1 Jan Kubik Rutgers University What’s the situation of East Central Europe (ECE) ten years after accession? A glass half full, half empty? Reflections for “An Awkward Anniversary? Ten Years of Central and Eastern Europe in the EU” conference, Princeton University, April 1819, 2014. The first version of the opening paragraph of this brief read: Political “backsliding in the region” needs to be carefully compared to and separated from two other processes: (1) the worldwide decline of public assessment of the “situation” and trust in various institutions, 1 and (2) the pancontinental crisis of confidence in the EU. The funk observed among the ECE elites and publics seems to be the result of a combination of these three processes and we do not have good tools to separate out their respective influences and consequences. After reviewing several studies and sources of data I decided to rewrite it, as I am no longer sure that the initial pessimistic assessment is completely accurate. The picture seems to be more complex. Here is a new version: Political “situation in the region” needs to be carefully compared to and separated from two other processes: (1) : (1) the worldwide fluctuations of public assessment of the “situation” and trust in various institutions, and (2) the pancontinental state of confidence in the EU. The mindset observed among the ECE elites and publics seems to be the result of a combination of these three processes and we do not have good tools to separate out their respective influences and consequences. The state of public opinion (the intensity of “mindset” or “funk”) has something to do with the “political sliding” we are interested in. And the picture is mixed. For every “pessimistic” bit of data one can find something more “optimistic.” Moreover, the state of public opinion fluctuates. I suspect I would have struck a different tone sketching these remarks several months ago. For example, Eurobarometer 80 shows modestly revived optimism about the future of the EU. Such optimism increased between the spring and fall of 2013 in 22 countries, including Poland (by 3points) (66% of the surveyed are optimistic), Estonia (+3, 66%), and Lithuania (+2, 66%). “Pessimism is the majority view in eight Member States: Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, France, Italy, Hungary, the UK and Czech Republic.” Optimism has decreased in four Member States: France (40%, 4), Italy (40%, 4), Austria (47%, 1), and Greece (29%, 1) (Standard Eurobarometer 80, Autumn 2013, 10). Observe that optimism 1 Various polls measure the assessment of different aspects of the “situation:” political, economic, personal, etc.
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Jan Kubik Rutgers University What’s the situation of East Central Europe (ECE) ten years after accession? A glass half full, half empty? Reflections for “An Awkward Anniversary? Ten Years of Central and Eastern Europe in the EU” conference, Princeton University, April 18-‐19, 2014. The first version of the opening paragraph of this brief read:
Political “backsliding in the region” needs to be carefully compared to and separated from two other processes: (1) the worldwide decline of public assessment of the “situation” and trust in various institutions,1 and (2) the pan-‐continental crisis of confidence in the EU. The funk observed among the ECE elites and publics seems to be the result of a combination of these three processes and we do not have good tools to separate out their respective influences and consequences.
After reviewing several studies and sources of data I decided to re-‐write it, as I am no longer sure that the initial pessimistic assessment is completely accurate. The picture seems to be more complex. Here is a new version:
Political “situation in the region” needs to be carefully compared to and separated from two other processes: (1) : (1) the worldwide fluctuations of public assessment of the “situation” and trust in various institutions, and (2) the pan-‐continental state of confidence in the EU. The mindset observed among the ECE elites and publics seems to be the result of a combination of these three processes and we do not have good tools to separate out their respective influences and consequences.
The state of public opinion (the intensity of “mindset” or “funk”) has something to do with the “political sliding” we are interested in. And the picture is mixed. For every “pessimistic” bit of data one can find something more “optimistic.” Moreover, the state of public opinion fluctuates. I suspect I would have struck a different tone sketching these remarks several months ago. For example, Eurobarometer 80 shows modestly revived optimism about the future of the EU. Such optimism increased between the spring and fall of 2013 in 22 countries, including Poland (by 3points) (66% of the surveyed are optimistic), Estonia (+3, 66%), and Lithuania (+2, 66%). “Pessimism is the majority view in eight Member States: Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, France, Italy, Hungary, the UK and Czech Republic.” Optimism has decreased in four Member States: France (40%, -‐4), Italy (40%, -‐4), Austria (47%, -‐1), and Greece (29%, -‐1) (Standard Eurobarometer 80, Autumn 2013, 10). Observe that optimism
