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Should Transitologists Be Grounded?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Valerie Bunce
Valerie Bunce*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Cornell University
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Extract

The collapse of state socialism in eastern Europe has led to a proliferation of studies analyzing aspects of democratization throughout the region. Central to many of these studies (particularly those by nonspecialists) is an assumption that postcommunism is but a variation on a larger theme, that is, recent transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule.

Type
Comment
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , Spring 1995 , pp. 111 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1995

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References

This commentary is based upon a larger study investigating methodological issues in the comparative study of democratization. I would like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for support of this project. I would also like to thank Bela Greskovits for his comments on this paper.

1. In this commentary, the term “eastern Europe” will be used to refer to all the postcommunist countries that during the cold-war era made up the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.

2. “The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?” Slavic Review 53, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 173-85. Their article is a response to criticisms not just by specialists in eastern Europe, but also by specialists in southern Europe and Latin America. However, this commentary will focus primarily on eastern Europe.

3. This, at least, is how I read the literature questioning the validity of comparing east and south. See, for example, M. Steven Fish, Democracy From Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994 Google Scholar; David Bartlett and Wendy Hunter, “Comparing Transitions from Authoritarian Rule in Latin America and Eastern Europe: What Have We Learned and Where Are We Going?” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2-5 September 1993, Washington, DC; Piotr, Sztompka, “Dilemmas of the Great Transition,” Sisyphus 2 (1992): 9–27 Google Scholar; Terry, Sarah Meiklejohn, “Thinking About Post-Communist Transitions: How Different Are They?” Slavic Review 52, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 333–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grzegorz, Ekiert, “Democratization Processes in East Central Europe: A Theoretical Reconsideration,” British Journal of Political Science 21 (July 1991): 285–313 Google Scholar; David Ost, “Shaping a New Politics in Poland: Interests and Politics in Post Communist Eastern Europe,” Program on Central and Eastern Europe Working Paper Series no. 8, Minde de Gunzburg Center, Harvard University, 1993; David, Ost, “Labor and Societal Transition,” Problems of Communism 41, no. 3 (May-June 1992): 22–24 Google Scholar; Ken, Jowitt, “The New World Disorder,” Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (Winter 1991): 11–20 Google Scholar; Bunce, Valerie and Csanadi, Maria, “Uncertainty and the Transition: Post-Communism in Hungary,” East European Politics and Societies 7, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 240–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bunce, Valerie and Csanadi, Maria, “Uncertainty and the Transition: Post-Communism in Hungary,” East European Politics and Societies 7, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 240–275 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Valerie Bunce, “Can We Compare Democratization in the East Versus the South?” Journal of Democracy, forthcoming.

4. This is the thrust of their discussion of sample selection in “Modes of Transition in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe,” International Social Science Journal 128 (May 1991): 269-84.

5. This problem also emerges in some of the Latin American cases, where pacts were a consequence of mass mobilization. My thanks to Cynthia McLintock, Bela Greskovits and Hector Schamis for pointing this out.

6. This is not to argue that state socialism is still fully intact. Rather it is to argue that what we have seen in eastern Europe since 1989 is the end of communist party hegemony. Whether that is equal to what has been understood in theory and practice as a transition to democracy is, however, quite another question. See, for example, LiJia Shevtsova, “Postkommunisticheskaia Rossiia: Muki i lobyshkoi transformatsii,” unpublished ms., Institute for International Economics and Politics, Moscow, September 1993; and Kligman, Gail and Verdery, Katherine, “Romania after Ceausescu: Post-Communist Communism? Eastern Europe in Revolution, ed. Banac, Ivo (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, (1992)Google Scholar.

7. Schmitter and Karl seem to have misunderstood what their critics mean when they claim that state socialism and “post-state socialism” are unique. The argument is not that each eastern European country is unique or that these unique characteristics are derived from, say, distinct national cultures. Rather the argument is a structural one. The focus is on the distinctive political, economic and social characteristics that all of these countries share as a consequence of state socialism.

