GOVT S-1113Lecture 11

Post-communist Transitions

• Four Main Trajectories:– ECE model Democratization (with “hiccups”)

– Former Yugoslavia/Balkans Internecine conflict/ political divorce (bloody, for the most part)

– Soviet “Slavic core” neo-authoritarian backsliding

– Central Asia largely demagogic/sultanistic rule

Statue of Saparmurat Niyazov (“Turkmenbashi”)

Structure and Agency in Post-communist Transitions

• Structural factors– West– East

• Intermediate-term legacies– Interwar period

• Proximate legacies– Different “types” of communism

Structure and Agency in Post-communist Transitions

• Dedication of elites to project of democracy

• Patience of voting public/ability to tolerate reform

• Ideational affinity and “peer group”

• Statesmen and “accidental politicians”

Competing Explanations for Collapse of Communism

• Elite enervation

• Undermined by popular pressure

• Broke apart due to institutional and organizational inefficiency

• Pressure from outside

Concurrent Reforms

• Political

• Economic

• Social

“Deep” Legacies (aka “structure”)

Three historical regions of Europe (Jeno Szucs, 1983)

Fault-lines of European politics:-Religion-Political traditions-Economic development level

Warsaw Uprising Child Soldier and Mały Powstaniec Statue

Anti-Communist Political Posters

«Господи! Помоги мне выжить среди этой смертной любви» (Mein Gott, hilf mir, diese

tödliche Liebe zu überleben) Dmitri Vrubel