Individual NATO Research Fellowships (1994-1996)

The research reports reproduced here are the responsibility of the individual authors. Their reproduction does not imply any form of official or unofficial endorsement by NATO. The reports are offered in unedited form, as presented by their authors, with a view to make their findings available to a wide audience. Definition, Establishment and Enforcement of New Rules of the Political Game in the Process of Democratic Consolidation in East-Central Europe Artur Gruszczak (Poland) [Back to Index] Prospects for the Consolidation of Democracy in East-Central Europe From our specific angle, examining the question of rules of the political game meant evaluating the prospects and real chances for democracy. A multidimensional analysis of the entire system of rules that determine the pace and direction of the regime transition facilitates greatly the diagnosis of democratic consolidation processes. Rules of the political game in the present analysis were operationalized as a variable permeating various spheres (and dimensions) of politics (as well as economics), thus forming a specific core structure for political regime. That variable is operating on different scales and is entering into various interactions with other elements of the system. Nevertheless, recalling once more Giddens' structuration theory, rules remain inherent components of the system, they are its structured properties linked to adequate resources. That variety of resources in possession of ECE states and societies, largely determined by patterns of culture, ethnicity, political traditions, institutional choices, structures of geopolitical and civilizational dependency, has affected significantly the modes and ways of rule-establishment and rule-enforcement. The countries of East-Central Europe have made a remarkable effort on their route to a consolidated democratic regime as well as to modern market economy. The political game in the framework of democracy has been joined by the main actors on the political stage. The basic rules have been arduously worked out thanks to legitimation of transition strategies along with their contingent outcomes. The consolidation of the ECE new regimes meant that transitory arrangements established as tools required for a consensual way of setting up determinants of the new democratic play, were gradually given up and replaced by structural normative-institutional regulations, or processed, redefined and conformed to the established procedural and institutional order. Temporary solutions like pacts or elite settlements were verified through democratic procedures and had to adjust to the new normative and institutional framework of democratic politics. The strategies of rule-establishment and institutionalization adopted by the ECE countries substantially differed. The Hungarian transition through transactions was characterized by a common eagerness to enclose the political and social developments leading to the regime change into the framework of legality and formal legitimization. The Constitution of 1989, approved in the midst of crucial events and processes of socio-political and economic origins, reflected a strong wish, mostly on the part of elite transition-makers, to preserve continuity in the legal/procedural terrain. It resulted mainly from a low societal participation in the course and development of political transition. In the case of Poland, where participation and social involvement were very high, temporary solutions were transferred into informal yet effective patterns of politics, indispensable to maintain the political system in a relative equilibrium despite the high dynamics of the regime change. Poland's democratization was carried out with only necessary constitutional changes. Czechoslovakia's transition had a different logic. There the constitution-making was seen almost from the beginning of the regime change as a principal objective of all the relevant political actors. The establishment of formal rules of the game, in the form of written constitution, was perceived as the basic premise of democratic consolidation. In the case of Slovakia, however, the new democratic constitution was intended to offer a valuable and useful tool in struggling for national independence and secession from the federalist Czechoslovak state. What was particularly significant in the Slovak case, it was the interweaving of state consolidation with political consolidation conducive to the spread of occasionary practices, old patterns of behaviour and social habits, contributing to the reinforcement of informal, para-legal or de facto non-democratic patterns of authority. Democratization, therefore, also with regard to East-Central Europe, was supposed to bring about a new set of rules and political principles which were able to achieve an authentic popular legitimacy through an indiscriminate bargain between various social and political groups representing civil society (Beetham, 1993, p. 58). Following the collapse of communist regimes, it turned out that in those countries where bargain was a dominant driving force of politics and the dynamics of conflicts was maintained at a relatively high level, the establishment of new rules of the game, not to mention the constitution-making process, has been advancing with great pains. Other countries, which began democratic consolidation with the proclamation of a new constitution, have had a relatively easier way of proceeding with the enforcement of new institutions and structures of democratic polity. Poland provides the best illustration of the first option and the Czech Republic of the second one. Poland's constitution is probably the most bizarre and paradoxical of the constitutional laws in ECE countries (Karpinski, 1995b, p. 6; Osiatynski, 1994b). After seven years of democratic transition, Poland's constitution still is in limbo. In Czechoslovakia, and next in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the making of new constitution was a much more effective and important process than in Poland. The federalist structure of the Czechoslovak state, challenged from 1990 mostly by Slovak nationalist groups, had to be remodeled taking into account interests and demands of autonomists in Slovakia, Moravia and Silesia. Moreover, the shape of a new democratic political system was also subject to deep public controversies, disputes and political conflicts (Gabal, 1995, p. 43). Both in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the constitution was supposed to highlight the country's sovereignty and the newly-born independent statehood. Probably