New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

PECULIARITIES OF POLITICAL CULTURE IN
POST-COMMUNIST SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN
COUNTRIES: THE CASES OF MACEDONIA,
SERBIA, MONTENEGRO, AND BULGARIA
Does Zero-Sum Social Reasoning Affect Political Culture in
Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Bulgaria? 2
One of the most widespread definitions of political culture describes
it as “a people’s predominant beliefs, attitudes, values, ideas, sentiments,
and evaluations about the political system of its country and the role of
the self in that system” (L. Diamond, 1994: 7). The concept is usually
used as an explanatory variable in politics. However, I believe that
“political culture” is not an explanatory concept by itself but a construct
that needs to be explained.
Cultural explanations have recently been used to elucidate the relative
failures of building democracy in Russia and some other post-communist
countries. Indeed, why were some post-communist countries more
successful in their transformation than others when the starting point for
all was seemingly equal – the demolition of the institutions of the
communist party-state? So, why did the point of arrival of the postcommunist
systemic change turn out to be different for various countries?
And is it accidental that there are regional divisions in the success of
post-communist transformation, the Central European countries being more
successful than the Southeast European states or some of the former Soviet
republics? Can it be explained in terms of the “wrong” democratic
institution building in the unsuccessful countries, or are there other factors
responsible for their relative failure to democratize? Can the concept of
culture be satisfactory enough to explain the differences, and how can
we verify a cultural explanation? And how could we explain the very
cultural differences and similarities of regions and countries?
211