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1. Slovakia: civil society opposes its leaders

Author:
Radovan Gura and Gilles Rouet
Publication Date:
03-2025
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Robert Schuman Foundation (RSF)
Abstract:
For some years now, Slovakia has been going through a period of profound political change. Marked by a complex history influenced by the Pan-Slavic movement and the legacy of the communist period, the Slovak political scene is characterised by growing instability, a division of society and a rise in populist discourse. Successive events have fuelled discontent and protests, which are now directed at the Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Topic:
Civil Society, Elections, Populism, Domestic Politics, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe and Slovakia

2. Teaching Difficult Histories: Key Principles For Democracy

Author:
Stuart Austin
Publication Date:
06-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This project report details the discussions and findings of the Teaching History Programme of the Ratiu Forum from 2023 to 2024, sitting under the Central and South-East Europe Programme. The workshops and conferences engaged with History teachers of post-communist Europe to address the challenges of politicised History curricula and explore methods for teaching difficult and dark pasts – facilitating and improving cross-border understanding within the region. The report concludes with recommendations for teachers generated by the workshops, geared towards open and democratic societies to counter political extremism and autocratic populism, as well as considering the direction for future workshops.
Topic:
Democracy, Populism, History, Political Extremism, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe

3. Coalition Formation and the Regime Divide in Central Europe

Author:
Anna Grzymała-Busse
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The study examines the formation of coalitions in East Central Europe after the democratic transitions of 1989. Existing explanations of coalition formations, which focus on either office-seeking and minimum wmning considerations, or on policy-seeking and spatial ideological convergence. However, they fail to account for the coalition patterns in the new democracies of East Central Europe. Instead, these parties' flrst goal is to develop clear and consistent reputations. To that end, they will form coalitions exclusively within the two camps of the regime divide: that is, amongst parties stemming from the former communist parties, and those with roots in the former opposition to the communist regimes. The two corollaries are that defectors are punished at unusually high rates, and the communist party successors seek, rather than are sought for, coalitions. This model explains 85% of the coalitions that formed in the region after 1989. The study then examines the communist successor parties, and how their efforts illustrate these dynamics .
Topic:
Coalition, Post-Communism, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Europe

4. Unionists Against Unions: Towards Hierarchical Management in Postcommunist Poland

Author:
David Ost and Marc Weinstein
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Contrary to standard assumptions about union opposition to economic reform, our survey of firm-level deci sion makers in ninety-five manufacturing enterprises shows that Polish trade union leaders have strong pro-market leanings, and are profoundly skeptical of the utility of institutionalized employee influence in a market economy. This skepticism towards unions is shared by rank-and-file workers, as reported in other surveys. Industrial relations institutions in Poland are becoming less participatory and increasingly hierar chical according to a number of indicators, and this is due not just to coercion from above but acquies cence from below. At the same time, unionists in practice maintain a strong presence in non-private firms. This lingering employee influence stems, paradoxically, from a belief in property rights: unionists believe that private owners should be able to manage their assets as they choose, for this will allegedly benefit workers; but where private owners are lacking, unionists feel employees must act as temporary watchdogs. Long-term prospects for unions thus appear weak, and the weakness of institutions articulating labor inter ests can lead toward the delegitimation of democratic institutions in general. Finally, rational choice and historical institutionalist approaches are seen as unable to explain our findings. An ideational explanation appears to be the most plausible.
Topic:
Reform, Unions, Hierarchy, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Poland

5. Network Capital in Capitalist, Communist, and Post-Communist Societies

Author:
Endre Sik
Publication Date:
02-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The term 'network capital' comprises the use of a wide variety of personal networks: for example, altruistic, long-lasting, multipurpose relations; balanced, short-term patron-client relations; instrumental barter; and exploitative unequal exchanges such as bribery and corruption. Every society can be characterized by a particular level and form of network capital, based on its culture and on its historically and structurally determined organizational framework. The scope and role of network capital is a simultaneous function of already existing network capital and the changing economic situation. This paper's first hypothesis is that the size of network capital is greater under communism than capitalism because of the differences in cultural, historical developments and because there are greater socioeconomic pressures in communist societies that give network capital more opportunities to operate. The second contention is that in the course of transition from communism to capitalism-i.e., in the postcommunist period-networking actually becomes more widespread, although the previous hypothesis might seem to suggest that it would diminish.
Topic:
Communism, Development, Governance, Capitalism, Networks, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe

6. Governing Enterprises in Transition Economies: The Problem of Mixed Ownership in the Czech Republic

Author:
Raj M. Desai
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper examines how formerly state-owned enterprises are governed in a post-Communist economy. Privatization was intended to clarify ownership rights by making private property the basis for productive relations. Inreality, gov ernments still own substantial percentages of share capital in "privatized" enterprises. and the question of who controls the company often remains unclear. Two dimensions of emerging corporate-governance structures are examined for enterprises under joint public-private ownership: contract enforcement and the influence of the state-as shareholder. The main argument is that these structures are determined according to government-investor negotiations over how to relinquish control of firms and privatize their cash flows, and proceeds in two steps. First, state authori ties and prospective investors commit to the terms of privatization. Second, instruments of contract enforcement and state influence emerge from these commitments through bargaining. Evidence from two industry cases in the Czech Republic-steel and petrochemicals-shows that contract-enforcement is delegated to a third party when a govern ment cannot credibly commit to all the privatization terms desired ex ante by investors who prefer long-term, Jarge bloc equities; additionally, the state's fiduciary influence will be limited if ministries and property agencies are politically unified. Delegating contractual responsibility while limiting state discretion will make progress in estab lishing property rights. • An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chi cago. September 1995 .. The author is grateful for comments from Peter Hall. Joel Hellman. Grzegorz Ekiert, and the par ticipants of the Seminar on Post-Communist Institutions (Russian Research Center). and the Workshop on East European Politics (Center for European Studies). Harvard University.
Topic:
Governance, Industry, Ownership, Post-Communism, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Czech Republic