Schöpflin exaggerates when he declares: "It is no wonder that under postcommunism legality exists more on paper than as a set of internalized norms" (Schöpflin, 1994, p. 132). It is true, however, that the high dynamics of the processes of social and political change in East-Central Europe many times forced the democratic governments to walk a tightrope between an objective necessity and the principles of constitutionalism and legality. One has to mention the phenomenon of "sottogoverno", so aptly described by Bobbio with reference to a specific link between the state administrative powers--generating political influence by control over the major areas of economic power--and the performance of various party machines provided with discretionary state-generated funds (11). Polities of all kinds display various signs of instability and even the crudest dictatorship cannot be free of destabilizing tendencies. While in mature democracies instability is often seen from a positive, functional perspective, as a call for improving or modifying systemic structures, the politics of countries in transition is full of various evidences of anti-systemic instability which pose a threat to the establishment and consolidation of a new regime. Instability in such countries may take a variety of forms and aspects. Slovak political arena provides probably the best example regarding dimensions, determinants, features and political as well as economic consequences of instability. Conflicts and quarrels take place not only on the level of state institutions, but reach the vital for democratic stability areas of the state-society structure: political parties, civil society and mass media. The long-term confrontation between President Michal Ková_ and Vladimír Me_iar, which took a vehement and sometimes grotesque form throughout 1995, has shown how attempts at concentrating political power in hands of a given political coalition can harm the internal stability as well as affect negatively the prospects for a successful democratic consolidation and the fulfillment of strategic objectives of the country's foreign and security policies (Chmel, 1994; _ime_ka, 1994; Jagodzinski, 1995). Poland does not look better from that perspective. Constant clashes between President Walesa and the parliament, which had intensified after the electoral victory of post-communist parties in 1993 also involving the government, refrained and occasionally stopped reforms in many important areas of politics and economy as well as reinforced anti-elitist attitudes in the society and weakened popular confidence in democracy. The most recent example of political convulsion has been the so-called Oleksy affair, as the former Polish Prime Minister had been charged to have worked as a Soviet and Russian agent. Hence, new democratic institutions, rules and procedures did not eliminate numerous sources of instability, conflict and crisis. At best, they have facilitated the redefinition of contradictory interests and goals and incorporation of the leading actors into the framework of democratic politics. In the functionalist perspective, the new rules of the political game facilitated the processing of conflicts and their neutralization with regard to the system's internal structure and its overall performance. This refers to the resolution of labour conflicts in the heavy industry of ECE countries. Strike as a legitimate form of social as well as political opposition to the government (the special case of Poland) lost the popular support and belief in its effectiveness regarding fulfillment of labour demands. Negotiation formulas launched by the governments of Poland and Hungary helped greatly to avoid a direct confrontation between the government and trade unions and made a remarkable contribution to the reinforcement of consensual approaches to political struggle. If such kind of formulasdo work out properly in transitory circumstances, the process of consolidation may change radically the terms of the game and the transition strategies have to be jettisoned. Democratic consolidation fosters the differentiation of structures, patterns and institutions involved in the political game, especially with respect to interest representation and authority. An ideal political game based on equality of chances does not hold a wide acceptance. In many cases, political victory still is understood as a total defeat of the adversary, in moral and even physical terms (Guenov, 1991, p. 352). In many cases of social and political unrest, governments decided to take advantage of informal, hidden ways and means in order to get the dangerous situation under its control and avoid the escalation of conflict. An immediate social response to current government decisions very often took form of civil strife, protests and manifestations. New democratic government used to tolerate such forms of interest representation since the existing institutional channels were dysfunctional or hardly feasible. They also adopted new forms and methods of communication with citizens. Old patterns of clientelism, paternalism and corruption continued to be useful in the relationships between political society and the state authorities. Numerous examples evidence that change in political culture, social consciousness and habits has not and probably will not accompany institutional political changes and economic reforms. Economic reforms brought about a relative stabilization of macroeconomic bases and a substantial continuous growth. This growth, however, came after a long period of recession and a severe, unexpectedly steep decline of the main economic parameters. Now it is hard to forecast whether this tendency will be prolonged over a longer span of time. Neoliberal strategies evidenced clearly and with a cruel truth that the ECE economies are largely dependent on international markets and their position in the world division of labour is predetermined by the structures of underdevelopment and technological backwardness. Breaking these patterns through depends on the accessibility of international markets and sources of capital, but the inflow of investment capital is on its turn determined by the overall performance of these economies and by the progress of the reforms. Therefore, those countries are condemned within a couple of decades to the coexistence of the structural underdevelopment with the dynamic modernization and opening to the international markets. This may produce, however, a rapidly widening gap between modernized sectors with a relatively high grade of insertion into the world economy and underdevelopped branches of industry and