Project on Democratic Transitions

Overview

The postcommunist world has undergone dramatic change since the fall of the Berlin Wall sixteen years ago. The varying track records of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) states, the Baltic countries, and the former Soviet and Yugoslav states offer increasingly clear patterns of success and failure in the quest for democratic governance and open economies. The Project on Democratic Transitions will identify key lessons learned from the first sixteen years of reform effort in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia, translate these lessons into more effective approaches to reform, and promote actions that accelerate sustainable reform in the less advanced transitional states of the region.

A substantial body of data details the transitional trajectories of the most advanced postcommunist states, namely those in CEE, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Slovenia. Similar information is emerging for “laggard” states from the former Soviet and Yugoslav federations. These data show compelling patterns of success and failure. Furthermore, it is clear that many of the strategies that worked in the front-runner states are potentially applicable elsewhere, particularly to “mixed cases” such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia. Despite the many country studies, plus analyses of political, economic and social issues, there is little integrated work that identifies issues and strategies common to more than one country or a small cluster. Nor is any comprehensive work available on how lessons from the most successful cases might be applied to laggard states. The Project’s goal is to help fill this void.

A key feature of the Project is its Transatlantic Steering Group (TSG), composed of European and American non-government leaders, scholars and former policy officials experienced in post-authoritarian reform. The TSG bridges the stubborn and unhelpful divides that have slowed the integration of information now available on post-communist transitions and its translation into practical action. The TSG is chaired by Ambassador Adrian A. Basora and is assisted by a research staff based at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and supplemented by a diverse circle of experts from relevant disciplines. The Transatlantic Steering Group launched the Project in a mid-January 2006 conference that yielded significant consensus among practitioners and scholars on the key factors that have led to successful CEE transitions and on their potential transferability.

The Project will further refine the lessons learned from the European postcommunist experience, and it will translate these into specific policy recommendations to be disseminated for maximum impact. Project research will center on a series of topically-organized seminars over a two year period, with a concluding conference to integrate individual seminar findings into a set of overall conclusions. Initial findings will be published in journal articles, e-bulletins and Op-Ed pieces. Fully integrated findings and strategies recommended by the concluding conference will be publicized throughout the region and to relevant policy makers and practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic, by such means as the TSG judges most effective. The emphasis will be on developing practical guidelines to assist reform leaders, advocates and policy-makers. Members of the TSG itself will also engage directly with their own personal networks of leading practitioners, scholars and others who influence action in the transitional countries, as well as with senior policy officials in Europe and North America.

In a second phase of the Project, the TSG would ideally become an ongoing mechanism for updating the Project’s initial conclusions and for including the region’s next generation of democratic transition leaders, thus regularly renewing bonds between reformers in the post-communist region and Western policy-molders and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic. Additionally, the Project would explore the applicability of this experience to selected countries in other regions of the world.

Preliminary Hypotheses

On January 19-20, the Transatlantic Steering Group met in Philadelphia to launch the Project on Democratic Transitions. The meetings focused on the political aspects of the postcommunist transitions, identified areas of consensus regarding measurement of transitional successes and failures, and assessed the factors most critical in promoting or retarding democratic progress. Moreover, the meetings permitted the TSG to develop its preliminary thinking as to which of the lessons learned are realistically applicable to countries currently lagging in their transitions, and which of these states are ripest for democratic progress and consolidation. Illustrative TSG findings include the following:

  • The Freedom House measures of democratization progress are serviceable for Project purposes. While imperfect, the FH scores correlate strongly with other systematic measures and permit a useful ranking of both front-runners and laggards. They also show the direction in which particular countries are moving and which areas require the most attention in fostering democratic progress.
  • An independent and well-rooted civil society has been key to democracy’s success in the region to date and will be central to the transitions and future consolidation elsewhere. However, developing a strong civil society is a very challenging and necessarily a long term task.
  • A sharp break from the past is of central importance; this has generally required episodes of mass mobilization and/or “electoral revolutions”.
  • Democracy has proven quite “sticky” in countries where such break-throughs have occurred and civil society has taken root.
  • Limits on presidential power and thus empowerment of legislatures are important factors in promoting successful and enduring democratization.
  • Early, well-conceived and sustained economic reforms can make an invaluable contribution to democratization; conversely, stalled reforms and continued centralized control of the economy can undercut democratization.
  • Autocracy seems particularly able to thrive in cases of rich oil reserves or other extractive wealth easily controlled by the state.
  • Elites are key in ensuring democratic break-throughs and sustainability- though some believe the former communist elites are reshaped primarily via elections, and others place greater weight on other factors in intra-elite dynamics.
  • The international community can play a critical role by promptly recognizing and rewarding pro-democratic reform. However, finding/developing effective domestic partners is important in enabling external actors to be effective.
  • Democratization is feasible even in states lacking democratic legacies. While “Western” cultural and historic traditions and prior democratic experience are helpful, they are not essential pre-conditions.
  • “Mixed cases” may currently offer the most fruitful opportunities for applying lessons of past success in postcommunist transformation. Countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, while not yet fully consolidated democracies, do have regular elections and some degree of press freedom and openness to outside assistance and advice. They thus seem to offer more fertile ground than the more confirmed autocracies, at least in the short term. But countries such as Belarus, Moldova and Armenia also merit careful attention and may have considerable potential to evolve over the mid-term..

