Illiberal and Authoritarian Tendencies in Eastern Europe

Religion & Society RSEW 9–10 / 2016 Vol. 44

in

East

and

West

Illiberal and Authoritarian Tendencies in Eastern Europe

Hungary’s Illiberal State: Model or Pariah? 18

The Authoritarian Turn in Turkey 33

Moldova’s Democratic Decay 36

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EDITORIAL

No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

CONTENTS

3 PREFACE



ILLIBERAL TENDENCIES

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Vedran Džihić, Nicolas Hayoz Questioning Democracy and Liberalism in the Eastern Part of Europe Anton Shekhovtsov The No Longer Silent Counter-Revolution Vlastimil Havlík Populism and Political Entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic Magdalena Solska Ambivalent “Good Change” in Poland Grigorij Mesežnikov The Extreme Right Challenge to Slovak Democracy Zoltán Kiszelly Hungary’s Illiberal State: Model or Pariah? Senada Šelo Šabić Croatia’s Experience with Liberal Democracy Jasmin Mujanović Fractured Authoritarianism in Bosnia-Herzegovina Jovana Marović The Thin Line Between the Party and the State in Montenegro Marko Vujačić Serbia: The State Besieged, Society in Distress Arben Hajrullahu Kosovo between Unsolved Problems and Ideas of Liberalism Dane Taleski u. a. Maintaining a Hybrid Regime: The Case of Macedonia Cengiz Günay The Authoritarian Turn in Turkey and the Weakness of the Authoritarian System Natalia Timuş Moldova’s Democratic Decay Olexij Haran, Mariia Zolkina After Euromaidan: Democratic Elections vs. Personalised Parties and Informal Practices Giga Zedania Democracy and Liberalism in Georgia: Uneasy Ties Natasha Wunsch Democratic Backsliding: The End of EU Transformative Power?

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Dear Reader, In his speech on the state of the European Union on 14  September, President of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker spoke of an “existential crisis” with regard to the refugee crisis, mass unemployment in South-eastern Europe, the terrorist threat and the Brexit vote. Three days later, at an informal special summit in Bratislava, the 27 EU heads of government (excluding Great Britain) passed a reform agenda in which they agreed on the smallest common denominators regarding issues of security and border protection. A more comprehensive approach to dealing with the crisis had already been formulated by Hungary’s premier Viktor Orbán and the chairman of the Polish governing party Jarosław Kaczyński in early September. They consider the cause of the “crisis of the European conscious” to lie primarily in the dissolution of national and religious identities, which they regard as being compounded by the refugee crisis. The model of dealing with the refugees with “flexible solidarity” presented by Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic at the special summit in Bratislava must thus be seen in the context of Kaczyński’s und Orbán’s idea of a “cultural counter-revolution”. Is a spectre haunting Europe once more? National-conservative politicians’ demand that Europe refuse to relinquish its cultural wealth and national differences would appear quite legitimate if it did not go hand in hand with the dismantling of democratic principles and increasingly authoritarian tendencies. These developments (not only) in Central and Eastern Europe require a differentiating approach however. Hence political and sociological analysis must give consideration to the sociocultural situation specific to individual countries in order to meet the challenges in each of the newest EU member states, the current candidates for accession and the other neighbouring countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe – flexibly and with solidarity – and in order to be able to adapt existing strategies of transformation and integration. This task is taken up by the participants of an international workshop organised by the “Academic Swiss Caucasus Net” (ASCN) on the subject of “Illiberal and Authoritarian Tendencies in Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe” from 13–15  October in Munich. In the present issue, authors from the countries concerned present their findings and theses so far. Here we would like to express our thanks to the coordinators of

LITERATURE

the ASCN for their smooth cooperation and generous financial support

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and to translator and proofreader John Heath for his assistance in pre-



Sabine Witt Nationalistische Intellektuelle in der Slowakei 1918–1945 Paul W. Werth The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths



PROJECT REPORT

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Regula Spalinger u. a. Helping People to Help Themselves: Social Centres in the Urals

paring the present English edition.