1 Various polls measure the assessment of different aspects of the “situation:” political, economic, personal, etc.
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has not decreased in any ECE member state and in only two – Hungary and Czech Republic – there are more pessimists than optimists.2 As a result of this first lesson I decided to be careful with generalizations and to rely as much as possible on explicit comparisons. A comparison needs a yardstick, however. The post-‐communist members of the EU can be compared to various general standards or sets of countries: “old” EU members, other post-‐communist states, other “democratizing” countries of the world, various past signposts, and even selected idealized futures. I will use some of them. I will begin with some numbers, illustrating both the political and economic situation of ECE. Then I will sketch several remarks on two topics I study up close: civil society and (political) culture. Progress of democratization 25 years after the fall of communism. The Bertelsmann Index A quick review of several rankings presents a mildly worrisome albeit mixed picture. Between 2006 and 2013, the Bertelsmann “democracy status” index for Eastern Europe (17 countries) shows a drop from 8.57 to 8.26 (10 being the maximum score). This is worrisome for two reasons: (1) among the seven regions studied by the Bertelsmann experts, only three experienced decline in that period and (2) the decline of the East European score is the steepest. It is, however, important to remember that by 2006, Eastern Europe was by far the most successfully democratized post-‐authoritarian region in the world (see Table 1).
Table 1: Bertelsmann Stiftung: democracy status by region, 2006-‐13
Region Bertelsmann 2006 Bertelsmann 2013 Difference
Eastern Europe (17) 8.57 8.26 -‐.31 Latin America/ Caribbean (21)
6.99 6.83 -‐.16
West and Central Africa (18)
5.19 5.28 +.09
Middle East/North Africa (19)
3.93 4.17 +.24
2 In a recent survey (summer 2013) conducted by the top polling agencies in the four Visegrad countries, 78% of Poles, 60% of Slovaks, 44% of Hungarians and 43% of Czechs agreed that “in general our country benefited from the membership in the EU.” 12% of Poles, 30% of Slovaks, 42% of Hungarians, and 41% of Czechs saw no benefits. In all countries there were more people who saw benefits than those who did not. The “positive margin” was by far the biggest in Poland (CBOS BS/137/2013).
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South and East Africa (20)
5.76 5.51 -‐.25
Post-‐Soviet Eurasia (13)
4.83 4.88 +.05
Asia and Oceania (21)
5.15 5.20 +.05
The decline began in 2008 from a relatively high level and has been uneven across the region: two countries improved their scores (Latvia and Estonia), five showed little change (and mostly in the positive directions) (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Lithuania), and seven countries experienced decline (Hungary, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia-‐Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia), Hungary most dramatically (1.45 points). Freedom House Freedom House measures the progress (or quality) of democratization in what it calls “nations in transit,” on seven dimensions and then offers a composite index. Table 2 summarizes the results for the period of interest.
Table 2: Freedom House scores for new EU members, 2004-‐13 (average)
Dimension of democracy
2004 2013 Difference
Electoral process 1.73 1.83 -‐.10 Civil society 1.78 1.95 -‐.17
Independent media 2.23 2.70 -‐.47 National democratic
The decline is not dramatic, but consistent across all dimensions, with the exception of local governance. The independence of the media deteriorated more than other areas. The drop has been most pronounced in Hungary.
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Economic situation.
Before 2008, the ECE belonged to the fastest-‐growing regions of the world (Graph “Exhibit E1”). 3 There are several areas that still need massive improvements (roads and railroad, for example), but the overall economic situation has improved remarkably, compared with the pre-‐1989 years. The countries that introduced more radical (neo-‐liberal) economic reforms and managed to employ them more or less consistently, experienced faster rates of
growth, less dramatic expansion of inequality, and less detrimental reorganization of the welfare state than the countries whose reforms have been less comprehensive and less consistent. As Szelenyi and Wilk note, between the mid-‐1980s and 2000:
In Central Europe the increases (in Gini coefficient – JK) were relatively modest, from around .20 to .25, with the exception of Poland where it increased from .28 to .33. While in Russia the index of inequality jumped from .26 to .47. The change in South Eastern Europe was somewhat less
severe. In Bulgaria and Romania, for example, inequality increased from around .25 to .30 and .40 respectively.4 The process of reorienting former state-‐run economies into a free-‐market, “capitalist” path has been thus quite socially costly, though it is not obvious that this cost has been directly proportional to the radicalness of economic reforms. The shutting down of the communist-‐era industrial behemoths and the opening
3 Source: “A New Dawn. Reigniting growth in Central and Eastern Europe.” 2013. McKinsley Global Institute, December 2013. 4 Ivan Szelenyi and Katarzyna Wilk. 2013. “Poverty and Popular Mobilization in Postcommunist Capitalist Regimes.” In Jan Kubik and Amy Linch, eds. Postcommunist from Within. Social Justice, Mobilization, and Hegemony. New York: The NYU Press, 229.
