Political transition in postcommunist countries: Stateness, Nationalism and Democratization

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Political transition in post-communist countries
Stateness, Nationalism and Democratization

• My aim in this essay is to offer theoretical
  model about change of political system and
  democratic consolidation in postcommunist
  countries.
• After transition definition Ill offer failures
  of democratic consolidation process and its
  problematic relation with nationalism and
  stateness.

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Structure

• 1 Political transition
• 1.1 Democracy
• 1.2 Consolidate democracy 
• 2 Nation-state building and democracy
• 2.1 About state and nation definition
• 2.2 Nation-state policies and democratization
  policies when they are complementary logics
• 2.3 When they are conflict logics?  
• 3 Nation-state and multicultural democracy
• 3.1 Policies in a multicultural settings
• 4 Conclusion

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Political transition
ODonnell and Schmitter (year)

• The interval between one political regime and
  another. Its delimited on the one side by the
  launching of the process of dissolution of an
  authoritarian regime and, on the other, by the
  installation of some form of democracy, the
  return to some form of authoritarian rule, or
  the emergence of a revolutionary alternatives.

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Definition of democracy
Dahl (year)

• 1.  Freedom to form and join organizations
• 2.  Freedom of expression
• 3.  The right to vote
• 4.   Eligibility for public office
• 5.   The right of political leaders to compete
  for support
• 6.   Alternative sources of information
• 7.   Free and fair elections

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Democratic consolidation
Linz and Stepan (year)

• A state must exist
• Transitional phase must be complete
• Official government must have full respect of
  the law

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State, nation and democracy

• State and nation conceptually and historically
  two different processes
• Nation-state building
• -gt stable democracies?

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Nation-state and democratization when they are
complementary logics

• Relatively culturally homogenous throughout the
  territory of the state
• Most of its politicized citizens have a strong
  sense of shared history
• No significant irredenta outside the State

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Nation-state and democracy conflict logics

• Nationalist aspirations of political leaders are
  incongruent with the empirical reality of the
  demos
• Nationality groups claim rights denied from the
  majority or/and they could be considered from a
  neighbor State
• A large majority of citizens of one state wants
  to join another state

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Post-communist transition multinational,
multilingual and multicultural settingWhich
democracy?
Linz and Stepan (year)

• The combination of collective rights of
  nationalities or minorieties in a multinational,
  multicultural society and state, with the rights
  of the individuals fully protected by the state,
  is probably the least conflictual way of
  articulating such a democratic non-nation-state
  policy.

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Questions

• How can the liberal political theory create
  collective rights if its based on individual
  rights?
• Why have not all post-communist countries had a
  peaceful transition (Yugoslavia)?
• After the collapse of the URSS, the state
  building was based not any more on the communist
  ideology but on the post-colonialism self
  determination principle established by the
  international community.
• The political elites began to build their
  consensus mostly on an ethnic-national principle.
  Could it be for this that the violence in the
  Balcans has been inevitable?

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• However, also without facing the violence of
  Yugoslavia, in the Baltic countries there are
  also problems in defining who are their own
  citizens, on what the citizens should build their
  state and in which terms to define their own
  policies.
• These are fundamental issues and if they are left
  unsolved it can prevent the democratic
  consolidation.