The 'Third Wave' of Democracy in Eastern Europe

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PARTY POLITICS VOL 7. No.5 pp. 543–565

THE ‘THIRD WAVE’ OF DEMOCRACY IN EASTERN EUROPE Comparative Perspectives on Party Roles and Political Development

Paul G. Lewis

ABSTRACT

Political parties were not generally major actors in the early stages of democratization in eastern Europe, and their role has been a highly central but limited one in the politics of the region overall. How different has east European democratization been from earlier cases in this respect and how far has the contribution made by parties to the process changed? Their role is first examined in the framework of the ‘three waves of democracy’ that developed in different historical and international contexts. Contemporary east European democratization is indeed closer to the patterns of the ‘second wave’ than to the ‘first wave’ democratizations of western Europe, to which the classic models of party development are closely related. Recent developments in eastern Europe and the role played by parties are then analysed in terms of the major political challenges identifed by proponents of the political development school, whose work concerned large areas covered by the ‘second wave’. In comparison with earlier phases, the role of parties in east European democratization is relatively limited and dependent on the prior management of major conflict tendencies. Rather than participation and integration, parties are more critically concerned with the establishment of legitimacy in the more rapidly consolidating democracies.

KEY WORDS conﬂict democratization integration legitimacy participation party roles

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Parties and Democratization: The ‘Third Wave’ in Eastern Europe

Generalization about the role of parties in the process of democratization constitutes a major challenge, and the attempt to produce one raises a series of complex questions about modern democracies as well as the contribution of parties in bringing them into existence and securing their consolidation. Much recent discussion of democratization has been dominated by Hunt- ington’s (1991) analysis of the ‘three waves of democracy’, but the absence of any broad overview of the role of parties in any of the waves is quite striking. This is not surprising in view of the broad historical sweep taken in a review of democratization in the modern world that spans nearly two centuries. The first wave began in the 1820s under the influence of the American and French revolutions and lasted for nearly a century, seeing the establishment of ‘at least minimal national democratic institutions’ in 33 countries (Huntington, 1991: 17). A reverse wave, reflecting the rise of inter- war fascism, was under way from 1922 with the rise to power of Mussolini, but the victory of the Allies in the Second World War gave strength to a second wave of democracy that only began to recede in 1962. This involved a range of more diverse changes that affected not just the countries liberated at the end of the war but also the achievement of independence by former European colonies as well as changes in a number of Latin Ameri- can states. A third wave began in southern Europe during the mid-1970s, spread to Latin America and then eastern Europe – and also had a major impact on sub-Saharan Africa and parts of east and southern Asia. The number of democracies roughly doubled between 1974 and 1990, and by 1995 as many as 74 percent of states were democratic, or at least partially so (Potter et al., 1997: 9). Rather different conceptions of democracy, too, have been in play throughout this period and it is only from the introduction of universal adult suffrage in 1907 in New Zealand that the onset of modern liberal democracy can really be dated. It is in this more recent context that the role of parties became more important and that they gained increasing prominence as the successive waves of democracy have broken over the body politic, although an important contribution was clearly made in the early phase as well. If the US was indeed the first modern democracy, it was also the first party democracy (Chambers, 1966: 79–80). But, if the democracies of Hunt- ington’s first wave met only minimal conditions of political freedom, both the theory and practice of democracy have undergone considerable evolution as democratic regimes have been established across the globe. So, too, has the role of political parties become more clearly recognized and it is increasingly with reference to party development that more recent democracies have been defined, thus ‘a primary criterion for democracy is equi- table and open competition for votes between political parties without government harassment or restriction of opposition groups’ (Huntington, 544 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 545

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1993: 17). This, however, is the end-point of the process and the observation does not provide much insight into the nature of the overall process of democratization itself. Most studies have continued to apply a minimalist notion of democratization that tends to define the process in terms of its outcome (Gill, 2000: 243). Such a close and clearly defined link between democratization and political parties has only emerged towards the end of a lengthy process of historical change and in the specific context of modern liberal democracy. Concep- tions of the role played by parties in contemporary democracy are certainly very well established (Powell, 1982: 7; Burnell, 1994: 3). But there is no con- sensus on the role of parties in the first and second waves to refer to when party activity in the third wave of democracy is considered and there are, indeed, different views expressed on the role of parties when east European democratization itself is under consideration (compare for example Tóka (1997) and Ágh (1998)). This adds to the already considerable difficulties involved in comparing different historical periods and sharply contrasting social contexts in the hope of drawing some conclusion about the relative input of parties and the role they play in democratic change as a whole. The centrality of parties to the resolution of key developmental problems, indeed, is often assumed and little attention paid to possible alternative agencies in the course of political change. The fact that political parties have developed as modern democracies have come into being can lead all too easily to a functionalist assumption whereby coexistence and mutual relationship are interpreted and recast as relations of causality (Scarrow, 1967). Similar points are made about the functional analysis of parties in established democracies (von Beyme, 1985: 13). If undertaken with due care, nevertheless, it can be argued that the role of parties in democratization deserves investigation and some broad-scale comparative analysis conducted on a suitably tentative basis. This is a matter of particular significance in eastern Europe, where democratization has occurred in a system characterized by lengthy and extensive one-party mobilization antithetic to principles of liberal democracy, and where a strong anti-party sentiment generally prevailed after the long years of communist rule (Rose, 1995: 551–4; Miller et al., 1998: 169–70). Resist- ance both amongst the opposition elite and the population at large to the party form was particularly strong in Poland, the one country where an opposition movement had developed strong social roots (Lewis, 1994: 785–90). In most other countries, too, the movement form was specifically favoured over more formally constituted political parties. The weakness of new parties in eastern Europe and the relatively poor prospects for their development were linked by some observers with expectations that post- communist democratization might well be stalled or fail altogether (Ekiert, 1992). Some of the consequences of general anti-party sentiment can certainly be seen in contemporary patterns of political participation and party development in terms of low electoral turnout and party membership, 545 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 546