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of the economic systems resulted in painful layoffs, dislocations, and the emergence of new areas of poverty.5 It is, however, relatively clear that the countries of ECE have managed to preserve at least some elements of the communist welfare systems (for example, universalism) and their welfare states are no worse (and usually better) than the welfare states in two other post-‐authoritarian parts of the world: South America and East Asia.6 The crisis of 2008 touched ECE economies unevenly, with Poland weathering the global downturn better than almost all other European countries. The overall economic growth in the region has not yet recovered to the pre-‐2008 levels, but several analysts are predicting a relatively robust recovery and the resumption of the previous growth patterns. Having reviewed some standard views on the progress of democratization and economic situation in ECE, I will now briefly discuss civil society and (political) culture. Civil society7 Strong civil society is widely seen as one of the key components of successful democratic consolidation. The condition and role of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 is one of the most misunderstood aspects of post-‐communist transformations. The prevailing wisdom has it that the decades of communist rule destroyed foundations of civic life, dramatically diminished the capacity of the civic sphere to regenerate itself, and as a result civil society – conventionally seen as an indispensable pillar of a democratic system – has been too weak to play any significant role in shaping emerging democracy and market economy or prevent authoritarian reversals. Thus, the countries that managed to successfully democratize have done so through reforms from above, supported by powerful international actors, and without any significant input from civil society. Ralf Dahrendorf formulated the most influential version of this argument when shortly after the revolutions of 1989 he famously quipped: “It takes six months to create new political institutions, to write a constitution and electoral laws. It may take six years to create a half-‐viable economy. It will probably take sixty years to create civil society. Autonomous institutions are the hardest to bring about.”8 The originality of Dahrendorf’s claim was startling, since the 1989 collapse of communist regimes was seen at that time as a heroic victory of civil society over the ossified and repressive party states. Communism disappeared not because of a defeat in a war, but was smashed by citizen movements animated by liberal ideas 5 Ivan Szelenyi and Katarzyna Wilk. 2013. Ibid., 229-‐64. 6 Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman. 2008. Development, Democracy, and Welfare States. Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 341. 7 The following analysis is based on Grzegorz Ekiert and Jan Kubik. 2014. “Myths and Realities of Civil Society,” Journal of Democracy 25, 1 (January), 46-‐58. 8 Ralf Dahrendorf, “Has the East joined the West,” New Perspective Quarterly, 7, 2 (Spring 1990): 42.
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and longing for political and civic rights only democracy can guarantee. And yet Dahrendorf’s thesis took hold. Paradoxically, as many of the post-‐communist polities have been becoming more democratic and liberal, complaints about the weakness of their civil societies have been growing louder.9 Most of the early empirical comparative research on civil society reaffirmed the Dahrendorf thesis. Moreover, the thesis has quickly acquired the status of received wisdom applicable to all societies and countries that emerged from the communist rule. This view persisted despite the existing evidence of considerable variance in political, economic, and social outcomes across the region, including the growing disparity in the condition of civil society. The systemic weakness of postcommunist civil societies has been demonstrated mostly through an analysis of several cross-‐national surveys of attitudes: the World Value Survey and similar cross-‐European surveys. This is surprising since there is a wide range of other data that is easily available and can shed light on civil society development and transformation, such as public opinion surveys on volunteering and membership in civil society organizations conducted at the national level, registers of organizations, expert assessments, protest event analysis, and case studies. Taken together, these sources make it possible to assess the state of civil society – most importantly its activities across the region – with greater precision than cross-‐national surveys of attitudes alone. For example, in contrast to studies of public opinion, evaluations by expert panels support the notion of a staggering variance in civil society condition and capacity across the post-‐communist region. The World Bank Governance Index shows that in the new members of the EU – particularly in Estonia, Poland, and Slovenia – civil society’s organizational composition and its role in providing citizens with voice and the capacity to make their states increasingly accountable is not much worse than in Western Europe. It is actually better than in Italy and Greece.10 USAID 2012 report on the sustainability of civil society organizations documents diverse and diverging paths of civil society development. The ex-‐communist members of European Union score on average 2.7, with Estonia (2.0), Poland (2.2), and Czech Republic (2.6) leading the pack. The countries of Eurasia (Russia, West NIS, and Caucasus) score 4.4, and the five states of Central Asia score, on average, 5.0.11 Similarly, Freedom House’s experts rate the strength of civil society on the scale of 1 to 7. The average score for new EU members in 2013 was 1.95, with Poland achieving the highest
9 Marc M. Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-‐Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Beate Sissenich, Building States without Society: European Union Enlargement and the Transfer of EU Social Policy to Poland and Hungary (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2007). For a more nuanced comparative analysis see Michael Bernhard and Ekrem Karakoc, “Civil Society and the Legacies of Dictatorship,” World Politics 59 (July 2007): 539–67. 10 See Voice and Accountability, World Bank (http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#home, accessed October 9, 2013) 11 The 2012 CSO Sustainability Index for Central and Easter Europe and Eurasia. 16th Edition (Washington, DC: US Agency for International Development). The lower score indicates stronger sustainability.
