Routledge Revivals: Hungary: The Politics of Transition (1995)

Terry Cox, Andy Furlong

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781315452074
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business generale
• Index: Business

First published in 1995, the aim of this book is to review various aspects of the process of democratic transition in Hungary over the period of its first post-communist, freely elected parliament between 1990 and 1994. The studies collected in this book attempt to put them in the context of longer-term trends in Hungarian politics. Hungary offers an example of the problems of political change common to Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc but also demonstrates a relatively stable and successful transformation built on a unique experience under communist rule that helped prepare it for a market-orientated economy transition and political pluralism.

Part I

The Political Transition in Context

The Paradoxes of Transition: The External and Internal Overload of the Transition Process

ATTILA ÁGH

The countries of former communist East-Central Europe are experiencing an imposed set of over-generalized and over-simplified institutional and value systems, whose relevance is not self-evident to the populations concerned, and whose successful implementation cannot be assumed. A range of possibilities exist, from formalist, elitist and ‘partyist’ democracy, or to tyrannical majoritarianism, authoritarianism or west European-style democracy. In the current world-wide wave of authoritarian renewal, overcoming the authoritarian history of the region is an added dimension of the struggle for democracy.

Attila Ágh is Professor of Political Sciences at the University of Economic Sciences, Budapest.

Forced Democracies in East–Central Europe

The revolutions of 1989 in the countries of East-Central Europe were events of global importance. In the first place these countries (Poland, the Czech lands, Slovakia, Hungary and, possibly, Slovenia and Croatia) made great efforts to liberate themselves from the captivity of the Soviet empire, and their resistance weakened the whole empire fatally. The events of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet empire have made all the contradictions of old world order outdated and have created a great number of new domestic and international contradictions. Yet basically these relatively small countries were, and still are, over-dependent on external factors; they have remained captives of the international system and over-sensitive to all external changes. Thus, despite all of their efforts and contributions, their democratic transition was a direct result not of their own action but of the disintegration of the bipolar world system. Paradoxically, although countries such as Poland and Hungary mostly ‘liberated’ themselves, their liberation from the Soviet empire was, at the same time, a ‘defeat’ for them. Because of their structural and conjunctural weakness, they have had to accept the model of Western democracy that has been the fundamental precondition for their acceptence in the international system. We can therefore consider these emerging new democracies as ‘forced’ or ‘imposed’ ones. They were, in fact, ‘forced to be free’.

Of course, forced democratization is not a new situation in political history. The same happened to some countries (Germany, Italy and Japan) in the early post-war period when this term was used first for the model of ‘democratization through defeat’.¹ Samuel Huntington has identified three European waves of global democratization in all. After the first wave of the Anglo-Saxon countries and the second, post-war wave of democratizations (Germany, Italy and Japan), the recent ones in Southern Europe, Latin America and the eastern half of Europe have been classified as ‘The Third Wave’ (as the title of Huntington’s book suggests). Between these waves of democratization there were two ‘reverse periods’ and Huntington also sees the possibility of ‘The Third Reverse’ (perhaps the title of his next book, five years hence). There is no doubt for him that the waves of democratization have been functions of the world system as such and not only the result of internal developments. This is why and how the countries of the second and third waves have been forced to be free. In this context, inside the third wave, the East-Central European democratizations represent the third generation after the South European and Latin American ones. The East European case is completely different, however, in that it may be either the fourth generation or the next reverse wave.²

The forced democratizations in the early post-war period took place in the emerging bipolar world system, in the old world order. The United States then had a very strong vested interest in supporting the new democracies through the Marshall Plan for a simultaneous transformation of economy and polity, or in other words for the creation of both a market economy and democracy. The 1989 revolutions, in turn, meant not only the collapse of the external Soviet empire but of the whole bipolar world and the emergence of the new world order. However, the forced democratization of the East-Central European countries has been more paradoxical. The first paradox is that, although the Western powers were very much interested in the defeat of state socialism, because they did not have an enemy image of the East-Central European countries, they have not shown any particular engagement in supporting their new democracies. To begin with, these countries tried to be free on their own, then they were forced to be free, and now they have been abandoned. This leads us to the second paradox: the East-Central European countries have been forced to play a role expected from outside which has not been the optimal way of democratization from the inside.