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although less negative conclusions about the process of democratization are now generally drawn (Nalewajko, 1997: 11–21). Attention has also been directed to the dominance of the social movement at the dawn of modern democracy in western Europe and north America as well as in recent developments in east-central Europe, which indeed suggests that parties have by no means been central to the early phase of democratization more generally (Tarrow, 1995). Political parties were, indeed, not prominent in the early stages of democratic transition in post-communist Europe. The leading players were broad social movements and uniﬁed national fronts rather than individually constituted political parties: Solidarity in Poland and Civic Forum/Public Against Violence in Czechoslovakia, Sajudis in Lithuania and Popular Fronts in Latvia and Estonia, a Union of Democratic Forces in Bulgaria and National Salvation Front in Romania – the latter an anomalous political force in that it cloaked reform communists and those associated with the former regime rather than forces of national and anti- communist opposition. Nearly all of these formations (the exception was Bulgaria) won freely contested elections or major political victories in 1990 (1989 in the case of Poland), as did the Croatian Democratic Union and the DEMOS popular coalition in Slovenia. The Popular Front of Moldova was also victorious, although communist forces prevailed in the other post-Soviet states of Belarus and Ukraine (as they did in slightly different guise in Serbia and Montenegro). A Democratic Party was dominant amongst opposition forces during the slow unfreezing of Albanian political life, but it soon lost to regrouped communist forces in the election of March 1991. Only in Hungary was the initial election fought by organizations that looked like autonomous parties, and even here the victor went under the title of Hungarian Democratic Forum. Parties, however, soon began to emerge within the broad fronts although the formation of anything like viable organizations or stable party systems was a problematic process. The Bulgarian Union of Democratic Forces and Romanian National Salvation Front retained a core political identity but also underwent a process of fragmentation. In general, the unity of the social movements soon dissipated, although a successful electoral coalition was reformed in Poland on the basis of the Solidarity trade union and won through to form a government in 1997. Even in the countries further along the path of democratic development, the parties that were formed and which henceforth prevailed on the political scene tended to be informally organized, elitist and dominated by a narrow coterie of leaders, and ideologically diffuse with loosely formu- lated political programmes. But in this east European party experience has not been so different from that in established western democracies, and this can be understood to reﬂect the changing role of parties – if not their often discussed ‘decline’ – in the politics of modern liberal democracy more generally. 546 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 547

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Waves of Democracy and the Context of Democratic Change

Such developments nevertheless raise doubts about the prominence of the role of parties in the post-communist democratization of the ‘third wave’ and the particular characteristics – or otherwise – of recent changes in eastern Europe in relation to earlier phases of democratic change. While there is undoubtedly a close relationship between the activities of political parties and the practice of established democracies, there is considerable uncertainty about the role of parties in the process of democratization that actually brings them into existence. There may well be major differences between the successive waves of democracy in this respect. There has been a temptation in some quarters to adopt a broad conception of democratization as part of a relatively undifferentiated process of political moderniz- ation and progressive change on a global scale. The demise of European communism and general shift towards democratic rule was often understood in such a sense, for example, particularly in the initial stages of regime change and early triumphalist discussion of the ‘end of history’. But the political changes involved occurred within significantly different historical contexts. The first wave of democratization accompanied early industrialization and was intimately bound up with the need to incorporate a new and dangerously unruly working class in developed western countries. The second wave was set off by the process of liberation from fascist and right-wing authoritarian rule, but later ran much of its course in the context of decolonization and an extensive process of modern state formation throughout the Third World. The third, and most recent, wave of democracy on the other hand – particularly in its post-communist mani- festations – has been premised on the consolidation of an increasingly globalized capitalist system and the strengthening of a broad range of transnational linkages. The differences in context certainly had major consequences for party development as well as contrasting implications for the role of parties in the process of democratization as a whole. It was during the long drawn out first wave that conflicts and accommodations between diverse groups and intrinsic social capacities for gradual institutional development came into their own as prime movers of democratization, the leading account in this vein being that of Barrington Moore (1966). It was, too, during this process and over several decades in the nineteenth century that the classic parties embodying basic features of cadre and mass party organization came into being and made their own, fundamental contribution to democratic change. In both the second and third waves of democratization, on the other hand, international influences and factors largely external to the countries primarily involved were particularly important. The two dozen or so states that became democracies during the second wave did so in a context dominated by the prime global factors of Allied victory in the Second World War and 547 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 548