8. The use of the term “clan” is reminiscent of the linguistic games the western imperial powers played when they decided in the nineteenth century to draw a clear line between the “civilized” west—which had nations—and backward Africa—which no longer had nations, but, instead, had tribes, clans and the like (see Philip D., Curtin, The Image of Africa [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964]Google Scholar). Similar linguistic games—which allocate power, modernity and responsibility—characterize many of the recent western analyses of the former Yugoslavia and, more generally, the Balkans (see Maria, Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” Slavic Review 53 [Summer 1994]: 453–82Google Scholar).

9. This does not guarantee, however, that generalists will render an accurate reading of the data. For example, James Fearon's recent formal analysis explaining the outbreak of war in Croatia rests entirely upon a particular reading of the political beliefs of the Serbian minority in Croatia. This is a problem on two grounds: first, such beliefs are extremely hard to decipher in the absence of survey data; second, his rendition of these beliefs rests entirely on a minimal and quite biased sampling of journalistic (not scholarly) accounts of these beliefs. See his “Ethnic War as a Commitment Problem,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2-5 September 1994, New York. Moreover, Schmitter and Karl regularly miscode Bulgaria in their investigations. See, for example, “Modes of Transition “; and “What Kinds of Democracy are Emerging in Southern and Eastern Europe, South and Central America?” (unpublished ms). Finally, by my calculation (which takes the former Soviet Union into account and recent developments in Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, as well as measures of influence which are less obvious than formal membership in a governing coalition), the ex-communists emerge as a far more dominant political force in eastern Europe than Schmitter and Karl seem to recognize (see “The Conceptual Travels “).

10. My thanks to Michael Kennedy for making this point in another context.

11. See Benedict, Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991 Google Scholar; James, Scott, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in Southeast Asia (London: Frank Cass, 1986 Google Scholar; Clifford, Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973 Google Scholar; O'Donnell, Guillermo, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973 Google Scholar; Robert, Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993 Google Scholar; Philippe, C. Schmitter, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” The Review of Politics 36 (January 1974). 12 Google Scholar.. See O'Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe C. and Whitehead, Laurence, eds., Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Southern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986 Google Scholar; idem., Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); idem., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe, C. Schmitter, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986 Google Scholar.

13. David Stark, “A Sociologist's Perspective: Can Designer Capitalism Work in Central and Eastern Europe?” Transition: The Newsletter about Reforming Economies 3 (May 1992): 1-4.

14. Is this response to Schmitter and Karl just a matter of turf defense? There is an element of truth to their implied point that some eastern European area specialists are quite resentful of the recent reduced-entry costs to claiming expertise in eastern European studies. These feelings sometimes surface, for example, in discussions behind closed doors with rakija on the table. Just as obscurity had its costs, it appears, so does notoriety. However, by “designer social science” I mean something quite different and, I think, less contentious. First, empirical grounding is a necessary condition for conducting sound research and for offering sound advice. Second, social science is not so developed that it can predict what will happen in the future, let alone dictate what should happen. Third, postcommunist transitions are without historical precedent yet social science theories are based in large measure on historical precedents. This, plus their multiple and interactive character, suggests that there are clear limits on the ability of social scientists to speak confidently about these transitions. Finally, there is a certain irony in the notion that, having rejected scientific socialism and thus the orchestration of social, political and economic developments “from above,” the new regimes in the region are now being told by some from the west that there is “scientific capitalism” and “scientific democracy,” and that they can be imposed “from above.” This is despite the purported virtues of regulation through the hidden hand in liberal orders. Humility, in short, and not arrogance should be the order of the day.

15. It is interesting to note in this regard that, prior to 1989, comparative analyses were more common in the eastern European field than in, say, Latin American studies. This is because of the homogenizing effects of state socialism and, thus, the extent to which eastern Europe—far more than Latin America—provided a natural laboratory for comparative study.