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result of 1.50. For the Balkans the average score was 3.04, and for the Eurasian States – 5.25, with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan sharing the dubious privilege of achieving the lowest possible grade of 7.12 There are three persistent myths about post-‐1989 civil societies in former communist countries. Ekiert and I challenge them all. First, we show that post-‐communist civil societies were not built from scratch. To a significant degree they were based on associational spheres inherited from the old regime and on the organizational traditions going back to the pre-‐communist period. Second, some comparative analyses of European civil societies suggest that a new type of civil society emerged in post-‐communist countries. It is different from continental, Anglo-‐Saxon, or Nordic types and its roots are in the common communist past and the specific nature of 1989-‐91 revolutions.13 We argue the opposite. There is no convergence to a single model. To the contrary, there is a growing divergence in sectoral composition, behavior, normative orientations of civil society actors, and the dominant type of relations between them and their respective states. These differences reflect not only long standing historical traditions of various sub-‐regions of the former Soviet bloc and contrasting outcomes of postcommunist transformations but also new divisions of the European space generated by the EU enlargements. Finally, we also challenge the well-‐established myth that postcommunist civil societies are systemically weak. While strength or weakness are not very useful analytical categories, we show that some civil societies in ECE have dense and comprehensive organizational structures, operate in a friendly institutional and legal environment, and have some capacity to influence policy making on local and national levels. In other postcommunist countries, especially those that reverted to various forms of authoritarian rule, civil societies are often organizationally weak and politically irrelevant. Civil society actors are excluded from routine consultation and governance and come together to influence politics only in extraordinary moments of rage triggered by economic downturns or gross violations of laws and constitutional provisions by their states. Culture European cultural gradient Predominant in popular imagination, many journalistic accounts, and some academic work (still), is a view that traversing Europe from west to east has something to do with leaving “civilization” and entering a zone of “backwardness.”
12 Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2013. 13 Edith Archambault. 2009. “The Third Sector in Europe: Does It Exhibit a Converging Moment.” In Enjolras Bernhard and Karl Henrik Sivesind (eds) Civil society in Comparative Perspective, Comparative Social Research Vol. 26, 3-‐24.
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Some articulations of this idea are crude and jarring, some are subtle and rather tongue in cheek, but the stereotype seems to be entrenched. The intellectual sources of this internal European Orientalism are thoroughly investigated (Wolff, Todorova) and their political consequences often discussed. Its empirical base is however dubious. In a truly ingenious study published in 2002, thus before the first wave of “post-‐communist accessions,” David Laitin reaches the following conclusion:
The data show first that there exists a pan-‐European cosmopolitan culture that is rapidly infusing the applicant countries of the East. Second, the transcendent cosmopolitan European culture exists complementary with national cultures, which remain vibrant in the West and in the East, even in the context of an overarching continental culture. Third, the divergences of national cultures within the member states of the EU are considerable; yet on the cultural dimensions examined here, the national cultures of the applicant states fall well within the extremes set by the member states. In fact, the data present a stunning result, which of course must be taken as preliminary and still at the level of speculation: that the cultural patterns exhibited by respondents from the applicant states are somewhat closer to the patterns shown among the original six EEC members than is the case for the post-‐six entrants. To the degree that there is a ‘catching up’ process in the works, the data suggest it is occurring intergenerationally among the populations of the later entrants more so than the applicants, who are already closer to the so-‐called Western European norm.”14
This process of cultural integration between the “West” and “East,” particularly among the younger cohorts of Europeans, has accelerated and deepened since 2002. There is not room here to analyze it, but consider the results of the last Standard Eurobarometer (80/2013):
In 23 EU Member States, outright majorities of respondents feel that they are citizens of the EU: the highest proportions are reached in Luxembourg (85%), Malta (74%), Germany (73%), and Finland (73%). The exceptions are Greece (42%), the UK (42%), Italy (45%), Cyprus (46%) and Bulgaria, where respondents are almost perfectly divided (49%, vs. 50% who do not feel they are EU citizens). After a 7-‐point decrease, Italy now belongs to the group of countries where a majority of the population does not feel they are EU citizens.”