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the decolonization of most of the dependent territories in the Third World. Here, it seems, parties played a less central role in the transition to democracy – although independence movements were prominent – but rather came to the fore in subsequent processes of consolidation. Effective consolidation, however, primarily concerned the new democracies of liberated Europe and was less commonly seen in the post-colonial states of the Third World, where many new democracies failed to meet the challenges of transition and did not move into or through the phase of consolidation. International factors were far more influential in the second and third waves than the first, which was rooted in the domestic dynamics of western societies (notably in the capacity of institutions like parties and trade unions to mobilize popular forces) and associated with the evolution of a new political order in the longer established European states. It is not difficult to identify external factors that have acted strongly on the third wave of democracy in terms of the role of international and transnational organization, major elements of conditionality with regard to access to scarce resources (economic, military and political), and even direct transnational party links which have in some cases provided conditions for the preferential development of some east European organizations. But internal determinants have also exercised a strong influence: the mode of transition from authoritarian rule emerges as a major factor in some accounts (Rivera, 1995), while the diverse demands of the ‘triple transition’ throughout the region have also given the changes a highly specific charac- ter and placed a strong load on newly created party systems (Offe, 1991) – or rather on fluid political systems in which parties had often yet to be created or fully formed. Nevertheless, in broad terms it seems reasonable to suggest that the form taken by democratization in eastern Europe fits more with the pattern of the second wave than the first wave, and that the role of political parties may well take a similar form. An instructive light on post-communist democratization and the role parties have played in it may therefore be cast by consideration of the earlier discussion of changes encompassed by the second wave and the nature of the transformation it involved. One basis for comparison is provided by the classic discussion of the role of parties in political development and the contribution they made in certain key problem areas (Weiner and LaPalombara, 1966). In this context it was argued that parties were prime agencies for the management of conflict, the channelling of participation, national integration, and the establishment of legitimacy – although it could well be queried how well parties performed these functions in particular countries and what the importance of their role was at different stages of the process. To the extent that parties were instrumental in coping with these developmental challenges, it seemed, they also grew stronger and opened at least the prospect of further democratization. Due allowance must be made, though, for the different context of political change and the primary focus on development in the earlier work. For 548 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 549

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one thing, the prominence of issues of state-building during the second wave meant that considerable attention was paid to one-party systems and analysts had considerable appreciation of the merits of the single party – a feature which means that some care must be taken in appraising their discussion in the specific context of democratization. Much of their treatment of the problem of political participation tended to focus on the responses of party government in terms of repression, organized mobilization and restric- tions on admission to the political arena. In tackling the problem of legitimacy, for example, systems with a multiplicity of parties are described as having been less successful than one-party regimes in evoking the necessary sentiments amongst the citizenry. A further important justification for one-party systems is defined in terms of their contribution to the process of national integration – although, as the authors make clear, single-party rule may have significant shortcomings in this area, too (Weiner and LaPalombara, 1966: 404–5, 407–8, 414). The formal framework of democratization in the eastern Europe of the 1990s was much stronger than that implied by the development-oriented analysis of the 1960s. Post-communist Europe has, on the basis of extensive experience, generally had enough of one-party rule and liberal democratic principles of the new regimes are, at least in theory, largely unchallenged. It is, indeed, one of the premises of contemporary change in the area – as elsewhere – that it is the agenda of democratization in a framework of political pluralism that is pre-eminent. It is one of the problems of current analysis in this area that all new regimes now have to make some claim to practice multi-party liberal democracy, which in fact masks a high level of diversity in terms of political behaviour. In this area, we thus encounter ‘democracy by default’ as well as a model of ‘delegative democracy’ that might equally well be termed elective dictatorship (Kubicek, 1994). Diverse forms of transitional and not-so-transitional regime thus remain in the bag of unconsolidated democracy, and their capacity to follow through with the principles of full regime transformation remains problematic (Schmitter, 1992: 429). Multi-party democracy may or may not have become, in the well-known phrase, the only game in town (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 5) but it is almost certainly the only acceptable name. While, too, Weiner and LaPalombara do not concern themselves closely with what political development involves or its precise relation to democratization, neither are they always clear about what a political party actually is. They note, for example, that parties were created as a device ‘solely for rallying large numbers of people against a foreign government or one dominated by a small social class’, a formulation that points to the social movement as the prime agent of change in this context. It also suggests certain parallels with patterns of change in eastern Europe during the third wave. Some key functions, like that of national integration and a certain kind of participation, were indeed performed quite successfully in east-central Europe by social movements, although their staying power and capacity to 549 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 550

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operate a more diverse political agenda were limited. It is in this context that the role of parties in democratization in eastern Europe became more prominent as, while various kinds of movement channelled opposition forces during the early stages of transition, they rapidly passed from the stage and key roles were played – with varying degrees of success – by a mixed cast of newly formed, revived or reformulated parties. If largely absent at the creation of a democratic eastern Europe (or one potentially so), parties certainly played a significant role in later processes of development. The transformation of opposition movements into democratic parties can indeed be seen as a critical moment in the democratization process, and one that opens the way to the consolidation of new regimes rather than their being caught in some halfway house of transitional change or regression back to authoritarian rule, as frequently happened during the second wave in the developing areas of the Third World. The support of a reasonably well developed civil society and the opportunities it offers for the development of institutions like parties, labour unions and interest associations have been of great importance for the outcome of different processes of democratization (Gill, 2000: 240–1). It provides conditions for the transformation of loosely organized, ideologically diffuse movements into more structured, goal-oriented bodies that have the capacity to operate within an ordered political system. Most party analysts, indeed, stress the importance of parties as organizations that fight elections and seek to place their representatives in public office (Sartori, 1976: 64; von Beyme, 1985: 13). Attention is commonly paid to the validity of the distinction between party and interest or pressure group in terms of their office-seeking characteristics (Ware, 1996: 4–5), a factor that is of considerable interest in comparisons of the established democracies of western Europe and the United States but far less relevant to democratizing states where the process of party formation is the prime concern. The progressive institutionalization of political parties, and the way in which its genetic components combine to shape the party’s organizational development (Panebianco, 1988), largely determine their capacity to develop as effective actors within a political order and contribute to the course of democratization as a process of regime consolidation (Huntington, 1968: pp. 12–25). Contrasting distinctions have been drawn in this context between the importance of the role of parties in democratic transition and the subsequent consolidation of the democratic order. Observation of other regions involved in the third wave of democracy have prompted some observers to draw strong conclusions in this area. Thus, it has been crisply observed on the basis of south European experience, ‘Not all the processes of transition have been party dominated; but all processes of democratic consolidation have indeed been party dominated’ (Pasquino, 1990: 53). Others argue for a more differentiated view in which democratic consolidation may be more or less party dominated depending on the input made by other institutions (Morlino, 1996: 189–200). In the context of Latin America, too, Mainwaring and Scully (1995: 474) refer to the enormous costs imposed on democratic development 550 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 551

