Democratic Consolidation in East-Central Europe

254 Pages·1998·20.931 MB·English

by  Fritz Plasser, Peter A. Ulram, Harald Waldrauch (auth.)

DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN EAST-CENTRAL
EUROPE
Democratic Consolidation
in East-Central Europe
Fritz Plasser
Professor of Political Science
University of lnnsbruck
Peter A. Ulram
Head, Social Research Department
Fessel-GfK Austria
and
Harald Waldrauch
Research Assistant
Department of Political Science
Institute for Advanced Studies
Vienna
First published in Great Britain 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-26818-4 ISBN 978-1-349-26816-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-26816-0
First published in the United States of America 1998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
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ISBN 978-0-312-21495-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Plasser, Fritz, 1948-
[Politischer Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa. English]
Democratic consolidation in East-Central Europe I Fritz Plasser,
Peter A. Ulram and Harald Waldrauch.
p. em.
This book is a revised, updated and substantially expanded version
of our study 'Politischer Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa'
published in German in 1997.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-21495-2 (cloth)
1. Political culture-Europe, Eastern. 2. Political culture
-Europe, Central. 3. Europe, Eastern-Politics and
government-1989- 4. Europe, Central-Politics and
government-1989- I. Ulram, Peter A. (Peter Adolf), 1951-
11. Waldrauch, Harald. III. Title.
JN96.A91P5813 1998
306.2'094'091717-{!c21 98-13607
CIP
© Fritz Plasser, Peter A. Ulram and Harald Waldrauch 1998
The work is a revised, updated and substantially expanded translation of Politischer
Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa, published in German by Leske+Budrich-Verlag, 1997.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
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written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10987654321
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of Tables and Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. The Concept of Consolidation in Regime
Change Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. The Concept of Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Democratic Regime Change:
Transition and Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3. The Concept of Democratic
Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3.1. Evolution or Direction in Consolidation . . . . . . . 11
2.3.1.1. Institutionalization and the
Intersubjective Core of Consolidation ........ . 12
2.3.1.2. Consolidation as a Goal-oriented Political Action 15
2.3.2. Behavioral and Attitudinal Dimensions
of Consolidation ....................... . 20
2.3.2.1. The Behavioral Dimension ................ . 21
2.3.2.2. The Attitudinal Dimension:
Legitimacy and Political Culture ........... . 24
2.3.3. Elite and Mass Levels of Consolidation ...... . 34
2.3.4. Consolidation of Democracy or its
"Partial Regimes" ....................... . 37
2.4. Summary and Conclusion: Mimimalist Versus
Maximalist Conceptions of Consolidation ..... . 44
3. Consolidation and Comparative Political Culture
Research: Some Methodological Considerations . . . . . . 57
3.1. Concepts and Research Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.2. Research Experience: The Project 'Politischer
Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa' (1990-1997) . . 66
4. Attitudes towards the Political System:
Conceptions of Democracy and Images of Politics 73
vi
5. Attitudes towards the Political Regime:
Satisfaction with Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6. Diffuse Support for Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.1. Support for Democracy as a Form of
Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.2. Support for Pluralist Party Competition . . . . . . . 98
6.3. Support for the Parliamentary System . . . . . . . 100
6.4. Spread of Antidemocratic and/ or
Antipluralist Orientations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.5. Concepts and Extent of Legitimacy in
Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.6. Typology of Democratic Orientations
in International Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.7. Trust in Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7. Evaluation of the Communist Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8. Political Participation and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.1. Patterns of Political Communication . . . . . . . . . 127
8.2. Getting Involved in the Political Process:
Interest and Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
8.3. Political Efficacy and Civic Orientations . . . . . . 134
8.4. Party Identification and Networks of Political
Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
9. Societal and Political Cleavages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
9.1. The Heritage of the Communist Past . . . . . . . . 148
9.2. Patterns of Ideological and Social-Political
Cleavages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
9.3. Sociodemographic Characteristics of Parties and
Party Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
9.4. Value Orientations and Political Priorities . . . . 157
10. Attitudes towards ~conomic Transformation . . . . . . . . 165
10.1. Point of Departure and Overall Economic
Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