Areas for Further Exploration

  • Political aspects. An additional conference is planned to further distil the preliminary findings of our January meetings with a view to translating them into firmly grounded policy recommendations. It will address the following aims:
    1. to further advance our understanding of the pathways and reasons for success and failure of postcommunist reform in Europe/Eurasia;
    2. to translate the resultant findings into policies that support more effective future transition endeavors in the region; and
    3. to begin to disseminate and promote these findings and policies among reform leaders and to policy-makers and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic.
    More specifically, the following questions will be addressed:
    • What is the role of institutional structures in consolidating or impeding postcommunist democratic transitions?
    • What is the minimum “state capacity” (e.g., secure borders, rule of law, guarantees of political and other basic rights) is needed to provide conditions propitious to democracy?
    • What have been the European approaches to, and experience with, institutional re-engineering in postcommunist countries?
    • What has been the role of political institutions in the management of cultural/ethnic diversity?
    • How critical is the role played by civil society at different stages of postcommunist transition?
    • How was civil society built up in the most advanced reform countries, and how can it be nurtured further East, particularly in the face of recent counter-measures? How have U.S. and European approaches to development of civil society differed and how could both be improved?
    • What has worked best in developing new elites in the breakthrough and consolidation phases of postcommunist democracy?
    • What factors contribute best to democratic deepening and sustainability, and what can be done to prevent “backsliding” or deal with it if and when it occurs?
    • How have major obstacles to democratic progress, such as those represented by Meciar, Illiescu or Kuchma/Yanukovych, been dealt with?
    • Given the powerful effect of proximity to Western Europe, and the lure of NATO and EU membership - and assuming a moratorium on new memberships - what can be done to create similar dynamics further east?
    • Has the 1990s spirit of transatlantic cooperation in transforming Eastern Europe been lost? If so, what can be done to restore it?
    • With respect to each of the above issues, what individuals or groups were key to achieving successful transition to democratic self-government? Are such individuals or groups specific to each country, or are there characteristics common to the experience in other countries? What support for their endeavors has helped ensure their success?
  • Economic aspects. The Project will also consider postcommunist transition through an economic lens. In particular, it will consider the interaction between economic conditions and political trajectories. One or possibly two seminars will be devoted to considering the following questions:
    • To what extent were differing economic experiences, institutions, and levels of development as of 1989 important determinants of success?
    • Did the fact that a political and economic transition took place simultaneously help or hinder economic liberalization?
    • What differentials resulted for countries using “shock therapy,” including early currency convertibility, price liberalization and rapid privatization?
    • Did important differences result from the investment climates created?
    • To what extent have the old industrial nomenklatura or other pre-existing networks of influence, or of corruption or crime, been a retarding factor?
    • How large an impact did foreign governments, foreign NGOs, and international financial institutions have on the internal economics of transition? How could their influence have been made more effective?
    • What was the overall impact of the European Union in promoting and incentivizing the economic reform process? How could its resources and political leverage be made more effective?
    • What can be said about the relative merits of the competing approaches taken towards privatization (vouchers, foreign purchase, “nomenklatura”)?
    • What have been the most effective approaches to dealing with corruption, ensuring property rights and creating a positive business climate?
    • Did the economic recessions post-1989 inhibit democratic progress? How were economic leaders able to maintain public support for reforms in light of the recessions?
    • With respect to each of the above issues, what individuals or groups were key to achieving success? Are they common to other countries? What support for their endeavors has helped ensure their success?
    • What are the key lessons learned with regard to economic issues in the postcommunist transitions that are readily applicable elsewhere?
  • Socio-cultural aspects. Another seminar will consider the following:
    • To what extent are variations in reform progress explained by differences in the ethnic, religious, or socio-cultural compositions of the CEE societies?
    • What were underlying public attitudes towards democracy, the State, and the participatory roles of citizens?
    • Was nationalism/sense of national identity a major differentiating factor?
    • How much of a factor was the nature of the human and social capital in place as of 1989? How well or poorly was that capital maintained in the early post-communist years — e.g., in education, health, demographics?
    • What were the roles of women and of ethnic or religious minorities under communism and in the events leading to its downfall? How did these roles evolve after 1989?
    • What other historic, cultural, psychological or sociological factors had a major influence on the pace and success of reform?
    • With respect to each of the above issues, what individuals or groups were key to achieving success? Are they common to other countries? What support for their endeavors has helped ensure their success?
    • What are the key lessons learned with regard to economic issues in the postcommunist transitions that are readily applicable elsewhere?