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by weak parties and foresee a bleak future for democracy in the absence of a ‘reasonably institutionalized party system’. Another view directs attention to the nature of party competition and the importance of the level of inter-party conﬂict for democratic stability in Latin America (Norden, 1998: 425). Pridham (1990: 4) is of the clear opinion that the two parallel processes of consolidation – of the party system and of liberal democracy – interact in some way, either through relations that are mutually reinforcing or others that are more negative. Examination of the role of parties in the later stages of democratization in particular areas of east European political life should help us arrive at a ﬁrmer view on this matter.

Parties in East European Developments

Eastern Europe in the broad sense is a large and highly differentiated region. The post-communist countries of the region (excluding Russia) comprise as many as 19 if Montenegro and Serbia are treated as separate entities and not reduced to the rump Yugoslavia. Sharp distinctions can be drawn in terms of recent political development and the progress of democratization. With respect to post-communist political change and the consolidation of democracy, seven countries were soon acknowledged to be ahead of the pack (Gati, 1996: 11). They included the core east-central European countries of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, to which was added Slovenia as the sole Yugoslav republic to have escaped the violence and insecurity that accompanied the dissolution of the original federation. The level of political and democratic achievement of all four states was recognized by the decision of the European Union to begin detailed talks on membership with them. The Baltic states have also been regarded as leaders in the process of post-communist transition, although only Estonia was singled out by the EU for membership talks at this stage. The same seven countries continued to lead in terms of their freedom ratings in 1999 (Karatnycky, 1999). Some countries of eastern Europe, then, have clearly been more successful than others in coping with the demands of democratization and the various crises of post-communist political change. What role do the parties seem to have played in this process? The developmental problems identiﬁed by Weiner and LaPalombara (1966), and originally discussed by them in the context of the second wave of democracy as the challenges of conﬂict management, political participation, national integration and the establishment of legitimacy, provide an appropriate framework within which to explore the role of parties in east European democratization.

Conflict Management The management of conflict on an everyday basis in the public sphere is in many ways what politics is really about – particularly as it concerns democratic rule, where the conflict threshold is relatively low and stability cannot 551 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 552

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be maintained in the long term by direct recourse to repression. The demands of participation, integration and legitimacy emerge on a long-term basis and often provide the backdrop to current political activity rather than its immediate and substantive contents. Problems emanating from all these areas require some solution if democratization is to progress and move on to the terrain of consolidation, but fundamental issues of conflict also need to be directly confronted and managed successfully if the framework of a democratic order is to be established in the first place. Parties are a key institutional mechanism in a modern democracy for coping with the tensions that underlie the emergence of conflict, and they often need to be rapidly developed to cope with the immediate stresses and demands of the early transition period if a rudimentary democratic order is to be established and remain in existence. Party development is therefore a critical condition not only for the effective operation of established democratic political processes but also for their establishment in the first place and subsequent development as viable political communities. Fledgeling parties often failed to survive under such conditions and were in no condition to make a major input to any political process. A number of conflicts within and between the newly independent states of eastern Europe thus developed well beyond the bounds of any form of party competition at an early stage and dashed any immediate hopes of democratic development. In several cases there was no commitment on the part of major actors for any democratic solution from the outset. The demands of the post-1989 period on the east European political systems have indeed been strong and diverse, some producing conflicts that could not be managed by peaceful means at all. Warfare and civil violence have not been avoided, and the basic need of the modern state to maintain its territorial integrity and exercise civic authority within its borders was not met by Bosnia, Moldova or Croatia. In 1999, Serbia became the arena of major conflict with NATO powers. The maintenance in Albania and Mace- donia of peace-keeping NATO forces after the Kosovo war, as well as in the southern part of Serbia itself, showed that conflict tendencies were increasingly unmanageable in large swathes of the Balkans. Internal order had already collapsed in Albania after the collapse of a crooked government- backed investment scheme in 1997, while warfare arising from the disputed dissolution of the former Yugoslavia in early 1990s compounded the strong resistance to democratization encountered from an early stage in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia. Democratization has been very limited in all these countries (although the situation began to change in Montenegro before the 1997 presidential election as the leading contender gathered support in his effort to extricate the country from Serbian control), and it hardly makes sense to discuss the role of parties in such a minimal or non-existent political process. Most of the countries mentioned were classified as having authoritarian or, at best, partially democratic regimes in 1999 in the Freedom House survey of political 552 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 553