agriculture, doomed to a slow atrophy. It will cause various social and political problems and have a negative impact on the stability of political and socio-economic order. Political and economic reforms will have a double impact on the social structure. They may maintain and conserve old class divisions, at the same time they may create new. If we take into account the fact that equality and social justice were the key values during the period of anti-communist struggle (vide the ethos of the Solidarity movement in Poland), and that the communist regimes inculcated in the consciousness of their societies a strong sense of equality reinforced by the egalitarian social stratification, the social inequalities may harm critically popular legitimacy of the new democratic paradigm. Musil points out the fact that the interiorized patterns of social behaviour established under communist rule almost totally repudiated many of the principles common in societies with liberal political institutions. This set maybe the strongest barriers in the post-communist societies seeking to adopt and instil the values of civil society (Musil, 1992, p. 179). Marody maintains that the strong belief-- inculcated under communist rule--that life and politics is dominated by authorities whose decisions can be challenged yet never influenced--has remained largely unchanged despite institutional changes (Marody, 1991, p. 112). What has hindered and delayed the democratic consolidation in East-Central Europe it was an overall characteristics of communist rule as well as the formulas of negotiated transition subject to the strategy of recomposition of the dominant power bloc. On the other hand, despite all structural impediments of the old system, new democratic governments allowed in the name of their particular interests that continuity regarding some aspects of authoritarian rule would be prolonged over the process of establishing and consolidating democracy. Correspondingly, short-term tactical goals gained the upper hand of long-term strategy of transformation. The struggle for power set the objectives of systemic transformation aside. The aim of keeping control over the government policies and state apparatus, securing at the same time popular support, often led to the use of old, still unchanges patterns of the state-society relationship, old practices and mechanisms of governing. Therefore, democratic governments, the new power elite, engaged in a specific political game. The political participation remained on a high level, due to still high degree of mass mobilization following the beginning of political change, while the level of institutionalization, depend on structural impediments originating in the old regime, was still low. It is a real dilemma, how to turn social mobilization to a constructive participation--through democratic procedures--in the establishment and enforcement of new rules and institutions. Meanwhile the East-Central European politics is full of conflictive issues which undermine the popular belief in democracy as a best political and social system. Democracy is universally accepted as an idea, but is put to the question as an effective method of conflict resolution and a structural framework for interest representation (see Rose, 1996). Anti-elitist attitudes strangthened by the "we-them" cleavage produce attacks on democratic authorities and indirectly on the democratic order. The weakness of democratic institutions on the intermediary level and a deviant relationship between the state and the political society have a disintegrative impact on the establishment, enforcement and control over the rules of the political game. Permanent government changes, high vote floatation, frequent changes in law, not-so-rare cases of violation of the Constitution in East-Central European countries prove that the rules of the political game are unstable, conjunctural and subject to the existing balance of power. This reflects a further problem: how to fill the gap between democratic form and real substance (Schöpflin, 1991, p. 236). The origins of this dilemma are partially explained by the predominantly downward character of the transition. Apathy and passivity result from a widespread belief that average people have no influence on the political game and are subject to the rules and strategies determined by interests and aspirations of the main players: elites, political parties, the Church, cliques. A sine qua non condition of the emergence and consolidation of a truly civil society is a strong conviction that everybody enjoying civil rights can participate actively in the political game and have an effect on the terms of the game. On the other hand, political change under the guise of democratic consolidation has been successful in establishing and introducing democratic mechanisms and procedures although much less fortunate regarding effectiveness and viability of its institutions as well as normative and constitutional aspects of regime change. It created an impression that new governments were not capable to meet properly the challenge issued by the totality of changes and reforms that they started to design and introduce. Institutionalization advances with respect to some temporary and provisional mechanisms, modes and procedures of rule making. Nonetheless, it is too many times replaced by informal "understanding", tacit deals and political transactions contributing in sum to a systematic decline in the legitimacy of democratic regime and to a lowering observance of the law. The new democracies of East-Central Europe proved to be open systems, with flexible structures making possible almost all forms of political activity and facilitating unrestricted, free political organization and action. The former authoritarian ruling group adjusted to the new democratic system perfectly and now they can easily realize their own strategy, with a full respect and juridical guarantees for their interests. Functional aspects of politics prevail over institutional and normative settings; pragmatism over fundamentalism. Despite rather low popular legitimacy of democratic regimes (expressed in public opinion polls concerning popularity of a present government, support for its policies, or popularity of political leaders - comp. Appendix 2), the majority of the population does not see an alternative. The countries of East-Central Europe have good chances of success in consolidating as liberal democracies with sound market economies. Nevertheless, they must avert at the present stage the danger of being consolidated as hybrid regimes, subject largely to great improvisation.