The paradoxes of democratic transition had already appeared in the second wave but they were solved in the circumstances of the cold war confrontations by massive US political and economic assistance. Claus Offe clearly formulates this paradox as the principle of the necessity of simultaneous transition in politics and the economy:

The only circumstance under which the market economy and democracy can be simultaneously implanted and prosper is that one in which both are forced upon a society from outside and guaranteed by international relations of dependency and supervision for a long period of time. This, at least, is arguably the lesson offered by the war ruined post-war democracies of Japan, and, with qualification, of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Therefore Offe is very pessimistic about the fate of the East-Central European developments, since ‘there is no obvious “patron power” that would be a natural candidate for the task of supervising and enforcing the peaceful nature of the transition process’.³

In my opinion, however, the failure of the East-Central European democratizations has not been predetermined at all, although the paradoxical nature of transition appears in a much more marked way. This forced democratization has been negative for the East-Central European developments in many respects, by imposing alien standards upon them which are based on the over-generalizations and over-simplifications of international organizations. At the same time it has been positive in creating a ‘forced-course development’ for democratization which has provided protection against anti-democratic forces and influences coming from inside. This positive aspect of forced democratization has been dominating so far, but with so many disturbing ‘side effects’ that it remains an open question whether the East-Central European countries will follow the success story of the South European forced democratizations or whether they have to face a period of reversal, that is, the breakdown of democracy, after this current short period of re-democratization.

History shows that the process is not predetermined either way. Even the United States failed in the post-war period in most cases of forced democratization throughout the world, and in Europe above all in Greece and Turkey. The special compromise, the façade or formal democracy, which developed there has a relevance also for the recent developments in the eastern half of Europe. Where the internal political and economic circumstances for substantial democratization were not present, the forced democratizations were derailed and produced a minimum democracy consisting of the constitutional formalities as a façade for what was actually an authoritarian regime. This was clearly the Greek case in its ‘ally phase’ when the United States accepted Greece as an ally in the bipolar European security order and did not impose democracy as a model upon it.

The turning-point for Greek democratization came in the mid-1970s. The ‘transition trigger’ resulted from the combined effect of external and internal linkages, including both the global and the domestic economic crisis. In this respect the Greek transformation is the closest to the East-Central European developments, except for the main thing: the engagement of the EC countries in the democratization process, which was extremely strong in Greece and surprisingly weak in East-Central Europe. In the mid-1970s the Greek political elite suffered defeat from outside (the Cyprus conflict) as well as from inside (the crisis of the colonels’ regime), and it was simply forced to change its political system dramatically by a radical adjustment to West European standards. In other words, it had to give up the formal or façade democracy and change it into one of substance. The forced or imposed character of systemic change was not new at all in Greek political history and the crisis was solved by a shift from US dependency (‘ally’) status to the EC ‘model’ of substantial democracy.

The forced democratization in Greece was the first EC ‘promotion of democracy’ in the third wave, followed by Spain and Portugal, but it has remained the most difficult one. Greece was a very special case of ‘democratization through defeat’. This time, however, the EC forced its Greek partner to be democratic not mainly by military but by economic means. The ‘capitulation’ of Greece to forced democratization by the European Community was mostly based on the Greeks perception of, and accommodation with, their own ‘penetrated society’ and external dependence:

The Greeks themselves, however, take for granted an explicit connection between the political regime and its external links … it often seems as if a considerable proportion of the population views the polity as an only partially autonomous sub-unit of its broader international environment. Long before political scientists recognized the importance of linkages between national and international systems, the Greeks believed that the nature of their regime was largely determined by the ‘foreign factor’.⁴

The experiences and perceptions of the East-Central European populations have been historically very similar, yet the present situation is fundamentally different. Many alien and artificial elements were imposed upon the countries that underwent forced democratization, but after some time these ‘inorganic’ elements became mostly ‘organic’ and they produced or triggered a real democratization effect. However, the forced democratization by the EC in East-Central Europe at present lacks both the means and the resources to trigger a successful democratization. Thus the East-Central European countries are left in the middle of nowhere, and the East European countries, in turn, have only a façade of democratization.