16. This was less true for Soviet studies, where single-case analysis was more the norm, where comparative theories were not widely employed and where the assumption of studying a unique case was more widespread. This seems to have reflected the confluence of several factors: the sheer size and thus complexity of the former Soviet Union (which, after all, occupied nearly one fifth of the world's land mass); the difficulties of procuring data; the absence of a strong social science tradition within the Soviet Union (in contrast to, say, Poland, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia); and the academic politics of studying a super power (which led American studies in the same direction). At the same time, some Soviet specialists identified with the country they studied and thereby dismissed as irrelevant to their research all those little colonies to the west of the Soviet Union. However, these generalizations are less relevant to contemporary scholarship on Russia and the successor states. Comparative studies, expressed either as comparison of cases or utilization of comparative theory in singlecase analysis, are now becoming the norm in post-Soviet studies.

17. This isolation was expressed in many ways—some of which were imperial. Witness, for example, the pervasive practice during the cold-war period of western European specialists using the term “Europe” in the titles of their books, articles, courses and even institutes, when the focus in virtually every case was only on the western half of Europe. To take another example: it has been common practice for courses surveying comparative politics to be not just Euro-centric (which is enough of a problem) but also western Euro-centric. This reflected the widespread assumptions within the discipline of political science that: 1) the only Europe that counted was western Europe and 2) western Europeanists were more scientific and more comparative in their analyses than their counterparts in other area studies.

18. See Dan Thomas, “Norms, Politics and Human Rights: The Helsinki Process and the Decline of Communism in Eastern Europe,” Ph.D. dissertation in progress, Cornell University.

19. For an insightful analysis of how international economic pressures prefigured the outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia, see Susan L., Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1995 Google Scholar.

20. This was even true for “deviant” Yugoslavia. See, for example, Vesna Pusic, “Dictatorships with Democratic Legitimacy: Democracy Versus Nation,” East European Politics and Societies 8 (Fall 1994): 383-401. Contrary to Schmitter and Karl, the distinctions between state socialism and other forms of dictatorship did not wither away when state socialism “softened” (see, for instance, Maria, Csanadi, From Where to Where? The Party-State and the Transformation [Budapest: T-Twins and Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1995]Google Scholar).

21. See, especially, Csanadi, From Where to Where. The key article giving rise to the “proto-science” of transitology (aside from earlier works by Machiavelli, according to Schmitter and Karl) emphasized the importance of historical context in the process of democratization. See Dankwart, Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” Comparative Politics 2 (1970): 337–63Google Scholar. However, transitologists such as Schmitter and Karl have tended to delete the adjective “historical” from this argument and concentrated, as a result, simply on current context.

22. This is not to reduce the events of 1989 to the “Gorbachev effect.” Rather it is to argue that the Gorbachev reforms were a necessary but not sufficient condition for the end of state socialism in eastern Europe. For an explanation—before the fact— of both the Gorbachev reforms and the collapse of state socialism in eastern Europe, see Valerie, Bunce, “The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc From a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability,” International Organization 39 (Winter 1984/1985): 1–46.Google Scholar

23. See, especially, Robert, Fishman, “Rethinking State and Regime: Southern Europe's Transition to Democracy,” World Politics 42 (April 1990): 422–40.Google Scholar

24. The centrality of state building in postcommunism reflects not just the inextricability of state and regime in state socialism and thus the powerful effects on the state of the end of communist party hegemony, but also two other factors: the presence in the region of so many new or newly liberated states and the necessarily powerful consequences for the state of a transition to capitalism. On the latter point, see Ivo, Bicanic, “The Economic Causes of New State Formation during Transition,” East European Politics and Societies 9 (Winter 1995): 2–21.Google Scholar

25. It is true that economic-liberalization and structural-adjustment policies play an important role in the process of democratization, south as well as east. However, one cannot very easily equate economic reform in Latin America and southern Europe with economic transformation in the east. This is, first, because the issue in the south is amending a capitalist economy already in place, whereas the issue in the east (though Hungary provides a valuable middle case) is construction of a capitalist economy with state socialism—its virtual opposite—serving as the point of departure. There are, moreover, other key economic differences, all of which place unusual economic burdens on eastern Europe—for example, the collapse of the Soviet market, the primitive character of eastern European economies and the difficulties imposed by the process of building new national economies in so many cases.

