not as a model for democracy, however, but as a model of authoritarian-imposed economic reform that would precede democratic transition.
8. See Samuel P. Huntington, "Reforming Civil-Military Relations," Journal of Democracy 6 (October 1995): 14-16; and Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, "What Makes Democracies Endure?" Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996): 39-55.
9. See Samuel P. Huntington, "Reforming Civil-Military Relations," Journal of Democracy 6 (October 1995): 14-16; and Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, "What Makes Democracies Endure?" Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996): 39-55.
10. " For all its historical geographical ups and downs, diffusion remains a key (nowadays writ large) ingredient of democratic development." Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 14. See also Przeworski et al., "What Makes Democracies Endure?" 43.
11. " For all its historical geographical ups and downs, diffusion remains a key (nowadays writ large) ingredient of democratic development." Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 14. See also Przeworski et al., "What Makes Democracies Endure?" 43.
12. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer 1993): 22-49.
13. Huntington, "Democracy for the Long Haul," Journal of Democracy 7 (April 1996): 8.
14. I say "ostensibly" because it might further be observed that since a society's body and soul are not so clearly separable, communism also did a poor job of building up the body of society. It is widely acknowledged in postcommunist economic transitions, for example, that most of the industrial enterprises left over from communism have to be destroyed or allowed to go under before positive economic development can begin.
15. Here is the flaw in the popular argument that communist systems were "totalitarian" only in their hard-core Stalinist versions, and generally became "authoritarian" (and hence more equivalent to right-wing autocracies) after Khrushchev's de-Stalinization program in 1956. Khrushchev's revolution of 1956 certainly brought about a great feeling of liberation and thoroughly changed many aspects of the regime and social life. The universal fear of Stalinist terror largely lifted, public life became more relaxed, and it became possible to create niches of freedom on the private level. Such a society might be called post-totalitarian. Yet inasmuch as the mainspring of communism - the abolition of private property - was retained, it would be a great mistake to include such a society in the category of "authoritarianism" as commonly understood.
16. See Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless," in his Living in Truth (London: Faber and Faber, 1987), 36-122. See also Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., "Party and Ideology in the Former U.S.S.R.," in Richard Zinman and Jerry Weinberger, eds., Left, Right and Center: Party and Ideology After the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996); and G.M. Tamás, "Socialism, Capitalism, and Modernity," Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1992): 60-74, and "Irony, Ambiguity, Duplicity: The Legacy of Dissent," Uncaptive Minds 7 (Summer 1994): 19-34.
17. See Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless," in his Living in Truth (London: Faber and Faber, 1987), 36-122. See also Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., "Party and Ideology in the Former U.S.S.R.," in Richard Zinman and Jerry Weinberger, eds., Left, Right and Center: Party and Ideology After the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996); and G.M. Tamás, "Socialism, Capitalism, and Modernity," Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1992): 60-74, and "Irony, Ambiguity, Duplicity: The Legacy of Dissent," Uncaptive Minds 7 (Summer 1994): 19-34.
18. See Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless," in his Living in Truth (London: Faber and Faber, 1987), 36-122. See also Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., "Party and Ideology in the Former U.S.S.R.," in Richard Zinman and Jerry Weinberger, eds., Left, Right and Center: Party and Ideology After the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996); and G.M. Tamás, "Socialism, Capitalism, and Modernity," Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1992): 60-74, and "Irony, Ambiguity, Duplicity: The Legacy of Dissent," Uncaptive Minds 7 (Summer 1994): 19-34.
19. See Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless," in his Living in Truth (London: Faber and Faber, 1987), 36-122. See also Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., "Party and Ideology in the Former U.S.S.R.," in Richard Zinman and Jerry Weinberger, eds., Left, Right and Center: Party and Ideology After the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996); and G.M. Tamás, "Socialism, Capitalism, and Modernity," Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1992): 60-74, and "Irony, Ambiguity, Duplicity: The Legacy of Dissent," Uncaptive Minds 7 (Summer 1994): 19-34.
20. M. Steven Fish, Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and the Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
21. See Anne Applebaum, "Nice Guys Finish Last," Freedom Review, January-February 1996, 24-30.