Weasel Words and the Analysis of “Postcommunist” Politics: a Symposium
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EEPXXX10.1177/0888325419900244East European Politics & Societies and CulturesBernhard et al. / Weasel Words 900244research-article2020 East European Politics and Societies and Cultures Volume 34 Number 2 May 2020 283 –325 © 2020 SAGE Publications Weasel Words and the Analysis https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325419900244 journals.sagepub.com/home/eep hosted at of “Postcommunist” Politics: http://online.sagepub.com A Symposium Michael Bernhard1 University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA Venelin I. Ganev Miami University of Ohio, Oxford, OH, USA Anna Grzymała-Busse Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Stephen E. Hanson William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA Yoshiko M. Herrera University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA Dmitrii Kofanov University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA Anton Shirikov University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA A weasel word is a term used in academic or political discourse whose meaning is so imprecise or badly defined that it impedes the formulation of coherent thought on the subject to which it is applied, or leads to unsubstantiated conclusions. In this sympo- sium we consider several key terms central to the study of postcommunist politics and discuss the extent to which they fall into this category. The terms discussed here include regime terminology, the notion of postcommunism, the geographic entity “Eurasia,” socialism, populism, and neoliberalism. While the authors come to different conclusions about the extent to which these terms are weasel words, they also provide pointers for how to deploy terms in ways that are consistent with the underlying con- cept and thus aid in the cumulation of knowledge about the region. Keywords: Eurasia; postcommunism; socialism; populism; neoliberalism Introducing Weasel Words Michael Bernhard What is a Weasel Word? The term stems back to a phrase in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, “I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs.” Weasels dine on the eggs of nesting birds and other creatures by making a small hole in the egg shell and sucking out the contents, leaving the shell largely unchanged in appearance. 284 East European Politics and Societies and Cultures A weasel word is a term used in academic or political discourse whose meaning is so imprecise or badly defined that it impedes the formulation of coherent thought on the subject to which it is applied, or leads to unsubstantiated conclusions. In social science, the first step in formulating meaningful propositions about the world is conceptualization. Concepts are the building blocks of theory. And theory can be validated or invalidated by the deployment of evidence that is consistent or inconsistent with the theory. The collection of evidence necessitates observation and measurement. The testing of theories requires that when we operationalize concepts that we turn them into things that can be observed and measured. Some concepts are defined too narrowly and only capture a part of the relevant observations of the phenomenon in which we are interested. We then draw conclu- sions on only a part of the relevant evidence. Other concepts may be defined too broadly, and this leads us to consider a set of observations of the social world that goes beyond the phenomenon in which we are interested as representative of that phenomenon. We then make inferences and draw conclusions based on observations that are miscategorized under or irrelevant to our theory.2 And still other concepts are not defined in a rigorous and heuristically useful manner. The conclusions that we draw from them usually only sow obfuscation. Let me begin by illustrating via example and exploring the ramifications of a com- mon practice in social science—the qualifying of established concepts by the prefix semi- to describe a referent that has a combination of properties that defines more than one concept, in this case regimes. This illustration is drawn from the work of Freedom House. Before engaging in this analysis, let me say that I support and admire the work of Freedom House, and this is not meant to undermine that work. However, the evalu- ation of how we define, operationalize, and utilize concepts is an essential social sci- ence practice that is necessary to progress in research. And in this case, I do believe that a rethinking of the conceptualization of regimes in their annual assessment of democratic progress/regress in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union— Nations in Transit (NiT) — is warranted and would enhance the value of the data that they have expended substantial time and effort to collect.3 The NiT conceptual framework specifies five regime types—consolidated democ- racy, semi-consolidated democracy, transitional government or hybrid regime, semi- consolidated authoritarian regime, and consolidated authoritarian regime. Here I will concentrate on the semi-consolidated democracy concept/rating. The report charac- terizes several countries in the region as