Estonians, Slovaks, Poles, Latvians, Slovenes, and Hungarians feel that they are citizens of the EU at a higher rate than the EU average.
14 David Laitin. 2002. “Culture and National Identity: ‘The East’ and European Integration” West European Politics 25, 2 (April), 56.
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To illustrate not just the incorporation of the ECE countries into the European cultural space, but also the “normalization” of this new situation, let me invoke just one example. In June 2013 Warsaw hosted the third edition of the Meeting of National Theaters. By all account it was a spectacular success. This edition of the festival featured Strindberg’s “The Ghost Sonata” prepared by the Royal Dramatic Theatre from Stockholm, Viennese Burgtheater with another classic, “The Prince of Homburg,” and The Alexandrinsky Theater from St. Petersburg presenting Valery Fokin’s “Zero Liturgy.” I saw “The Expulsion” directed by Oskaras Koršunovas and performed by a truly amazing cast of actors from the Lithuanian National Theater in Vilnius. The play is about Lithuanian émigrés in London who try to survive in an alien “capitalist” world, retain sanity and dignity, earn some money, build new lives, cultivate old relationships, protect old and forge new loves, and philosophize about the meaning of all of this. Their lives need to be constructed in a new, post-‐cold war Europe, open and teaming with previously unimaginable possibilities, but simultaneously inaccessible, harsh and unforgiving. It is hard to imagine a more thorough and moving theatrical investigation of the migrant realities of the post-‐1989 Europe. The young Lithuanian artists who created this work are architects and inhabitants of a new pan-‐continental cultural space that they take for granted, so characteristically for their generation. Cultural explanations of the rise of populism. The extant data and studies do not support the thesis that ECE countries suffer more from the populist or right-‐wing backlash than several countries of “old” Europe (see the map below).
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Yet the illiberal tendencies are pronounced in several ECE countries, most prominently in Hungary. How to explain the intensification of these tendencies after the political crises of the mid-‐2000s and the economic crisis of 2008? Cultural explanations should deal with both the supply and demand side of the cultural-‐political process. Many studies of social conservatism and susceptibility to illiberal visions among sizeable sectors of the ECE populace see these features as products of long durée that are hard to change. Entrenched illiberal (sub)cultures tend to be constructed around simple binaries, for example: (healthy) East versus (decadent) West, true Europeanness based on unspoiled religiosity versus corrupted Europeanness of the secularized West, etc. It has been shown that discourses based on such binaries tend to resonate with people who have the heightened need for cognitive closure and epistemic clarity. And such a need – it is further argued – is positively correlated with lower levels of education, rural lifestyles, and older age. Moreover, this need becomes more pronounced at the time of crisis and turmoil.15 So, we have some theories (and empirical evidence) concerning the demand side of the right-‐wing, populist mobilization in the last decade or so. But analyses of the demand side need to be complemented by studies of the supply side. Only the latter can provide explanations of why climates of opinion (Zeitgeist) or dominant popular convictions sometimes change (left, right, or sideways?) and sometimes do not in response to economic or political crises. The answers must come from the study of deliberate framing (signifying) activities by cultural-‐political entrepreneurs via specific media and educational institutions—political parties’ “propaganda” operations among them. Here, for example, we see both Polish PiS and Hungarian FIDESZ engaging in mnemonic wars, in which they have been relentless in propagating their visions of the post-‐1989 transformations as a period of wasted opportunities. In PiS’s vision, this period has its roots in the “illegitimate” deal at the Round Table that guaranteed ex-‐communists too much influence in the public, particularly economic, life of the country. All other parties in Polish politics celebrate the Round Table as an unprecedented achievement that allowed Poland to enter a path of democratic transformation without violence.16 Let’s take a quick look at two theories that, inter alia, propose explanations of the “right wing/populist/illiberal reaction” to rapid political and economic transformations and/or dramatic dislocations associated with globalization or economic crises. The cultural trauma theory, proposed by Jeffrey Alexander et al., 15 Moreover, research in political psychology suggests that such needs are higher among the politicians and supporters of the right than of the center (the situation on the left is more complex). See Agnieszka Golec de Zavala. 2011. “Cognitive Skills and Motivation to Adapt to Social Change among Polish Politicians,” in The Psychology of Politicians, ed. Ashley Weinberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 76-‐96. 16 For the detailed, comparative analysis of the post-‐1989 mnemonic wars in East Central Europe see Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik, eds. Twenty Years after Communism. The Politics of Memory and Commemoration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 (forthcoming in July).