Applicability

The Transatlantic Steering Group’s preliminary findings in the January 19-20 meetings, together with ongoing Project research, suggest that a number of the lessons learned from the front-runner CEE states could and should be applied elsewhere. “Mixed cases” such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia are currently good examples of states in which lessons learned might be applied with particular effectiveness. While these countries will be a major initial focus, as the Project progresses it will also consider how these insights, both theoretical and practical, can be applied in Belarus and the Central Asian republics and, ultimately, in post-authoritarian countries further afield.

Project Goals

  • Advance and better integrate the data and analysis available on the postcommunist transitions of Europe and Eurasia.
  • Inform and influence senior European and U.S. policy makers and practitioners, including reform leaders in the post-communist countries of the region. Similarly influence key officials in multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, EBRD, OECD, OSCE, Council of Europe and NATO.
  • Foster stronger operational links between European and U.S. civil society leaders, scholars, foreign policy specialists and others concerned with promoting democracy in the postcommunist countries and beyond.
  • Help create a larger trans-Atlantic cadre of practitioners, scholars, policy molders and others who will continue to be enriched by each other’s research and perspectives across generational and disciplinary boundaries.
  • Use the upcoming 20th anniversary of Europe’s post-communist transitions to draw attention to those lessons derived from this unique experiment that may have at least partial applicability in other regions of the world.

Innovation and Methodology

The Project’s uniqueness stems from the combination of its joint European-U.S. character; its multi-disciplinary approach; and its independent, non-governmental composition. Equally importantly, the Project will integrate the insights of both scholars and practitioners in order to arrive at policy recommendations that are not only analytically rigorous but also realistic and aimed at practical impact on post-authoritarian transitions.

  • The Project is guided by a Transatlantic Steering Group that has been formed by Ambassador Adrian Basora, the Project’s Director. The Group is composed of senior European and American non-government leaders, scholars, practitioners and policy analysts drawn from a variety of disciplines and experienced in postcommunist reform (see list below).
  • The project’s emphasis on joint U.S.-European leadership and a diversity of disciplines is designed to help close the persistent gaps that have delayed the emergence of fully integrated analysis, policy and action.
  • Work on the project’s substantive agenda will center around a two-year series of carefully structured, research-based topical meetings, each focused on a key cluster of issues, such as the economic, political, social and cultural aspects of the postcommunist transformations-and on the applicability of lessons learned to the less advanced transitional states. The seminars, which began in January 2006, will culminate in 2008 with a conference designed to tie together the individual seminar findings into an integrated set of analytical conclusions and policy recommendations.

Dissemination

  • In the early stages of the Project, there will be selective dissemination of seminar papers and discussion results via Orbis (the FPRI quarterly) and other relevant journals. Findings relevant to current policy debates will also be translated into Op-Ed pieces and targeted electronic and print communications.
  • Fully integrated findings and recommendations from the concluding conference will be disseminated in all of the formats and channels that the TSG judges most effective. One anticipated tool in this endeavor will be a user-friendly “guidebook” — in electronic and/or printed form — on democracy promotion, designed to assist reform advocates and leaders in the transitional countries themselves, as well as to influence policy-makers and practitioners in Brussels, Washington and other relevant capitals. The Project’s findings will also be promulgated directly by members of the Transatlantic Steering Group through their contacts with leaders and senior policy officials in Europe and the U.S.
  • Project findings will also be disseminated to appropriate legislative leaders and staffs, and to the advisors of leading presidential candidates as they gear up for the 2008 elections in the United States. Analogous efforts will be made in Brussels and other European capitals.

Next Phase

  • Assuming strong momentum from the initial two years of the Project’s work, the Transatlantic Steering Group in a second phase would become an ongoing mechanism for involving the region’s next generation of democratic transition leaders and for renewing bonds between reformers in the post-communist region and Western scholars and policy-molders on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition, the Project would explore the applicability of the Europe/Eurasia postcommunist experience to selected countries in other regions of the world.