26. This is evident, for instance, in some recent reflections on democratization by transitologists (see, for instance, Guillermo O'Donnell, “On the State, Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems [A Latin American View with Glances at Some Post-Communist Countries],” World Development 21 [1993]: 1355–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Delegative Democracy?” Working Paper No. 172, Helen Kellogg Institute of International Studies, Notre Dame, March 1992; Philippe, Schmitter, “Dangers and Dilemmas of Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 5 [April 1994]: 57–74).Google Scholar

27. My thanks to the remarks made by Gail Lapidus, Shari Cohen, Carol Timko, Karen Dawisha, David Ost, Jan Kubik and Georgii Derlugian at the panel, “Shooting Cannons at the Canons” at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 18 November 1994, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

28. See, for example, Juan Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism, “/oMrno/ of Democracy 1 (Winter 1990): 51-69; Arend, Lijphart, “Democratization and Constitutional Choices in Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland, 1989-1991” in Flying Blind, ed. Szoboszlai, Gyorgy (Budapest: Yearbook of the Hungarian Political Science Association, 1992): 99–113 Google Scholar; Stepan, Alfred and Skach, Cindy, “Constitutional Frameworks and Democratic Consolidation: Parliamentarism versus Presidentialism,” World Politics 46 (October 1993): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. If the latter factor were so important, then how do we explain, for instance, the developmental trajectories of, say, Bulgaria and Romania (with their early settle ment of constitutional issues) versus Poland and the Czech Republic (given their continuing problems with resolution of the rules of the political game)?

30. See, for example, Daniel, V. Friedheim, “Bringing Society Back into Democratic Transition Theory: Pact Making and Regime Collapse,” East European Politics and Societies 7 (Fall 1993): 482–512 Google Scholar; and Sidney Tarrow, “Social Movements and Democratic Development,” forthcoming in The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, vol. 1, Richard Gunther, Nikiforos Diamandous and Hans-Jurgen Puhle, eds.

31. Symptomatic of the pervasiveness of these assumptions has been the tendency of scholars (primarily on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times) to pronounce either that Russia has turned the corner on democracy or that democracy is finished in Russia.

32. A survey of longstanding democracies would seem to suggest that: 1) there is great variety in what constitutes a democratic political culture; 2) it is very hard to distinguish between durable beliefs, values and behaviors and more short-term attitudes and the like; 3) some democracies feature by some standards a less than democratically minded public; and 4) the key to democracy might be mass culture but it also might be elite political culture. See, for example, Putnam, Making Democracy Work.

33. See, especially, Philippe, C. Schmitter, “Dangers and Dilemmas of Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 5 (April 1994): 57–74.Google Scholar

34. See, especially, Palma, Guiseppe Di, “Democratic Transitions: Puzzles and Surprises from West to East,” Research on Democracy and Society 1 (New York : JAI Press, 1993): 27–50 Google Scholar; Nancy, Bermeo, “Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship,” Comparative Politics 24 (April 1992): 273–91.Google Scholar

35. See Valerie, Bunce, “Sequencing Economic and Political Reforms,” East-Central European Economies in Transition (Washington: Joint Economic Committee, 1994 Google Scholar; Bela Greskovits, “Is the East Becoming the South? Where May Threats to Reforms Come From?” paper presented at the XVI World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin, 12-15 August 1994.

36. See Guillermo O'Donnell, “On the State “; Schmitter and Karl, “The Conceptual Travels “; Schmitter, “Dangers and Dilemmas “; Schmitter and Karl, “Modes of Transition” .

37. To this must be added one more point. A major problem in theories of democracy (of older, as well as of more recent vintage) is that they under-predict the incidence of democratic government. There are in effect too many democracies, whether our theoretical perspective is that of, say, Seymour Martin Lipset; Barrington Moore; Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens and John Stephens; or Guillermo O'Donnell, Phillippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead. This suggests that: 1) our theories of democracy may be over-specified, 2) there may be no single path to a democratic order, 3) democratization may be best understood in highly voluntaristic terms and/or 4) democracy may not be as difficult a project as has been commonly assumed.