Regula Zwahlen

No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

P R E FAC E

PREFACE

“Populists on the rise” is how the 2016 Bertelsmann Trans-

suspension of democratic rights in Turkey after the failed

formation Index (BTI) labels the status and development of

military coup in July 2016 is further proof of autocratic ten-

democracy in the countries of East-Central and Southeast

dencies recently re-emerging.

Europe. The authors explain the situation there as follows: “Overshadowed by the EU crisis and faced with a lack of

It goes without saying that any analysis of the situation in

accession prospects, consensus on the objectives of democ-

the region of East-Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe

racy and market economies is crumbling in East-Central and

has to be related to current European trends: the crisis of

Southeast Europe. Instead, populists and extremists are

the European Union, with the friction caused by the so-

gaining traction”.

called refugee crisis, the Greek crisis, Brexit and the threat of terrorism. The rise of populist and nationalist forces, also

From the (transition) partner countries of the Southeast

in the core countries of the EU, is generally a matter of

Europe Association (SOG), the BTI 2016 categorizes only

deep concern.

five as “democracies in consolidation”, namely Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania. All others (Albania, The Southeast Europe Association, in the framework of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mol-

numerous conferences, workshops and analyses, has in the

dova, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey), find themselves in

past few years placed special focus on questions of demo-

the category of “defective democracies” with more or less

cratic conduct in countries of transition, be it on the rule of

rigid deficiencies in democratic conduct.

law, media freedoms, minority rights, transitional justice or specific issues such as the rights of the Roma populations.

As a matter of great fact the indices of most countries in

We are therefore extremely happy to host and co-organize

East-Central and Southeast Europe show a declining trend

the International Workshop on “Illiberal and authoritarian

in democratic performance, very prominently represented

tendencies in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe”

by Hungary – with an index declining by a record-breaking

on 13–15 October in Munich, the seat of our Association.

-1.80 between 2006 and 2016. Hungary also provides evi- The comparative perspective of this workshop, gathering dence that even after a country has gone through the hard-

eminent scholars and experts on the topic, will certainly

ships of EU accession negotiations and meeting the Copen-

provide deeper insights into the state of affairs of democ-

hagen Criteria, the process of democratic consolidation is

racy in the region. The event is also an opportunity to con-

anything but irreversible. Indeed, it is probably misleading

tinue a long and fruitful partnership and cooperation with

to describe the Hungarian political system as an illiberal

Nicolas Hayoz in his capacity as director of the Regional

democracy, as Prime Minister Orbán himself has done. In

Research Promotion Program for the Western Balkans and

this sense, in a recent article Jan-Werner Müller has criticized

the Academic Swiss Caucasus Net, both associated with the

the use of the analytical concept of illiberal democracy. His

University of Fribourg.

argument: whoever talks of “illiberal democracy” leaves it to governments like those of Kaczynski and Orbán to stipu- The compilation of the contributions to this workshop in late that their countries are still democracies. Instead, Mül-

this special issue of Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West

ler argues, analysts should have no doubt that in countries

is an excellent and most valuable project. My special thanks

like Poland and Hungary democracy itself is in great danger.

go to the editorial board for its extensive editing and pub-

Macedonia is another prominent example of a democracy

lishing work.

in deep and constant crisis. There the “wiretapping scandal” provides an insight into the tool-box of autocratic conduct

Hansjörg Brey, Executive Director, Southeast

in the disguise of a formally democratic system. The massive

Europe Association, Munich.

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I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

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Vedran Džihić, Nicolas Hayoz

Questioning Democracy and Liberalism in the Eastern Part of Europe In South-Eastern and Eastern Europe, new forms of government are developing a grey zone between democracy and authoritarianism. This is due inter alia to a general crisis of democracy and the (neo-) liberal transformation strategy and EU enlargement fatigue. It is only recently that social protest has formed in opposition to these illiberal tendencies. – R. Z.

