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Need Introduction Here Post-Communism or Post-Colonialism? Soviet Imperial Legacies and Regime Diversity in East Europe and the Former USSR Jessica Fortin Department of Political Science McGill University, Montreal July 31 2008 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. © Jessica Fortin 2008 Abstract While post-communist countries share a common past, the variability of outcomes in both democracy and economic reform is very large in the region. Only a few countries have become Western-type democracies in Eastern and Central Europe and the Baltic. By contrast, the norm is clearly not democracy for other Soviet successor states: regimes range from semi-autocratic to downright repressive. In my doctoral dissertation, I attribute this variation to differences in the infrastructural capacity of the state. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses within 21 post-communist countries, I argue that for democracy to flourish, the state must first possess the means necessary to maintain law and order, to protect the rights of citizens, in other words, to insure the maintenance and delivery of essential public goods. The results show that on the one hand, the links between a strong state that has been able to apply a definitive set of rules, and democratic institutions are clear. On the other hand, where state capacity was more limited after independence was gained, democracy was a less likely outcome. By trying to recentralize power to compensate for the state’s administrative limitations, executive authorities also had a parallel tendency to build vertical structures of authority and to suppress liberties and freedoms. In turn, I explore the sources of infrastructural state capacity at the onset of independence. Soviet rule did not leave uniform traces on societies: there were important variations in ruling patterns from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. Therefore this dissertation explores how the shape of colonial ties shared by each entity with the former metropolitan center had direct implications on the administrative capacity of the successor states. In short, the coupling of heavy state engineering with low levels of state penetration and high levels of exploitation were least conducive to the construction of robust state structures. ii Résumé À ce jour, les pays post-communistes présentent de considérables différences en termes de démocratie et de réformes économiques, ce, malgré un passé commun. En fait, seulement quelques pays d’Europe Centrale et de l’Est ainsi que les républiques Baltes, ont acquis le statut de démocraties. Pour les autres anciennes républiques Soviétiques, la norme est toute autre. La plupart d’entre elles affichent des régimes soit semi-démocratiques, ou tout simplement autoritaires. Dans le but d’expliquer cette différence, je fais appel au concept de capacité étatique, qui réfère à l’infrastructure de l’appareil d’état. À l’aide d’analyses quantitatives ainsi que qualitatives menées dans 21 pays post-communistes, cette dissertation vérifie l’hypothèse suivante : un État doit être en mesure de maintenir la loi et l’ordre, de protéger les droits des citoyens, en d’autres mots de garantir l’allocation d’une certaine classe de biens publics, pour qu’un régime démocratique puisse y apparaître et persister. Les résultats des analyses menées établissent la présence d’une robuste association entre, d’un côté des institutions démocratiques, et de l’autre, un certain niveau de capacité étatique. Dans les États où cette capacité était limitée au moment de l’indépendance, une conclusion démocratique était moins probable. En tentant de re-centraliser les pouvoirs de l’État pour compenser certaines faiblesses administratives, plusieurs gouvernements ont eu tendance à construire des structures d’autorité verticales et à ainsi limiter les libertés des citoyens. En retour, cette dissertation explore également les conditions qui peuvent expliquer les différents niveaux de capacité étatiques observés au moment de la chute du communisme. En particulier, je cherche à démontrer que l’Union Soviétique n’a pas utilisé les mêmes méthodes pour gouverner toutes ses colonies : d’importantes variations existent entre les colonies informelles d’Europe Centrale et de l’Est et celles d’Asie Centrale. Certaines pratiques comme l’exploitation économiques, de larges bouleversements administratifs, combinées à un faible encadrement de la part de l’autorité coloniale, ont produit les structures étatiques les moins robustes. iii Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ...................................................................... vii 1. Introduction............................................................................................................. 1 The State and Regime Outcomes................................................................................. 3 The State as an Important Player in Democratization ............................................... 21 The Rise of the Modern State...................................................................................... 29 Methodology ............................................................................................................... 33 A Roadmap.................................................................................................................. 38 2. Operationalizing and Measuring State Capacity............................................... 40 Differentiating Scope from Capacity.......................................................................... 41 Measuring State Capacity........................................................................................... 43 State Capacity Ranking and Index Construction........................................................ 57 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 71 3. Connecting State Capacity and Regime Type.................................................... 72 Cross Sectional Analyses............................................................................................ 74 Discussion and Conclusion ........................................................................................ 98 4. Colonial Legacies and State Capacity............................................................... 104 The Soviet Union as a Colonial Empire ................................................................... 106 Three Dimensions of Colonial Rule.......................................................................... 115 How Colonialism informs State Capacity................................................................. 157 Discussion and Conclusion ...................................................................................... 168 5. Belarus: Missed Opportunity in a Strong-Weak State ................................... 173 Starting Conditions Bequeathed to a Preferred Colony........................................... 174 Is Belarus a Strong State? ........................................................................................ 180 A Measured Transition to Authoritarianism............................................................. 188 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 198 iv 6. Georgia, the Re-emergence of a Broken State ................................................. 200 Preferential Status of a Non-Slavic Colony.............................................................. 201 The Case of Georgia as a Weak State ...................................................................... 211 Neither Authoritarianism nor Democracy................................................................ 216 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 225 7. Kazakhstan: A Predatory Regime in a Weak State ........................................ 228 Soviet Colonialism in Kazakhstan ............................................................................ 229 Independent Kazakhstan as a Weak State ................................................................ 238 Resurgence of Pre-Soviet Identities or Standard Post-Soviet Networking?............. 245 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 252 8. Successful Decolonization in Hungary.............................................................. 254 Military Occupation and Informal Empire in Eastern Europe ................................ 255 A Post-Communist Strong State................................................................................ 266 Smooth Transition to Democracy ............................................................................. 272 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 279 9. Conclusions.......................................................................................................... 282 Bibliography............................................................................................................ 295 v Acknowledgements This project could not have been completed without the sympathy and understanding of friends, colleagues and family. My advisor, Juliet Johnson, deserves the first
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