This contrast of high expectations and lack of support gives rise to an external overload for the East-Central European democratizations, while the crisis of the East European ‘façade’ democracies means a special burden for them, in addition to this external overload. Forced democratization can be successful only if either the external pressure (as in Japan) or the internal social potential (as in Germany) is great enough to trigger a positive spiral of simultaneous changes, so that the changes in the political and economic systems are able to reinforce each other in democratization and marketization. In the East-Central European region both have been missing so far, and if both factors are insufficient in the long run, then the slide back to a façade democracy would seem to be unavoidable. As we know from post-war history, façade democracies can result either from the failures of forced democracies or from situations where the external patron, or ‘victor’, accepts a pseudo- or superficial democratization with an external façade which looks ‘democratic’ from outside. This is the case with East European countries today and this situation is a great danger for the East-Central European semi-democracies.

It is very important to emphasize the fundamental differences between forced and façade democracies, but at the same time also those between façade democracies and authoritarian regimes, because even limited and formalistic human rights matter a lot compared to conditions under authoritarian regimes. Still, our main concern here is to point out that façade democracies represent a blind alley in the democratization process. Therefore the divergence between the forced but substantial democratization (Italy) and superficial façade democratization (Greece before the mid-1970s) is absolutely vital for our argument. The later type of ‘promotion of democracy’ meant its ‘third-worldization’ by the United States, and this is what we are witnessing today in the East European countries.

The Western powers have offered an easy compromise for the East European region. If they build up a thin democratic façade and provide some domestic political stability, then they are considered democratic countries and eligible for Western assistance. In this case the crucial issue is whether these façade democracies can be consolidated in their deep economic crisis and with minimal Western assistance, or whether the breakdown of democracy is unavoidable, as it has been so in many countries of the same kind in the post-war period. The international organizations treat the East European countries in the way they usually treat underdeveloped countries, but this treatment may not be sufficient for their stabilization. Actually these countries now embody the biggest danger both for the new European order and for their neighbours, the whole East-Central European region. Yugoslavia and Russia alike represent the failure of the EC crisis management, although in different ways, and Yugoslavia may indicate the future of the former Soviet Union, since the Serbian and the Russian empires had a lot in common.⁵

The East European countries, in deep crisis even now, can explode at any time and disturb the build-up of the new European ‘post-war order’, unless they are more effectively ‘forced’ at least to take formal democratization seriously. Obviously some East European countries, such as Serbia, Romania and Russia, have not been able to build a credible façade of democracy. They are not stable domestically at all, they are politically delegitimized, and their political elites seek a solution in aggressive and militant emotional nationalism in order to create some legitimacy for themselves. In this drive for stability by aggressive nationalism they need external enemies in the neigbourhood as well as at home, and also a myth of global conspiracy against their countries.

The unstable East European façade democracies have been the worst possible environment for the democratic transition of the East-Central European countries. Yet, in the Central European region the democratization process in some fundamental features has become irreversible. The real question here is whether this process can be accomplished or must remain a half-democratization. In the East European region, however, this point of no return has not been reached yet, and the former state socialist regimes have only been transformed to a new kind of ‘national communism’ with the old paternalistic étatism. The East European region, of course, is not homogeneous. Yugoslavia (or Serbia) may represent the worst, Bulgaria the best case, but the whole East European region is still in the period of the ‘original crisis’ and has not yet begun the real democratic transition.

If we change the comparative focus, the difference between Southern Europe and East-Central Europe is as great as that between East-Central Europe and Eastern Europe. It is not so much the internal points of departure but rather, above all, the external conditions that are different between South-East and East-Central Europe. As discussed above, in the South European case the EC adopted a ‘model’ approach (the mandatory acceptance of the EC model of democracy and market economy) but this is more doubtful in the Central European case. More importantly, however, the South European democratic transition took place in a stable region and in the balanced international system of the old world order while the Central European transition is attempting to stabilize itself in the troubled waters of the not yet emerging new world order.⁶

The external conditions in the neighbouring regions are even more detrimental. Altogether, from a narrow economic point of view, the following difficulties stand in the way of the East-Central European democratic transition:

(1) the inertia of the former system with its tremendous debt burden, dead industries and passive economic mentality;

(2) the price of opening up the closed economy which has devalued its products and production units on the world market;

(3) the transition costs of economic system change, the destruction of the old and construction of the new economic structure and employment;

(4) the collapse of the international trade and monetary network, and the trade diversion towards new markets and partners; and

(5) the economic loss produced from the series of international crises globally (the Gulf crisis with high oil prices and the collapse of Soviet market with a debt never really repaid) and regionally (the Yugoslav war with its disastrous effects on trade, travel and transport).

Paradoxically enough, although for the most part un...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Political Transition in Hungary: An Overview
• PART I
• PART II
• Index