7. Recombinant Property in East European Capitalism

Author:
David Stark
Publication Date:
01-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In contrast to the problematic of transition, this paper sees social change not as the passage from one order to another but as rearrangement in the patterns of how a multiplicity of social orders are interwoven. From that perspective we see organizational innovation not as replacement but as recombination. The findings of field research in Hungarian firms. data on ownership of the largest Hungarian enterprises, and interviews with key policy makers in government. banking. and industry indicate the emergence of new property forms that are neither statist nor private, in which the properties of private and public are dissolved. interwoven. and recombined. Recombinant property is a form of organizational hedging, or portfolio management. in which actors are responding to extraordinary uncertainty in the organizational environment. For enterprise actors the question is not simply, "Will I survive the market test?" but also, under what conditions is proof of worth on market principles neither sufficient nor necessary to survive. Recombinant property is an attempt to have resources in more than one organizational form-or similarly-to produce hybrid organizational forms that can be justified or assessed by more than one standard of measure. The clash of competing organizational principles that characterizes post-socialist societies produces new organizational forms; and this organizational diversity can form a basis for greater adaptability. At the same time, however, this multiplicity of ordering principles creates problems of accountability. Accompanying the decentralized reorganization oj assets is a centralization of liabilities. Both processes blur the boundaries between public and private. On the one hand, privatization produces the criss-crossing lines of recombinant property; on the other, debt consolidation transforms private debt into public liabilities. Whereas in the state socialist economy paternalism was based on the state's attempts at the centralized management of assets, in the first years of the post-socialist economy paternalism is based on the state's attempts at the centralized management of liabilities.
Topic:
Capitalism, Property, Social Change, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Hungary

8. Between State & Market: Changing Agriculture in Postcommunist Poland

Author:
Krysztof Gorlach
Publication Date:
01-1993
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The paper deals with the problems of changes in Polish agriculture under current conditions. These conditions include the legacy of the communist period (agrarian structure as well as patterns of activity among farmers), the new pro-market agricultural policy, and the need for privatization of former large state farms. However, the transformation of the largest part of Polish agriculture, that is, about two million relatively small family farms, seems to be the key problem now. The author tries to analyze some stimulants and barriers to the process of change, as well as some options for the future. These options include: the so-called "farmerization path," the "fossilization solution," and the "third way."
Topic:
Agriculture, Markets, Privatization, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Poland

9. Democratic Transitions: Puzzles & Surprises from West to East

Author:
Giuseppe di Palma
Publication Date:
01-1990
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Recent communist crises in Eastern Europe seem to have caught many analysts by surprise. They also show features that set them apart from contemporary crises of right-wing dictatorships. The paper analyzes the reasons for the surprise in the light of theories of communism and of civil society under communism developed since the death of Stalin. It also examines and tries to account for the special features of the crises: their sudden acceleration •. the regimes' loss of a will to rule, the mobilization of large popular strata. Explanations focus on the goal-oriented nature of communist regimes as an alternative to the Western order. It makes the issue of self-identity and self justification crucial to these regimes-more crucial than for right-wing dictatorships. Therefore, the announcement by the Soviet hegemon itself that the goal has failed removes those tenuous shreds of self-justification to which the regimes desperately cling. This also makes possible and explains mass mobilization and the revival of civil society as a cathartic exercise. The paper concludes with an analysis of the prospects for democratization in Eastern Europe in the light of recent transitions in Southern Europe and Latin America. Democracy may develop-theoretical pessimism notwithstanding--as a matter of calculus and through an accelerated process of learning.
Topic:
Politics, Dictatorship, Identity, Post-Communism, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

10. The Constitution of Critical Intellectuals: Polish Physicians, Peace Activists, & Democratic Civil Society

Author:
Michael D Kennedy
Publication Date:
01-1989
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The post-communist system in Eastern Europe will be distinguished by the quality of its civil society. The market will cast civil society's construction in one mold, but a democratic civil society will depend on the constitution of critical intellectuals, or the making of individuals with the inclination and capacity to understand their personal situation to reflect a public condition, and to understand the public condition as constituted through potentially transformed power relations. In order to illuminate this general process, this paper rethinks the distinction of intellectuals and considers two important cases of the making of critical intellectuals in pre-transition Poland. Physicians in 1980-81 and peace activists in 1985-88 illustrate how instabilities create opportunities for new groups of people to become critical intellectuals and how critical intellectual work can create new possibilities for social transformation. By illuminating these processes, this paper hopes to contribute to the expansion of critical intellectuality in and about Eastern Europe.
Topic:
Civil Society, Activism, Post-Communism, Democratic Transitions, and Intellectuals
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe