20/1/2009 - A CRITICAL ANALYSIS on COMMONLY KNOWN THEORIES of TRANSITION in

This paper examines a general glance to the socio–economic transformation process in Eastern Europe after the collapse of Soviet Union. Throughout this analysis, the shift in the system as being another turning point for the world history is handled within the sphere of global factors and democratization process applied to the ex-communist countries since mid 80s. The collective sentiments resulted from general approaches put this phase under the umbrella of neo-liberalist or neo-institutionalist theories. However, when the latest developments and the attitudes of western authorities are cosidered, it seems difficult to categorize this stage into such a broad meaning. So, via this study, I tried to prove that “Explaining the politic and socio-economic transition of Eastern Europe only with neo-liberalist or neo-institutionalist approaches is not a true way to analyse what the region faced.”

I reached to the conclusion by covering 5 main subjects. First of all, I started my paper by analysing the emergence of this transition process in the region. Later on, I continued to analyse the generic meaning of both “transition” and “democracy” with what actually they refer in Eastern European case. Thirdly, the importance of leadership was handled as a basic tool to implement leadership. In the fourth part, I re-handled the common theories –neo liberalism and neo institutionalism- in this trasformation period and measured the accuracy of them.  Afterwards, I dealt with attitudes of western states towards Eastern Europe democratization on the grounds of their strategic aims and in the last part, I made a conclusion in an endevour to make a better theoretical analysis to explain transition from communism to capitalism in East European case.

Introduction

“America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world”. William J. Bennett

Democracy is known as the best polity for most of us that is devised so far. However, even if its history lies back to archaic times, it is still the most debated phenomenon in every states’ politics.

This is most probably resulting from its immense promises as in order to satisfy a democratic regime, several provisions should be fulfilled. First of all, a state should have some features such as political pluralism, regular formal elections, division powers, pluralistic approach to socialization in education and media, acceptance of diverse belief system within the limits of law, respect for minority rights and the rule of law. Secondly, it should legitimately encourage these. [1]

There is not any state that carries out a perfect democracy yet, but as we witnessed in 20th century and going on witnessing in 21th one, there are various democracy dictaters. This is not denigrating democracy without which I could ever imagine a life, but not also sharing the same opinion with Mr. Bennett who prouds to bring democracy to other civilizations on behalf of his country.  

Undeniably the most humanitarian invention until today is democracy. However, it is not logical to claim democracy standardization as argued above since it shapes up different forms when applied to various cultures of different countries. Ofcourse, assuming the form of democracy solely depending on the states themselves is seeing just the tip of the iceberg. During the last quarter of the 20th century, developments below evantuated in seven different regions of the world.

Southern Europe – fall of right wing authoritarian regimes

Latin America – the replacement of military dictatorships by elected civillian governments

East & South Asia – decline of authoritarian rule

Soviet Union- breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics

Sub-Saharan Africa - the decline of one-party regimes

Middle East - weak but recognizable liberalizing trend

Eastern Europe – the collapse of communist regimes [2]

All these simultaneous radical changes from dictatorial rule toward more liberal and democratic governance show us a huge convergence to the global capitalist system in several parts of the world. Needless to say, each of these regions experienced a different version of change. However, there is a common reason for all of them hidden in the answers of “How this transformation happened?” and “How that fast?”.

The Eastern Europe case is worth analysing as one of the most interesting “change” in the world history. One of the most important issues here is to understand the real meaning of transformation, since it is not referring to an innocent change.

Transformation Process: How does the story begin?  

In order to understand the basic reasons for this transformation, we should make a proper analyse on the decline process of communism in the region.  One of the basic reasons for this collapse was the legitimacy question. When economic problems augmented, the communist community found itself in the middle of a system which can not produce any resolution. Another factor can be considered as the structural question of communism. After economic politics applied on the industrialized regions, there happened an obvious increase in the literacy rate of the people. However, system was not literate enough to answer for the needs of urbanized community. Indeed, capitalism faced the same kind of emerging problems but the most important detail here is the promises bestowed to people. While collecting consent of the people, capitalism did not promised on not facing these kind of problems while on the other hand communism did. Having no check-balance system and transparent decision making structure, the system digged its own grave. As a result of this failure in the reforming process, growing economic problems, broke off ideologic alliance and an inevitable declining period for the communist system of Eastern Europe started.

On the other hand, west was delivering hope on freedom and prosperity which constituted a devastating consent on people’ s minds. Once ex-communist people overcomed by the “other” ideology, the thought of “Return to Europe” became dominant. This breakdown in several legs of the system created an appropriate athmosphere for the new ideology to walk in easily from the western gates.