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seems to suggest that the anti-‐liberal cultural backlash should have happened relatively early during the process of post-‐communist transformations.17 It did not. In Poland and elsewhere, the parties of the illiberal/populist right did not play any major role during the early transitional period and gradually have been gaining strength and achieved power, however briefly, only in the mid-‐2000s—fifteen years after the transformations commenced. As the cultural trauma theory may not be fully convincing, its two competitors are worthy of consideration. First, there exists an under-‐articulated theory that focuses on the supply side of cultural politics in post-‐communist states. According to this theory, the rise of illiberalism is explained primarily by the increasingly coordinated and focused entrepreneurial activities of politicians, grass-‐root movements, and activists who promote a worldview that frames the situation as unbearable and offer political programs based on this worldview. Second, on the demand side, cultural trauma theory has a strong competitor in a theory I would call transformational exhaustion. Its essence seems to be disappointment with the elitism18 of the initial period of reforms and their outcomes. This gives rise to a growing sense of exclusion that underpins the populace’s thrashing around in its search for alternative interpretive frames and political solutions. As Ost observes:
Many turned to the right because the right offered them an outlet for their economic anger and a narrative to explain their economic problems that liberals, believing they held sway over workers, consistently failed to provide. In the end, workers drifted to the right because their erstwhile intellectual allies pushed them there (emphasis – JK).19
Ost’s explanation is incomplete; it deals mostly with the delayed demand for new ideas or narratives. But while some intellectuals and politicians might have been guilty of “pushing,” others have been hard at work at “pulling” workers (and other people) toward illiberal explanations and policy positions. A robust explanation of the 2005-‐2007 success of PiS and its allies in Poland, and of the PiS’s staying power, should come therefore from a combination of these two theoretical leads. On the demand side, it is a delayed response to the transformational hardships and the sense of exclusion. This seems to be the hallmark of the second phase of democratic consolidation. On the supply side, it is the skillful elaboration and propagation of
17 Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Berhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztompka, Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 18 Jacek Wasilewski, “Trudny test demokratycznego elityzmu” [A Difficult Test of Democratic Elitism], in Legitimizacja w Polsce. Nieustajacy kryzys w zmieniajacych sie warunkach [Legitimization in Poland. A Continuous Crisis in Changing Conditions], ed. Andrzej Rychard and Henryk Domanski. Warsaw: IFiS PAN, 2010, 33-‐59. 19 David Ost, The Defeat of Solidarity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005, 36.