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rights and civil liberties (Ukraine also fell below the democratic threshold). Parties have certainly played a political role under these conditions, but they have generally been subservient to opposed ethnic interests or the ambitions of populist and authoritarian politicians rather than contributing to any process of democratization. In one post-Soviet case, strenuous efforts were made to marginalize any form of party activity, and, in Aleksandr Lukashenka, Belarus has produced the most authoritarian leader in post- communist Europe who has continued to rule on a highly dubious constitutional basis. Only when basic security needs have been met, conflicts about the nature of the political community dealt with, a genuine commitment to democracy made by major contenders for the leadership, and the fundamental structures of democracy set in place, can democratization said to be making progress and the idea of a viable party system really come into prospect. The dominance of personalized political conflict over institutionalized competition is invariably bad news for democracy, and also points to a limited role for parties in whatever form of democracy might actually be established. The tensions between liberal democracy and presidential rule should not be over-emphasized, but strong presidential powers are often sought by leaders with authoritarian tendencies and a reluctance to tolerate independent party activity. Signs of this association can be seen in post-communist eastern Europe, where strong presidencies have generally been established in countries where conditions are less favourable for democracy (Table 1). The way in which the dissolution of Czechoslovakia was handled shows the difference made when major conflict – even one concerning the fundamental structure of the state – is handled in a broadly democratic context. Constitutional procedures were followed throughout the process, and

Table 1. Presidencies and freedom ratings in east-central and south-eastern Europe Presidential powers (1998) Freedom ratings (1998/9) Czech Republic weak 1.5 Hungary weak 1.5 Poland weak 1.5 Slovenia medium 1.5

Slovakia weak 2.0 Bulgaria medium 2.5 Macedonia strong 3.0

Croatia strong 4 Albania weak 4.5 Bosnia strong 5 Yugoslav Federation strong 6 Sources: Taras, 1998: 113; Karatnycky, 1999. 553 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 554

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parties rather than armed forces did indeed play a major role. Nationalist currents were not strong in society, but the different ranking of issues of regime change, approaches to state building and economic transformation that emerged as the anti-communist opposition fragmented and a spectrum of new parties emerged meant that the future of the federal state was increasingly called into question (Innes, 1997: 394). The emerging structure of party competition threatened the survival of the Czechoslovakia state – but it also gave it the means to achieve the split in an effectively managed manner. Equivalent issues concerning the fundamental shape of the polity were raised in the Baltic states, where Latvia and Estonia proceeded to build democracy while major groups attempted for some time to exclude a major ethnic group – in the form of the Russian minority – from the political community. The implications of such ethnic discrimation for the democratic status of the new Baltic republics were pointed out with some emphasis by major international organizations (OSCE, EU). The resulting tensions were again handled with considerable success within the framework of an emerging party system, and a more inclusive national society is rapidly coming into existence. Party development overall in the Baltic states, though, has not been particularly vigorous in the context of the high levels of political instability and organizational fragmentation that led to a sequence of broad coalition governments in Latvia and minority coalitions in Estonia. In distinction to several authoritarian regimes and problematic democracies, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic can without great difficulty be counted as the post-communist democracies furthest along the path to consolidation with relatively well-developed party systems. Lithua- nia may also be reasonably included amongst this group, as it does not have any major ethnic minority and has developed a more stable representative and party system. It is, then, a relatively small group of countries that have avoided some of the basic pitfalls of democratic transition and coped reasonably well with the diverse tasks of conflict management. As very basic indi- cators, such countries have elected fairly stable governments which have performed the major tasks of government and successfully confronted the early challenges of democratization. Since 1990, Hungary has elected three parliaments, two of which survived their full constitutional term and sustained effective party government. After four years of major political change, as well as extensive institutional and constitutional flux (partly a function of its role in pioneering regional democratization), Poland also settled down to a four-year parliament and relatively stable party government from 1993. Czech party politics did fall into some disarray at the end of 1997 with allegations of corruption and signs of major financial scandal, but such political turbulence did not affect regime stability or threaten the general effectiveness of party government. Slovenia also escaped from the imbroglio of the former Yugoslavia as a compact, well- developed country with no significant minorities. In these countries, parties were able to integrate the diverse forces that emerged from the dissolution of 554 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 555

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Table 2. Party representation in successive east-central European parliaments First: 1990–2 Second: 1992–6 Third: 1996–8 Hungary Hungarian Democratic Forum → Hungarian Socialist Party → FIDESZ → Independent Party of Smallholders → Alliance of Free Democrats → Christian Democratic People’s Party → Hungarian Justice and Life Party Czech Republic Czech Social Democratic Party → Civic Democratic Party → Christian Democratic Union → Communist Party → Civic Democratic Alliance → Association for the Republic → Moravian Silesian Movement Liberal Social Union Czech Freedom Union Poland Democratic Left Alliance → Democratic/Freedom Union → Polish Peasant Party → Confederation for Independent Poland → 21 other committees represented Union of Labour Non-Party Bloc for Reform Solidarity Electoral Action Movement for Reconstruction of Poland Slovenia Liberal Democracy → Slovene People’s Party → Social Democratic Party → Slovene Christian Democrats → Democratic Party → Greens → Party of Democratic Reform Liberal Party Socialist Party Slovenian National Party → United List of Social Democrats → Democratic Party of Retired People

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the anti-communist movements and operate as major agencies for managing conﬂict and providing the institutional core of liberal democratic government. To this extent, all four east-central European countries have also developed something like recognizable paty systems whose main institutional components have sustained a presence through successive parliaments (Table 2).