Of course substitution of Liberal capitalism in the place of communism was not that much easy, in contrast it was a huge challenge when considering the magnitude of the operation. The transformation process was not composed of only social, economic and political changes but also including security and ethical issues. [3]

This comprehensive and fast integration process for the states of Eastern Europe into the capitalist global economy and the Euro Atlantic structures is defined as international assistance and cooperation, hence voluntarily accepted by states of Central and Eastern Europe for their future development.[4] This definition carries element of truth considering the masses of East European people believing in the “change”. However, the so-called change was not something in the control of their own society, in contrast, it was constituted by the global power in the direction of their own will.

Democracy for Authoritarian Structured Societies

Application of democracy to authoritarian structured societies is one of the basic tasks in this system transformation endeavour however this process is considered as “uneasy” since these societies do not have democratic background. Abuses of human rights and the flouting of democratic norms and practices, whether these referred to suppression of opposition or freedom of expression, or the over- concentration of executive power can be all associated with Eastern European administrational structure. [5] 

The main reason for Eastern Europe having difficulties while transforming the structure into democratic regime connoted to the lack of nongovernmental organization tradition in these states by western governments. This may be true in a way, however, since the pattern of society differs from west, conditioning democracy solely on nonexistent societies is ambigious while there is already a huge “mass organization” capacity in each state.

Besides these, the growing influence of transnational civil society network has increasing sway over governmental decision making. These NGOs had cross-border advocacy networks in Eastern Europe and have great role in shaping political choices in developing countries. According to Gillespie, governments’ incorporation of new ‘ethical’ goals relating to human rights and environmental protection was, they held, primarily a testament to this influence. Crucially, civil society agency was secured not simply through pressure and campaigning, but also through the way in which cross-border networks were able to structure a new discourse on normative values. [6]

The international society highlights the importance of multiparty regime, representative democracy and civil societies in establishing effective democratic regime. However, all these terms were redefined subjective to each state in Eastern European case which shows the essentiality of consideration of identical elements in establishing different cultures into societies.

What indeed needed in a real democracy are a structure, institutions connected to this structure and social forces imposing these institutions’ policies. If these three are not satisfied together, it is not possible to mention democracy in that structure.

Leadership as a Tool to Install Democracy

Destroying an already broken down system ought not to be as challenging as establishing a new one. According to Leslie Holmes, a strong leadership is the most important factors in establishing democracy into an ex-authoritarian state. However, she claims that too much democratization too quickly in several states could be dysfunctional wich ultimately result in new dictatorships. The strong leadership was needed in Eastern Europe states because they had no tradition of democracy, this led emergence of a strong leadership to apply democracy but this leadership evoked dictatorship as the region experienced in its close history and this democratization process turned out to be another version of authoritarian regime. [7]

Addition to her linkage to democratization failure to the regions’ historical process, she urges not to limit region not only territorial, economic and political transition, but also there should be a social, legal, ethical and ideological transformation needed for the construction of a new value system. All these changes required a strong leadership..[8]

Neo-Liberalism and Neo-Institutionalism Illusion

Neo liberal and neo institutionalist approaches are usually considered as having political and socioeconomic reform processes in the region as national processes of elite bargaining and institution building. These approaches’ perception of external and thus the role of international actors on transformation and integration process is worth a critical mentioning of how states of Eastern Europe have been integrated into the ongoing process of systemic restructuring at the global and at the regional European level through the internalisation of historical neo-liberal forms of power and domination. [9]

Neo-liberalism is a phenomenon that represents the transnational circulating capital, individual choices with freedom, the market society, laissez-faire, minimal government while Eastern European governmet patterns were much likely to carry characteristics of strong government, social authoritarianism, disciplined society, hierarchy and subordination and the nation. Akşit claims that, the neo-liberal approach to transformation in Central and Eastern Europe mainly draws on neo-classical economic theory and modernisation theory and claims to combine these with superior western values in formulating clear and unambiguous policy recommendations. Thus, a self regulating free market model to reform the state socialist system will be formed effectively prior to the collapse of the communist party rules. Soon it became a powerful instrument in the region together with international support and unsuccessful attempts of the communist system [10]

In the Neo-liberal context, the global and the international is not problemised adequately. However, there is an implying covergence with the West which requires the transfer of norms, rules and basic institutions of Western capitalism. This approach assumes universal laws as the rules of the ideal model, while lacks historical, political and socioeconomic conditions that are present within the national context. This is the basic reason for us to handle this approach as political rather than social or economic. [11]

The institutionalist approach seeks change and transformation by negotiation, people and institutions. In this way, change is dependent to social relations and historical conditions. On the other hand, existing and inherited institutional structures shape the character of the new orders. By bringing in history and society, role of the institutions the institutionalist approaches provide for an important criticism of the radical neoliberal approach to transformation. But institutionalist approach itself underestimates the dichotomy between internal and external and constitutive role of global factors during the transformation processes.

