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Mission Accomplished? The Rise and Recent Decline of (Ex-Communist) Socialist Parties in Central Europe

Andras Bozoki, Visiting Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

Date & Time

Friday
Sep. 24, 2004
12:00pm – 1:00pm ET

Overview

Mission Accomplished? The Rise and Recent Decline of (Ex-Communist) Socialist Parties in Central Europe
September 24, 2004
Staff-prepared summary of the EES informal discussion with András Bozóki, Visiting Professor of Political Science, Columbia University and Professor of Political Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

Ex-Communist Socialist parties in Central Europe have accomplished a lot over the last decade. Only a few years after Communist regimes throughout the region were enthusiastically toppled with universal support, reformed socialist parties were, one by one, reelected throughout the region. More surprisingly, these same reformed communist parties were at the helm, just as East European countries were adopting drastic reforms to create market economies and enter international structures, such as the EU and NATO. András Bozóki questioned why the socialists—and not the liberals or nationalists—were so successful in post-communist elections? How, given their ideology and the obvious failure of the communist system, were they able to implement the huge reforms required to dismantle the communist economy and build liberal democracies? In his EES noon discussion, Bozoki described how these parties managed to maintain legitimacy and power. He also warned that, now that EU and NATO accession have been achieved, the ex-communist socialist parties will have a much more difficult time selling themselves to the Central European electorate.

It was no surprise that socialist parties did not fare well in the first postcommunist elections, but for several reasons socialists did not disappear from the political arena. The first reason is because, due to the Roundtable Talks, communist parties were involved in the transition to democracy and therefore maintained their legitimacy. Second, after their initial electoral defeat, socialist parties throughout the region began to regroup by renaming their party, building new party membership and excluding the non-democratic, anti-reform elements from their ranks. These revamped parties were able to take advantage of the failures of the first democratically-elected leaders, who faced overwhelming problems and in most cases were political novices. Invariably, the liberal, democratic and nationalist parties that inherited the postcommunist mess began to bicker amongst themselves, parties splintered and coalitions broke down in response to the difficulties posed by the process of transition. Having been excluded from this initial period, the socialists were able to portray themselves as "above politics," and given their experience in politics offered clear, technocratic solutions. As a result, ex-communists began winning elections and, by 1994, had returned to power in almost every Central European country.

These parties used what Bozóki calls "portable skills" and their "useable past," referring to the political experience accumulated under communism. But another necessary element in their electoral success was their lack of ideology. Bozoki asserts that by the late 1970s, the Marxist/Leninist ideology was already dead among communist intellectuals and party elites. All that was left of Marxism was the belief in social progress and social engineering—precisely the attitude necessary to lead the transition to liberal democracy.

Without an ideology to lead them (or perhaps to hinder them) the ex-communist parties were guided by the clear expectations from their electorates and requirements from external forces. Bozoki identified three main expectations: the demand for democracy; the demand for an effective market economy; and the demand to return to Europe. NATO and the EU offered clear guidelines to follow in order to meet these demands, and the expert bureaucrats from socialist parties were best qualified to get the job done.

Today, nearly all of postcommunist Eastern Europe has joined NATO and the EU, and those still left out are working towards accession. Having met these goals, the pragmatic experts of the socialist parties have exhausted their usefulness. Their dull, bureaucratic style has created an atmosphere of apathy in Central Europe, in which the society does not see the utility in political participation. And, because socialists have been unable to inspire hope among their constituents, radicals and nationalists have been gaining popularity due to their abilities to inspire political participation.

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Global Europe Program

The Global Europe Program addresses vital issues affecting the European continent, US-European relations, and Europe’s ties with the rest of the world. We investigate European approaches to critical global issues: digital transformation, climate, migration, global governance. We also examine Europe’s relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our program activities cover a wide range of topics, from the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE to European energy security, trade disputes, challenges to democracy, and counter-terrorism. The Global Europe Program’s staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media.  Read more

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