10.2. Subjective Evaluations of Personal Economic
Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
10.3. Attitudes towards the Economic Order and
the Process of Economic Reform . . . . . . . . . . . 176
vii
11. Social Consequences and Evaluations of
Regime Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
11.1. Winners and Losers of Transition . . . . . . . . . . . 183
11.2. Regime Change: Expectations and Reality 185
12. Consolidation and Differentiation:
a Survey of Trend Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
13. Empirical Sources (1990-1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Appendix of data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Preface
This book is a revised, updated and substantially expanded version
of our study Politischer Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa, published
in German by Leske & Budrich (Opladen, 1997). It condenses the
data and results of a comparative research project initiated in 1990
and carried out over several years. Against the backdrop of the col
lapse of communism, the opening of the 'Iron Curtain', and both the
liberalization and democratization of East-Central European coun
tries, issues of transition and consolidation suddenly attracted the
attention of political scientists everywhere, especially those working
in the field of comparative politics. Two factors were decisive in the
launching of the 'Politischer Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa' pro
ject: first, the decision of public institutions to provide funding for
a comparative research project of this scope; and secondly, the pro
fessional, international opinion research infrastructure provided by
Fessel+GfK in Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Warsaw. A
number of institutions and individuals active in the fields of acade
mia or politics have lent inestimable and indispensable support,
both financial and logistic, to 'Politischer Kulturwandel in Ost-Mit
teleuropa' over the years.
In particular, we are grateful to Professor Rudolf Bretschneider
of Fessel+GfK, who has taken a keen personal interest in the project
and generously supported it from its earliest stages. Thanks to the
cooperation, logistic support and professional competence of GfK's
management in Austria and its research directors in the four East
Central European capitals, it has been possible to conduct regular
annual representative opinion surveys with comparable variables
and questions since 1990.
This volume would not have been possible without the support
of colleagues and partners of many years' standing. We wish to
thank Marianne Zawilensky (Center for Applied Political Research),
who has been in charge of the organizational and secretarial aspects
of the project since fund raising began in 1990. Wolfgang Meixner
(Center for Applied Political Research) proofread and copy-edited
the German manuscript with particular care. Arike Handsur of Fes
sel+GfK assisted with parts of the manuscript. Ellen Palli (Depart
ment of Political Science, University of Innsbruck) and Wolfgang
Palli (Innsbruck) typeset both the German and English manuscripts.
We are grateful to Herwig Engelmann (Berlin) for his competent
X
English translation of our text and to Lee Anne Oberhofer (Social
Sciences Language Center, University of Innsbruck), who copy
edited the present version of our study. Last but not least, we thank
Macmillan Publishers and commissioning editor Sunder Katwala for
their obliging cooperation.
The publishing of this book was made possible through the
financial support of the Austrian Federal Ministries for Foreign
Affairs, Economic Affairs, and Science and Transport.
Vienna, March 1998
List of Tables and Figures
Tables
Table 1: Central cognitive meanings of democracy (1995) . . 75
Table 2: Conceptions of democracy in Hungary (1989-1995) 76
Table 3: Images of politics in comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Table 4: Satisfaction with democracy and the political
system (1990-1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Table 5: Satisfaction with the development or the
functioning of democracy (1990-1997): 'Central and
Eastern Eurobarometer' and 'Eurobarometer' . . . . . 87
Table 6: Satisfaction with the functioning or development
of democracy in international comparison
(1995-1997): 'Eurobarometer' and 'Central and
Eastern Eurobarometer'. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Table 7: Dissatisfaction with democracy by subgroups in
five countries compared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Table 8: Correlations between dissatisfaction with life and
dissatisfaction with democracy and/ or political
practices (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Table 9: Diffuse support for democracy as a form of
government (1990-1997). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Table 10: Diffuse Legitimacy in international comparison . . 98
Table 11: Preference for single-party or multi-party system
(1991-1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Table 12: Support for the parliamentary system (1991-1995) 101
Table 13: Antidemocratic orientations (1993-1995) . . . . . . . 103
Table 14: Rejection of antidemocratic and/ or antipluralist
forms of government (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Table 15: Diffuse legitimacy of democratic systems
compared (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Table 16: Authoritarian trends in East-Central Europe
(1991-1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109