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Culture and Conflict
No. 17, Spring 1995
The Processes of Democratic Transition
The Demise of the communist political systems in the early nineties, culminating in the collapse of Soviet power in 1991, has brought into focus the role of political elites in the transition of these societies from state socialism to capitalism. This study is a " reputionnal " analysis of the views of forty-eight influential people based on interviews carried out in Moscow in Autumn 1992. Questions were devised to identify institutions and people in the Gorbatchev and Yeltsin periods having influence at the top level. There can be no doubt that the political constituencies and constellations of political power have changed decisively. Under Gorbachev the political elite originated from single political constituency of persons with positions within the Communist elite. In addition, particularly with respect to forreign policy issues, our respondents identified an influential group of foreign statesmen and political forces. Under Yeltsin, both of these groups were of less significance and the political constituencies of influence were more diverse forming a fragmented political elite. It is concluded that three major groupings appear to be dominant in the reform period of Gorbachev and that of radical change under Yeltsin. First, bourgeoisie and democratic forces seeking an economic and political system based on markets, civil society and pluralism : this group, however, is internally divided - not all who support the idea of " civil society " benefit from marketisation. Second is a group of national and 'patriotic forces " emphazing solidarity on national and traditional values (including ones shared with the goverment administrative control of resources rooted in the command structure of the previous economic and political order. These interests seek different kinds of political and economic institutions as an objective of transition and create a fundamentally unstable political elite structure.
To introduce hunarian democracy " in operation ", the political conflict preceding and following an economic austerity package had been selected, with special attention to the social pact, solving the conflict. The author identifies various threats activating against the planned reforms, introduces the organizations behind the protests, and assesses their organizationnal strenght, and political clout. Based on the case study the author comments on some findings of the international literature on social pacts. Moreover, with special attention to the characteristic features of the hungarian democratic system, revealed by the sociopolitical conflict and its solution, some reflections are formulated to the typology of democracies in poor countries.
The aim of this article is to introduce a perspective, and hopefully some conceptual clarity, into the huge and often confusing literature on " civil society ". It is not possible to revisit the use of this notion without attention to the excat hitorical circumstances of its emergence, in the late 18 th and early 19th centuries, but also to those historical realities, the absolutist practices government, that immediatly preceded it, and to which it rhymes, even when contradicting. The concept of civil society is incomprehensible without paying attention to the full import and ambivalence of the Western " civilising process ". Such reconstructive historical study is all the more necessary for understanding East Europe, both its recent past and current reality. In the perspective offered in this article, beyond the mere antithesis between party state and civil society, it is possible to understand the absurd, even perverse way in which communist parties repeated, in a particular form, absolutist practises ans insitituions government, in the name of a particular " civilising mission ", to build up a " true society ". Thus, the communist party was a resurrection of the absolutist " police ", that was much more an overall institution of social control than contemporary police force. It was the peculiar combination of modern and pre-modern " police " powers that made the communist system so intolerable, and that made the regime able to operate so long between softer and harder regimes, without ever losing their peculiar specificity -until the final, complete breakdown. It is the lasting effect of this same combination that can help us understand the striking success of post-communist parties.