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illiberal/populist narratives that are, as always, directed against two adversaries: elitism and pluralism.20 In order to develop a robust theory of the illiberal and authoritarian challenge in post-‐communist Europe, we need to offer an explanation of the delayed popular (populist) response to the tribulations of early transformations. Such a theory will have to deal with at least three phenomena: (1) the increased susceptibility of certain segments of ECE populations to discourses emphasizing transformational failures rather than its successes (a late transformations blues?), (2) the rise of political forces and political entrepreneurs (mostly among the elites) espousing illiberal discourses (their intellectual sources, institutional vehicles, and areas of social support), and (3) the composition and relative strength of parties and actors who support liberal and “cosmopolitan” political platforms and cultural programs. In brief, what we witness in ECE is a struggle for cultural hegemony between “traditionalism” and “liberal cosmopolitanism,” for the lack of better terms. We also see that this battle is not unique to the Eastern part of the continent, but rather has become central in the politics of many European polities. My final observation comes from the recently completed book on the politics of memory and commemoration in the postcommunist Europe.21 Michael Bernhard and I observe the emergence of fractured memory regimes in several countries of ECE, including Poland and Hungary. Such memory regimes emerge when a specific political actor, whom we call memory warrior, enters the field of memory politics. The question is, whether the fracturing of memory regimes by warriors necessarily leads to problems with effective and stable democratic governance. Just as Capoccia has shown for the interwar period in Europe, polarized polities, even those under extreme economic stress, can overcome challenges to democratic stability.22 It is important that elites take effective steps to minimize the destabilizing effects of memory wars. Perhaps the best example of such action is found in Poland. Here the government of Donald Tusk effectively blunted the attempts of the Kaczyński brothers to use the anniversaries of 1989 to recapture power after the PiS-‐led government fell in 2007. By staying out the dispute on the Roundtable Agreement and acting more inclusively on the anniversary of the June 1989 elections, Prime Minister Tusk effectively neutralized the attempts of the Kaczyńskis to use a radical reinterpretation of democratization in Poland to delegitimize their competitors. This effective strategy boomeranged on PiS when Bronisław Komorowski was able to defeat Jarosław Kaczyński in the presidential elections of 2010 and when later that year PO won its second consecutive election and Tusk became the first incumbent prime minister in post-‐1989 Poland to be reelected. And it is important to note that in this period the Polish party system has been remarkably stable,
20 Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist,” Government and Opposition 39, no. 4 (2004): 543. 21 Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik, eds. Twenty Years after Communism. The Politics of Memory and Commemoration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 (forthcoming in July). 22 Giovanni Capoccia. 2007. Defending Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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something that had eluded Polish democracy until the last several years. Time will tell if this will remain a stable outcome or if the PiS will be able to capitalize on the slowdown in Polish economy that came in 2013. Clearly, fractured memory regimes (or, more generally, strongly polarized political cultures) do not inevitably pose a threat to democracy. However, by exacerbating the polarization of existing political cleavages they have the potential to do so. As in all cases of polarization, the response of elites to such situations, as is made clear by the recent work of scholars such as Bermeo and Capoccia, is instrumental. Politicians who choose to cast political competition as a zero-‐sum game and treat the loss of power as a problem that requires an ex-‐ante institutional fixes that improve their chances of staying in power, are highly likely to be mnemonic (or cultural) warriors as well. Conclusions I am arguing in this brief for a complex and nuanced diagnosis of the situation in ECE ten years after accession. The picture I paint has six elements:
• Some analysts observe mild reversals (or slowdowns) in democratization (Bertelsmann and Freedom House);
• Quite a few economists see overall economic successes (as compared to other regions of the world) after 25 years of transformations, including the signs of overcoming the post-‐2008 slump;
• Sociologists (relying on surveys) see the growing (slowly) attachment to the EU and its institutions, and the intensifying sense of belonging to the pan-‐European cultural space (Eurobarometer 80);
• All observers see the emergence of the populist, right-‐wing, “traditionalist” and often Euro-‐skeptical (however mildly) political formations and (sub)cultures. But I am not sure whether this phenomenon is unique for or particularly pronounced in the ECE countries, as similar trends are observed across the continent. In the ECE EU member countries, such parties are dominant at the moment only in Hungary;
• The most important trend of the last political decade seems to be the emerging dominance of the right-‐ or left-‐leaning political center, partially made possible by the political “suicides” committed by the “old” left during the 2000s. Increasingly, the parties and key personages of this center are unaffiliated with “traditional” political orientations;
• There are elite actors who are hell-‐bent on igniting and continuing cultural wars, for example in the area of collective/national memory, but their political successes are modest, as long as their efforts are counter-‐balanced by more pragmatic and task-‐oriented politicians.
To me the glass if half full and half empty. ECE countries have achieved considerable successes in the consolidation of democracy and economic growth, particularly in comparison with other post-‐authoritarian regions of the world. Some struggle with
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serious problems such as corruption (particularly Romania and Bulgaria).23 Some have issues with their democratic performance, but they are not lethal and – most importantly – not much different from the problems faced by several non-‐ECE European countries.
23 But it should be noted that in the most recent Transparency International (TI) ranking (CPI 2013), Romania scores 43, as much as Italy and ahead of Brazil (41). And Bulgaria (41) is ahead of China and Greece (both 40). There are many problems with the TI system of scoring, but it seems to be the best tool we have at the moment to compare countries.