Political Participation One of the more striking features of democratization in eastern Europe overall has been the relatively low level of political participation and overall reluctance of the newly empowered citizens to join parties and engage in the variety of activities they are traditionally associated with. Even the more consolidated democracies of post-communist Europe show relatively low levels of participation in terms of party membership (Table 3). In relation to established democracies the picture varies according to which western countries are taken as a measure of comparison and, while general argu- ments concerning party decline and falling membership levels in western Europe have indeed often been exaggerated, those in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have dropped signiﬁcantly and have been in recent years little higher than those seen in the new east European democracies. Austria and Sweden were the countries with the highest membership levels and stand well above those in most European countries as a whole. In relation to party activities in established democracies as a whole, though, membership numbers in eastern Europe are still generally low and do not reﬂect a high level of participation. Neither are levels of electoral turnout particularly high (Table 4) – and in one of the more consolidated democracies (Poland) they are quite noticeably

Table 3. Party membership: east and west Europe As percentage of As percentage adult population of electorate Slovenia 9.6 – Czech Republic 4 6.4 Hungary 2 2.5 Poland 1.3 1.5 Austria 16.4 21.8 Sweden 15.4 21.2 United Kingdom 2.5 3.3 The Netherlands 2.1 2.5 Sources: Lewis (ed.) (1996); Ramet (1997) (left-hand column); Mair (1997) (right-hand column).

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Table 4. National electoral turnout (percent) 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999/ 2000 Czech Republic 97 85 76 74 Hungary 63 69 57 Poland 61 43 52 68 48 Slovakia 95 84 76 84 Slovenia 80 75 74 Estonia 67 69 57 Latvia 90 72 73 Lithuania 75 53 Albania 99 90 80 Bosnia 78 Bulgaria 90 80 75 74 63 58 Croatia 85 75 69 78 Macedonia 85 78 Montenegro 75 67 Romania 86 75 70 Serbia 72 69 62 62 Moldova 67

Ukraine 70 74 Belarus 65 85 West European average: 76.4. Cf. Governing the New Europe, ed. J. Hayward and E. C. Page (Cambridge: Polity, 1995).

low. All have declined since the acclamatory elections of the early post- communist period, and even those in the Czech Republic have declined to around the west European average. There is no clear association between the overall level of democratization and electoral participation. The less democratized countries of the Balkans and the former Soviet Union are no less participant than the democratic leaders. Poland has generally struggled to top 60 percent, although it is noticeable that the highly personalized and ideologically deﬁned second round of the presidential contest in 1995 attracted a higher turnout. The strong anti-party sentiments of the Solidarity movement, as mentioned earlier, probably played a part here, as did the shift- ing identities of deputies and parliamentary fragmentation of 1989–93. The 1993 parliament was, conversely, strongly dominated by the post-communist left and only that elected in 1997 has seen a reasonably well-balanced and coherent party spectrum of parliamentary representation. Whether this has any impact on subsequent turnout remains to be seen. It should, too, be recalled on a comparative basis that Polish turnout in 1997 was on a par with that of the United States in 1996 at 49 percent, while an equally solid democracy – Switzerland – as a rule has similarly low turnout levels. 557 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 558

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Patterns of participation in eastern Europe during the third wave of democracy are probably, therefore, still conditioned by the characteristics of former communist rule as a period of extensive – but largely involuntary – mobilization and high levels of participation in rigidly hierarchical, leadership-organized parties and official organizations. Democratization in this context also means the right not to participate, and this is reflected not just in the levels of membership participation in the new parties but also in the strikingly low electoral turnout in some of the more democratically advanced countries of east-central Europe (like Poland and Hungary). Parties under these conditions present citizens with an opportunity for participation – but only as one form of political activity among many and as a choice that is relatively underdetermined. Their role is important, but one often manifested in the realm of choice rather than that of concrete behaviour. It stands in strong contrast to the situation that prevailed during the first wave of democracy in western Europe when democratization was intimately linked with the process of enfranchisement, and the construction of mass parties was both primary goal and vehicle for the transformation of the political order. The post-mobilization context of east European democratization thus gives parties a role as participatory agents, but one that is by no means exclusive or even privileged in the process of post- communist political change as a whole.

National Integration Democratization has been stronger in eastern Europe where the contemporary demands of national integration have been less pressing. One of the unintended and more beneficial consequences in at least some countries of the region of the long decades of Nazi and Soviet rule was the emergence in the 1990s of relatively integrated nation-states lacking most of the ethnic tensions that had previously obstructed national consolidation. In marked contrast to the Balkans, the ethnically homogeneous nature of most east- central European states facilitated rapid democratization. The ethnic mix of pre-war Poland had largely disappeared, and a smaller but more homogeneous state was formed after the war. The Sudeten Germans were expelled from the region soon after the end of hostilities and, despite the impression given by the dissolution of the federal state in 1993, relations between Czechs and Slovaks were never sufficiently strained to endanger the integrity of the state. Hungary had already been recreated as a compact nation-state by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, although much of its population seemed never fully to come to terms with the limitations of the agree- ment which left three-fifths of Hungarians outside the borders of the state. That is not to say that national issues have been absent from the post- communist party agenda in east-central Europe. Nationalist currents have been prominent in the Czech Republic (with the extremist Association for the Republic gaining sufficient votes to win seats in both the 1992 and 1996 558 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 559

