A Quarter Century of Post-Communism Assessed

The post-communist region furnishes students of democratization with a fertile field for investigation. Countries of the region span almost the entire spectrum of possible outcomes in terms of political regimes. Three decades ago, all of Eurasia and Eastern Europe slumbered in a hyper-authoritarian deep freeze. Now the region includes some of the world’s most open polities (e.g. Estonia) and some of its most closed (e.g. Uzbekistan), as well as everything in between. Empirical investigation suggests that several big background variables that are often considered drivers of democratization are indeed strongly associated with cross-national variation in regime outcomes in the region. But structure is not destiny; the performance of some countries contradicts the expectations raised by conventional theories.

A quarter century after the collapse of East European communism, there is little doubt that the simultaneous transitions from communist dictatorships to multiparty democracy, and from a command economy to a market economy, have been successful almost exclusively in those states which were able to tie their post-communist reforms to the EU’s conditional offer of membership. However, the reasons why the opportunity for EU accession has not been used with the same effectiveness in all three regions of post-communist Europe to whom it was initially offered in the early 1990s remain far less obvious. While many scholars and political analysts tend to explain these reasons by primarily highlighting the different structural abilities of particular groups of states to adopt EU (“Western”) values and norms, and consequently meet EU accession conditions, this chapter focuses on the importance of “practical policy” measures and agent-driven actions.

Some 25 years after the collapse of the USSR, most successor states are ruled by non-democratic regimes. This chapter explores why this is so. After looking at some arguments about culture, the chapter turns to an argument about the circumstances of these countries’ emergence from the USSR, and especially the role of mass-based civil society forces in that process. Most of the post-Soviet countries experienced an overwhelmingly elite-based transition in which the populace played only a subsidiary part. The result was the creation of political systems that were semi-closed, in the sense of providing little scope for real popular participation. Politics was overwhelmingly an elite phenomenon, and those elites acted to maintain the semi-closed nature of their polities.

At the end of the 1990s, the World Bank rated the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) the most corrupt region in the world, while Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics, though not as bad, were not far behind. Since that assessment, the situation has improved in much of the post-communist world, but not as much as would be hoped for. This chapter investigates the perceived and experienced corruption in four post-communist states – Russia, two countries admitted to the EU in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania), and one non-EU country that has been the star performer in terms of reducing corruption, Georgia. It is demonstrated that, while there is evidence that under the pressure of the EU, corruption levels did improve somewhat in Bulgaria and Romania in the years immediately preceding and after their admission to the EU, domestic political will and capacity are ultimately crucial for success.

Following the collapse of state socialism, the Visegrád 4 (V4) countries were rapidly integrated into the European networks of trade and investment. But the shock-therapy model caused significant imbalances in their economies, so their integration with Europe’s core economies was slow and partial. A comparison with the experiences of the southern EU entrants of two decades earlier (Greece, Spain and Portugal) highlights some distinctive characteristics of the transition. Although the southern members enjoyed stronger economic and institutional starting positions, the V4 Group enjoyed substantially higher growth rates, and by 2014 their GDP per capita levels approached those in Portugal and Greece. Within this broader structural picture, there have been significant differences in the trajectories of the individual countries in Central Eastern Europe, which is especially evident in migration and FDI flows.

By connecting to ongoing scholarly discussions on conceptualizing “illiberal democracy” and analyzing the phenomenon of the anti-democratic backlash in post-2010 Hungary, this chapter seeks to provide a description and an analysis of the “Hungarian model of illiberal democracy.” It is argued that the “Hungarian illiberal democracy” is not a construct of constitutional philosophy; nor is it a principle for constitutional design or something characteristically illiberal within the interpretative framework of political theory. Rather, it is a tool to channel, define, and dominate general political discourse and provide a discursive framework for political identification and ideologically biased (yet divergent and ad hoc) legislation. The morphosis of this Hungarian model of illiberal democracy manifests itself normatively through value preferences expressed in the new constitution as well as in a quasi-normative political declaration that serves as a manifesto for the new political community it envisages.

The chapter examines the efforts of the EU civilian missions deployed in BiH (EUPM) and Kosovo (EULEX) to advance the consolidation of state-building and the establishment of the rule of law. It tries to map out and assess their track record, with a view to shed light on successes and deficiencies. It argues that the more focused and well specific the activities taken up by the two missions have been, the more efficient and rewarding have been the results delivered on the ground. Equally important, the two missions have proved able to smoothly work to the benefit of their operational objectives whenever they have both stayed tuned with local interests and streamlined their practices with other EU policies active in the region.

The focus of this chapter will be the management of multi-ethnic coexistence in the post-Soviet transition. It will examine the peculiarities of the transition in each of the Baltic countries in terms of inter-ethnic relations and government policy. The chapter will examine the complex of problems relating to ethnicity, nationalism, ethnic conflict and its resolution, institutions, and the political participation of ethnic minorities in the Baltic states. Particular emphasis will be placed on assessing the importance and socio-political effects of the changing ethnic structure in each of these states as well as their relations with Russia in this regard.

The Orange revolution raised hopes for a positive upsurge in Ukraine’s democratisation trajectory. However, more than a decade after the Orange Revolution, it is clear that Ukraine has made little progress with regard to democratisation. This chapter identifies two important factors, one internal and one external, which help explain, in part, the lack of tangible democratic reform in Ukraine. Internally, it is argued that the role of elites (oligarchs) has been detrimental to Ukraine’s democratisation efforts. Externally, it is argued that Ukraine’s geopolitical positioning in Eastern Europe is a bulwark to the potential external diffusion of democracy. Ultimately, because of Ukraine’s geopolitical positioning, any positive democratic gains will have to be driven from within; a difficult task given the entrenchment of oligarchs.

This chapter examines the continuities and changes in post-Communist Russian–Western relations, arguing that the main principles of Russian foreign policy have been fairly consistent since the early 1990s: assertion of Russian national interests distinct from those of the West, insistence on Russia’s status as a great power, maintenance of Russia’s role in international institutions, and resistance to Western unilateralism and hegemony. These principles help to explain the periodic clashes with Western states that regard Russia as an irritant in their promulgation of norms and approaches to resolving international crises. Until recently, crises tended to be followed by rapprochements, but Russian domestic developments, and evolving circumstances in the former Soviet Union and Middle East, have led to a more permanent freezing of relations.

In the context of the ongoing debate over the relative importance of personalist and institutionalized arrangements in contemporary Russian policy-making, an analysis is undertaken of the Russian decision to annex Crimea. The findings, while necessarily tentative, are that, while the specific decision was probably taken within a small group of officials with close personal links to the president, those officials themselves represent significant policy institutions. Additionally, decision makers had access to a range of information sources on the potential implications of the annexation decision. However, while the presence of institutional arrangements with moderating potential should not be ignored, it is suggested that they are weaker here than in less security-related areas of Russian politics.

In May 2014 Kazakhstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), an alliance that many in the West have suspected to be at the centre of Russia’s efforts to re-establish its hegemony in the former Soviet Union. Kazakhstan’s membership in the EEU has generated much internal debate among politicians, experts, and the general public about the country’s imperial past and post-imperial future, developmental strategies, and its place in the region and the world. The chapter examines the reasons for Astana’s participation in the EEU as well as the modalities and boundaries of this participation. It argues that Kazakhstan’s engagement in Eurasian economic integration in its current form corresponds with the country’s national interests and does not detract from its long-standing multi-vector foreign policy.