According to Akşit, Eastern European case departs from these mainstream approaches which have basic and sharp dichotomies between the internal- external, object-subject and action-structure for the interpretations of transformation process. Even the institutionalist approach provides relatively better insights to the situation in the region; the external players’ role should be much more emphasized considering the hegemonic interests of the West. [12]

Strategic Aims of West

The developments of latest 80s in Eastern Europe can not be cosidered as conforming liberal democracy as conventionally defined. Imposing a fast application of democratisation, marketisation and European Integration while proposing transition away from communist party rules, centrally planned economies and Soviet domination were the main targets of the West. Hence, the transformation procedure defined by strategic aims of integration can be concluded as being very much entangled with strategic objectives of the West.

It should be emphasised that wider processes of structural and historical changes are reflected in the changing role and evolving nature of involvement in internal policy making of the states in the region by actors such as the international financial institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and the European Community/Union with an aim to impose upon them neo-liberal forms of development. [13]

The framework which the transformation processes in Eastern European Region has, should be analysed with neo-liberal perspective that creates compromise between capital and labour, which leads to the emergence of a transnational formation. Additionally, the role of state and international organizations undergoes a change in the meaning of their mission and accompanies this globalisation drive. Besides, with the rise of transnational corporations as important actors in the global political economy, the role of states have largely been subordinated to the needs of emerging transnational forces by welcoming and encouraging the growth of foreign direct investment and trade as essential components of development. Another parallel process was the involvement of international financial institutions in the global political economy. The two roles of these institutions (first as structures within which the neoliberal project was legitimised and secured, and second as agents that backed up opening of markets for global finance) was reconfigured in the 1980s as a result of the Mexico crisis and enriched with conditionality which helped them to became significant actors in promoting the primacy of private economic activity and disseminating the neo-liberal strategy of restructuring. Also, interstate treaties play an essential role in the absence of ideological consensus or capacity of neo-liberal forces to bring about transnational regulation of capital markets, as in the case of EU. The European Union approach towards Central and Eastern Europe was presented as a significant instrument that strengthened the role of the EU in the promotion of globalisation process. [14]

In brief, transformation and restructuring in Eastern Europe carry essential elements of integration with the global economy as well as Euro-Atlantic institutions. When states desire to transform their societies they have to take into consideration integration, with added dimensions of conditionality and accession requirements, in forming their transformative policy choices. [15]

Hegemony Project on Eastern Europe

Rather than Neo-liberalist or Neo-institutioalist analysis, a Gramscian approach covers this integration process better as enriched with other perspectives within historical materialism and important concepts in trying to overcome the internal-external divide in understanding the routes of transformation.

Gramsci’s approach assumes that changes within the socio-economic circumstances themselves produce political changes and every relationship of “hegemony” is necessarily an educative relationship. This relationship occurs between various forces that nation is composed of within a nation and between complexes of national and continental civilizations within the international and world-wide field. In the neo-Gramscian sense, hegemony is constructed on a world order which provides a universalistic conception compatible with the interest of most states. However, it is not merely an order among states - as conceived by the mainstream approaches based on the dominance of one country over the others - but an order with a dominant mode of production within the world economy and a complex of social relations at the global level. [16]

As mentioned above, mainstream theories focus only on evaluating the processes according to technical sides of adaptation and adjustment of the policies, rules and norms of the European Union. Such approaches are concerned with an analysis of the levels of governance and institutional form rather than the socioeconomic content of the processes. Thus, the mainstream approaches fail to account for the power and thus the historical roots of social relations of power surrounding the transformation processes in the countries of Eastern Europe whereas Gramsci’ s Critical Theory supplies a more comprehensive analysis.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the transformation period of the Eastern states after the communist system collapsed in the region allowed Eastern communities to be imposed by  integration plans of the West.

After experiencing several years’ authoritarian regime, it was inevitable for governments of Eastern block to face difficulties while implementing democratic regimes. Additionaly, the immense contrast between the basic needs of two different method of governance necessiated a radical transformation including social, political, economical, ethical and security issues.

Even the consent of communities indicated the readiness for this transformation, there were other dilemmas such as weak state need of democratic structure. In order to fulfill this transformation, a strong leadership was needed to impose the new way of life. However, this situation was contradicting to the democratization and liberalization plans, which required minimized role of state. As a result of this incongruous process, new forms of authoritarian regimes emerged which paved the way for different forms of crises and left obscurity for whom to blame on behind. West accuses the Eastern states for this failure since they lack civil society network as if it is the mere condition for democratization or avoiding crise.

This fast integration process in Eastern Europe is commonly known as a part of global liberalism flow. Thinking in this way is quite optimistic when considering the strategic interests of western governments. Indeed, this process is not merely composed of national factors but the elements of dialectics between national and the global. In other words, it is a project of democratisation and marketisation of Eastern Europe besides the transition away from central planned economies and Soviet domination. Materialism, intellectual leadership and idealism are basic legs lie under this transformation process which points out Gramsci’ s theory of hegemony projects.