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parliaments), in Poland (where nationalist groups – particularly those associated with the Christian National Union – have maintained a robust right-wing presence in every post-communist parliament), and Hungary (where the extremist anti-semitic Justice and Life Party succeeded in gaining parliamentary representation in 1998). But nationalist tendencies – and the demands of national integration overall – have been relatively restrained in east-central Europe, where ethnic minorities have been far less prominent than in the Balkans or some Baltic states and dominant groups that much less available for political mobilization on these grounds. National integration can nevertheless be weakened by various cleavages as parties build on lines of social fragmentation and aim to reinforce sub- cultural differences. Democratization can equally be held back by parties whose parochial orientations make them agencies of paralysis and disinte- gration within the new political order (Weiner and LaPalombara, 1966: 416–17). The weakness of party development in contemporary Ukraine, for example, is clearly linked with such a strong regional orientation and the general obstacles to democratic development. It is notable, too, that it is the post-communist parties of Hungary and Poland and the relatively unrecon- structed Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia that have the highest levels of membership and the most extensive organization in their respec- tive countries, reflecting significant levels of social implantation and the existence of politicized cultural enclaves analogous to the communist sub- cultures of France and Italy. It is certainly conceivable that such parties could perform an authoritarian sub-cultural role within the new political system, and thus perpetuate or enhance tendencies towards fragmentation within the democratic order. But this is a role that both the reconstituted socialist parties of Hungary and Poland explicitly reject and, although the Czech party tends more to this position, it has had relatively limited influence overall. In terms of their relatively weak structure and underdeveloped national organization contemporary east European parties may not emerge as particularly strong foci of integration in the new democracies, although the major institutions often perform quite adequately in the parliamentary and governmental roles that underpin such processes. Indeed, the role of parties as agents of mobilization may be inversely related to democratization. The democratic order is strengthened precisely where parties have fewer incen- tives to act as primary agencies of mobilization to enhance processes of national integration, for such forms of party behaviour necessarily heighten awareness of national identity by emphasizing differences with other critical – especially ethnic – groups. This inevitably weakens the culture of mutual tolerance and discourages the formation of institutions capable of accommodating the interests of different groups, processes that are critical for continued democratization. The nationalist parties and mobilization regimes that were prominent in the development literature associated with the second wave of democracy were indeed powerful agencies of national 559 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 560

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integration, but they invariably led to the development of one-party states and were either antithetic to democratization from the start or soon blocked the consolidation of any democratic order already established. Democratiz- ation has thus been facilitated in countries like those of east-central Europe, where ethnic homogeneity is already present as a background condition and parties have not been constrained to harp on nationalist themes to strengthen their relative position.

Legitimacy Issues Newly established institutions of party government, and the regimes of which they form the central part, have a particular need for reserves of legitimacy to justify their position and bind citizens within the political system. During the early post-communist years this function was performed in several countries of eastern Europe by the dominance of the national movements that had suddenly replaced the widely unpopular Soviet-backed regimes. But the movements of anti-communist opposition soon disinte- grated, and new legitimacy demands emerged at the same time as an extensive process of party development got under way. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the return of post-communist socialist parties to power in Poland and Hungary were all closely linked with these demands. Legiti- macy issues are therefore closely involved with the democratization of certain eastern Europe countries after the diverse experiences of the early 1990s and the tenuous process of party development that has accompanied it. The relatively low levels of participation and limited mobilization capacities of the parties operating in contemporary eastern Europe do not, on the face of it, seem to be linked with a perceivable deficit of legitimacy. The particular problems experienced by Poland in producing a stable party system and encouraging people to participate politically have not been associated with significant levels of alienation from or antipathy towards the democratic order. The most sensitive issues that have surfaced in this area have involved links between Church and state, the secular basis of the political order, and relations between citizenship and religious faith. Issues of faith and moral principle are indeed non-negotiable, and that is why they may provide the terrain for intractable conflicts that can undermine legitimacy and hold off the legitimation of a new political authority. But such tensions now seem to have been contained within Poland’s evolving party structure (in which the religious/secular cleavage has tended to decline in prominence) (Grabowska, 1999: 199–200) as well in relations between parliament and the presidency with the introduction of a new Constitution in 1997. Hungary has also seen low levels of electoral participation that might point to the development of a legitimacy problem, but has in fact also proceeded with the development of an effective democratic order on the basis of a relatively stable party system. Yet, in the area of popular support and 560 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 561

