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determined primarily by “political motivated policy blame”, not like at the first elections by“political motivated system blame”.1.5. Consolidation of democracyWhen dealing with post-communism most observers focuse on questions about stabilization andconsolidation of democracy.Explanations can be clustered about three sets of variables 6 :• Structural, e.g. level of socio-economic development, patterns of modernization andindustrialization, and prevailing cultural patterns, all of which can be linked to themodernization paradigm• Institutional, such as designs of executive-legislative relations and electoral systems and theshape of parties and party systems• And actor-behavioural, such as the power constellation of elites or even very particular andcontingent policy decisions. In other words, in this case emphasis is laid on the policy-content.• Finally the policy and programme level has to be included, by that twe mean the ability ofparties to solve the “day to day” problems and formulate long-term consistent politicalprogrammes.As put by Andreas Schedler, consolidation has been an outmost ambiguous concept and a “movingtarget” due to the fact that in fact consolidation “never ends”. The concept does not have a coremeaning, for many it has been treated as a catch-all concept and for that reason used in differentmeanings. Furthermore, dealing with the different types of democracy Andreas Schedlerdistinguishes between authoritarian, electoral, liberal and advanced democracies, and in that contexthe argues in favour of a “peaceful coexistence” between the different interpretations and meaningsof the concept.Moreover, Schedler argues that institutional insecurity and blurred and temporary boundaries ofdemocratic transition must be considered as a defining feature of democratization, therebyrecognizing structural fuzziness of transition and consolidation. If uncertainty is taken seriously,regime transition and consolidation can not be regarded as discrete stages with neat starting pointsand endpoints. Rather they have to be conceived as vague periods of institutional fluidity whoseouter boundaries are indeterminate 7 .Lucan A. Ways’ notion “pluralism by default” focus on the political competition specific to weakstates, e.g. Moldova and to a large extent Ukraine and Belorussia. Pluralism by default describescountries in which institutionalized political competition survives not because leaders are especially6 See Petr Kopecký and Cas Mudde, ”Explaining Different Paths of Democratization: The Czech and SlovakRepublics”, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 16, No. 3, September 2000:69-70.7 Andreas Schedler, “What is Democratic Consolidation?”, Journal of Democracy, volume 9, No. 2, April 1998:91-107,and “Taking Uncertainty Seriously: The Blurred Boundaries of Democratic Transition and Consolidation”,Democratization, Vol. 8, No. 4, Winter 2001:17-19 and “To take Uncertainty Seriously: The Blurred Boundaries ofDemocratic Transition and Consolidation, Democratization, Vol.8, No.4, Winther 2001:1-22..18
democratic or because societal actors particularly strong, but because the government is toofragmented and the state at the same time too weak to impose authoritarian rule 8 . Moreover, FraneAdam and Matej Makarovic argue that some new post-communist democracies may be labelled“deficient” 9 . The institutional structures, the cultural patterns, and the prevailing attitudes within thepublic sphere and among the political elites are basically democratic. But deficiencies likeinstrumental understanding of democracy, lack of efficiency in democratic institutions and lack oftrust in the system, limited elite circulation and media pluralism, etc., are still present, however, to adifferent extent in each country. Those deficiencies can be found on all democratic arenasmentioned below.In the case of democracy by design”, known from presidential rule and delegative democracy inRussia, those in control of the state machinery attempt to and may succed in shaping the institutionsand procedures of a competitive election in ways that ensure an outcome favorable to the designersthemselves 10 .Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan (Linz, Stepan, 1996:7) underline that democratic consolidationrequires much more than just elections and markets. Consolidated democracies requires a state, i.e.that stateness problems have been solved, that five interacting arenas have to be in place in order forconsolidation to exist, first a free and lively civil society, second a relatively autonomous andvalued political society, third a rule of law, fourth a state bureaucracy that is usable and fifth, aninstitutionalized economic society. Reform of public administration has been a crucial element inbuilding a democratic state. The problems connected to weak administrative structures have beencompounded by the absence of an effective (and honest) civil service and professional central andlocal administrators (Sakwa, 2002:123).Linz and Stepan argue (Linz, Stepan, 1996:3) that transition to democracy has gone towardcompletion“when sufficient agreement has been reached about political procedures to produce an electedgovernment, when a government comes to power that is the direct result of a free and popular vote,when this government de facto has the authority to generate new politics, and when the executive,legislative and judicial power generated by the new democracy does not have to share power withother bodies de jute”In the first stage of post-communism the institutions vital for a consolidated democracy e.g.political parties, elected parliaments and independent courts, have been established, but they do notfunction in optimal ways seen in the context of consolidation of democracy. As regardsconsolidation of democracy, all the Central European countries have passed the ”two-turn over test”as the political power has been handed over to the opposition peacefully in the case of electiondefeat for the ruling parties, but the democracy in the CEEC's can hardly be considered asconsolidated in more “advanced” sense. Democratic consolidation require e self-limitation by thepower holders as well as by the opposition. Political fundamentalism, political capitalism, identity8 Lucan A. Way, “Pluralism by Default in Moldova”, Journal of Democracy, Volume 13, Number 4, October 2002:127-141.9 Frane Adam and Matej Makarovic, “Postcommunist Transition and Social Science:The Case of Slovenia”, EastEuropean Quarterly, XXXVI, No. 3, September 2002.10 Michael Urban, “December 1993 as a Replication of Late-Soviet Electorale Practices”, Post-Soviet Affaires, Vol. 10,No. 2 (April-June 1994):128.19
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and workers voted ZChN. At the 1993
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The League has been considered as a
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establishment like than LPR’s. Th
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jobs in rural areas, especially sma
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industrial policy. According to the
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pressurizing the government to give
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democrats, thereby locating itself
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To conclude, the Freedom Union (UW)
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Polish middle class. Thus, in Janua
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such as KSCM and KSS in The Czech R
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The SLD leaders were mainly recruit
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the falling popular support for pri
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innovation was formation of the pol
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place after talks with each applica
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Has the Left any freedom of manoeuv
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medicine, changes in the labour cod
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The Labour Union (UP), Democratic U
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Nevertheless, before that had taken
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