semi-consolidated democracies—Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. If one looks at their criteria for this assessment in a macro-sense, it seems to apply to cases that have adopted a basic democratic framework in a de jure sense, but de facto politics are not played according to these rules. The countries in ques- tion are subject to one or more of several practices that are not fully congruent with minimal conditions of liberal democracy—electoral systems with built in advan- tages for the incumbents, control of state and private media that complicates full- fledged freedom of expression, widespread corruption, undermining of institutions/ Bernhard et al. / Weasel Words 285 mechanisms of horizontal accountability, or discrimination against a subset of civil society organizations. Let me next turn to the pairing of the term consolidated with the prefix “semi.” The term consolidation or regime consolidation in political science can have several different meanings, most of which were formulated with regard to democracy and are well summarized in a classic article by Andreas Schedler devoted to the concept.4 I have added a couple of others: 1. Durability, that is, “avoiding democratic breakdown or erosion.” The form of rule is stable and is not subject to regime change, and there is an expectation that this will persist into the future. This includes historical episodes (coups, putsches, auto-golpes, civil wars, indefinite emergency rule or martial law) or a process of slow deterioration where the minimal defining conditions for democracy are no longer present.5 2. Full institutionalization of democracy, that is, “completing democracy.” Regime change entails a reorganization of the system of rules that govern any society.6 The transition from one sort of regime to another entails an interregnum where institu- tions need to be reorganized despite the transfer of power from an authoritarian regime to a democratically elected government.7 The new system needs to be put in place: Consistent rules need to be adopted and actors need to operate according to them. When this process of institutionalization is complete, a regime is consoli- dated. 3. Deepening. When a regime type is defined by a set of minimal conditions, the subtype of that regime can be enhanced by exceeding the minimal conditions and attaining a second set of qualifying conditions. In the study of democracy, this is also described as democratic deepening.8 Another way to define consolidated democracy is to think about the achievement of a second higher set of criteria to which we attribute a different status, for instance, movement from electoral democ- racy to liberal democracy.9 4. Behavioral adaptation. Linz and Stepan define consolidation as a situation in which “democracy is the only game in town.” By this, they mean that all major political actors accept and play by the rules of democracy. This addresses whether society or at least elites adopt values congruent with the operation of the new democratic institutions adopted, for example, effective democratic socialization.10 5. Self-reinforcing equilibrium. Democracy will function and persist when all actors in the system see compliance with the rules of democracy as preferable to their subversion. In rational choice institutionalism, this occurs when all actors view the expected utility of participation in democracy as superior to expected utility of defecting from democracy (the potential payoff of defection discounted by the costs of defection times the probability that defection will end in success). When this is the case, democracy should be self-reinforcing without recourse to a third party to enforce the rules.11 Given this complex semantic field, before using such terminology, one needs to first specify what one means by consolidation conceptually as there are several con- tested meanings. However, in all these meanings, consolidation is presented as some- thing attained, enduring, and/or established. A regime is either reliably durable or at 286 East European Politics and Societies and Cultures risk (1). The new institutions of a democratic regime are either in place or not (2). A higher quality of democracy (whatever the criteria) has been achieved or not (3). All major political actors accept the rules of the game or they do not (4). All actors either see the benefits of democracy in their interest, and thus abide by the rules, or they do not and pursue strategies of defection (5). Under all these definitions, consolidation is as a bounded whole; either the state of affairs is attained or it is not. Consolidated or not is a logical contradictory. Ergo, consolidation as most commonly defined in political science is not divisible and thus pairing it with “semi-” makes for a contradiction in terms.12 Semi- only makes sense if the underlying concept is a contrary, the end point, or range on a contin- uum that captures a single fundamental but divisible property that is more or less present.13 These initial problems with conceptualization then carry over into operationaliza- tion. The NiT scores are presented on a scale and the different regime types noted above are demarcated by partitioning different ranges on the scale and assigning them names.