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legitimacy, it is a country whose regime emerges as one of the least securely rooted. Amongst seven east European countries, Hungary was the one that emerged with the lowest approval ratings for the new political order and the greatest appreciation for the merits of the old (Rose, 1997: 333). An analogous New Democracies survey showed Hungarians to have the lowest commitment within east-central Europe to democratic parties and parliamentary institutions, with 30 percent likely to acquiesce in their abolition. A distinctive and relatively isolated political class has also been identified, accompanied by a strong alienation-participation divide in Hungarian society, which accords with earlier observations on political participation and carries negative implications for the regime’s legitimacy (Markowski, 1997: 231). Underlying such sentiments has undoubtedly been the dis- appointing performance of the Hungarian economy during the early post- communist years following the reasonably effective operation of the reform mechanism prior to 1989. All this nevertheless seems to coexist with relatively stable patterns of democracy and continuing democratization, even when the different seg- ments of the political system remain distant from one another and the party system – however stable – seems to ‘float’ above society (Tökés, 1997: 136). Hence, in another account, there emerges the related phenomenon of ‘over- particization’ and emerging partitocrazia on the Italian model, where socially weak parties monopolize the limited area of macro-politics, an observation directed at east-central Europe as a whole but one that reflects well the Hungarian hand of the author (Ágh, 1996: 55, 61). All this does raise questions about the depth of legitimacy attaching to the new political authority and the form of the political processes that maintain it. Yet there are few signs of a significant deficit in Hungary or in the other more advanced countries of east-central Europe – and no evidence of significant extra-parliamentary opposition or major social dysfunction. A critical test of the legitimacy of a new regime is, as Huntington as well as Weiner and LaPalombara amongst others point out, the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another under democratic conditions. This is also a criterion that has now been fully met in east-central Europe and the Baltic region, as well as in many other countries. Extensive conflict and uncertainty have indeed been seen in subsequent coalition formation, but elections throughout eastern Europe have generally provided for the effective transfer of power when the results dictated (although considerable resistance has been seen in less democratized countries like Serbia and Croatia, as well a dis- avowal of the whole democratic process in Belarus). Such developments have certainly contributed, if in varying degrees, to the legitimation of new democratic regimes in eastern Europe. Strengthen- ing relations between the European Union and, especially, east-central Europe have been an important source of support for the more successful post-communist democracies – and, conversely, weakened regimes like that of Vladimír Meciar in Slovakia which deviated from west European norms. 561 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 562

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Nevertheless, estimates of the overall level of legitimacy in eastern Europe remain conjectural and existing evidence is ambiguous. A marked discrep- ancy has been found between support for the structure of democracy (which is generally quite strong) and support for its performance (which is far weaker). But the continued strength of the former will largely depend on the consequences of citizens’ experience with the functioning of democratic institutional mechanism, the details of which will remain uncertain until a stable party system emerges (Fuchs and Roller, 1998: 63–4). As new political forces rose to power even in Hungary and Poland in the elections of 1997/8, the prospects for general stability in this area remain distant. Party government may be effective even if the stability of party systems is not assured, although there are no guarantees that such conditions will persist, and in this context the legitimacy of the new regimes remains highly contingent.

Conclusion

This survey suggests that third-wave democratization in post-communist eastern Europe has indeed differed from both the first and second waves. It has differed from the first with particular respect to the speed of change, the length of the democratization process and the dominance of the dynamics of internal change processes, which among other things provided conditions in the original democracies for the emergence of the modern party per se and its dominant mass form premised on firm social implantation and strong links with previously disenfranchised groups. It differs from the second with respect to such conditions as the direct involvement of external powers in reforming defeated dictatorships in Europe and Asia, as well as the prominence of later processes of decolonization in the Third World which high- lighted problems of state formation and national integration. The latter lent, in marked contrast to contemporary eastern Europe, particular importance to the development of one-party systems, which were widely thought to promote regime consolidation. The post-communist part of the third wave, on the other hand, has been characterized by a blend of relatively strong external influences with a range of powerful internal determinants of change. Parties were generally absent from the original transition in eastern Europe, not least because of the overwhelming speed and far-reaching char- acter of the collapse of authoritarian communist rule. The nature of their role in subsequent processes of democratization, moreover, remains something of an open question. Parties undoubtedly play a prominent role in contemporary east European governmental politics, although this is more true of some countries than of others. But even where democracy is more firmly established in the countries of east-central Europe, party structures are generally weak and their membership small. Forms of party system have emerged or 562 02 Lewis (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:10 pm Page 563

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are in the process of doing so, but they have not long been in existence and relations between the major players have hardly settled down into any defined political pattern. It is, too, difficult to distinguish issues involved in the identification of a precise role from the simple fact of parties being a feature of a political system and contributing in some less well defined way to its overall operation (Scarrow, 1967: 772). In countries where communist authoritarian rule has not been followed by democratization, or where democratic processes have not become strongly established, the conditions are just not in place for parties to emerge and develop a significant political presence. In some areas, too, state integration has failed and civil conflict proved so unmanageable that party input has become irrelevant. Broadly speaking, the role played by parties in east European democratization has also been a limited one in the areas of both participation and integration. As core components of the new regimes, parties, naturally enough, play a central role in conflict management – but only where democratization has already gained some momentum and not been derailed at any early stage by ethnic conflict and the authoritarian tendencies of new rulers. In terms of key political processes, then, east European democratization has not initially involved a high level of party development or been dependent on parties per- forming more than relatively restricted functions – important though these may be for the central processes and formal institutions of parliamentary democracy. The most pressing tasks of east European democratization concern the establishment of regime legitimacy, but this is an area in which the contribution of parties remains uncertain and will take considerable time to achieve.

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PAUL LEWIS is Reader in Central and East European Politics at the Open University. He has published a number of works on issues of party development and democratization in central and eastern Europe and is the author most recently of Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2000) and editor of Party Development and Democratic Change in Post-Communist Europe: The First Decade (Frank Cass, 2001). ADDRESS: The Open University, Milton Keynes, ML7 6AA, UK [email: p.g.lewis@ open.ac.uk]

Paper submitted 24 November 1999; accepted for publication 17 November 2000. 565