It is almost a truism to say that liberal democracy is no longer triumphing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. For the post-Soviet space it was always naïve to assume that these countries would gently follow the path of the transition model. But at least most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe belonging to the EU were engaged on a political and economic reform path and determined to establish liberal democracy. Europe’s multiple crises in the last decade seem to have slowed down or convinced the governments of certain countries (Poland being the latest example, Hungary the most prominent and most resilient) that (neo-)liberal reform is no longer an option. Building an “illiberal state” – whatever this may mean – is not only part of an ideological narrative placing the nation at the centre of politics, but is being translated – in the worst case – into policies turned against basic European values such as the rule of law, freedom of the media or checks and balances. In this regard, policies in countries that are members of the EU or that are pretending to be moving towards EU membership not only reveal deficits in their understanding of a modern liberal democracy, but also show that democracy is not the only game in town. Temporary crisis or democratic decline?

This may still be an exaggeration – but there are certainly tendencies among political leaders in this part of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe to flout democratic norms and a growing tendency among parts of the population to accept illiberal policies. On the other hand, most of the post-Soviet countries are autocracies without any prospect or will to move to the shores of liberal democracy. And in Russia’s neighbourhood one can see a series of countries which are involved in a difficult transformation process and confronted with the question of whether they want to belong to the West and join the European Union or be integrated into a Russian “hemisphere”.  As a matter of fact, they are part of geopolitical zones of conflict, which after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine could be presented, as Alina Mungiu-Pippidi rightly put it, as a new European border on the Dniester, a border marking two different conceptions of political order, modernisation and geopolitical influence. 4 Analyzing all these trends, the recent Bertelsmann Transformation Index for 2016 referred to this new illiberal European belt as a “ring of fire” emerging in Europe and stretching from Russia down to Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and further towards Turkey and beyond to Azerbaijan. 5 The new “ring of fire” alludes to an ongoing process of challenging the underlying assumption of the “transition to democracy” paradigm, which at the beginning of the 1990s, caught by the euphoria following the end of the Cold War, included a notion of linear progress towards the normative “end” of transitional processes – Western-style liberal democracy. What we face today rather resembles a regression in democratic development than democratization, encompassing various aspects of authoritarian rule more strongly than liberal values. If democracy, accompanied by liberal values and stable institutions, has not (entirely) materialized in an expected and assumed manner, the question is what has contributed to said stagnation of and weaknesses in democratic development? Here the answers are as manifold as the countries we focus on in this special issue. Yet certain family resemblances and patterns of new illiberal or authoritarian governmentality have emerged and warrant close scrutiny.

The political elites in Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, until recently in Romania and now also in Poland seem to have developed particular skills and energies in implementing illiberal policies, calling into question the checks and balances of the liberal state or even transforming the original democratic project into an unfair game to be controlled by the incumbents of political power. In some cases observers have described the national leaders as “Putin wannabes”. This may be an exaggeration, since none of the Eastern or South-Eastern European political regimes come close to the type of autocracy realized by Putin and his followers. Still, there is an illiberal and even authoritarian “temptation”, which may be temporary, an expression of crisis, of frustration directed against certain policies of the EU. It might also be the case that we are facing the beginning of a historic decline in democracy and the rise of a new authoritarianism. The Guardian has recently told the same worrying story: “A long malaise in continental liberal democracy Common denominators among illiberal regimes is beginning to feel more like decline”.1 And Michael Ignatieff even In order to analyze family resemblances and patterns of new illiberrecognizes it on the higher global level when portraying mainly al or authoritarian governmentality, one of the obstacles identified Russia and Turkey but also China: “A new political competitor to by scholars is the dichotomy between democracy and authoritariliberal democracy began to take shape: authoritarian in political anism. The pattern in the debates is still dominated by dichotomies: form, capitalist in economics, and nationalists in ideology.” 2 liberal democracies on one side (such as the USA) and authoritarian In any case, the European Union has yet to find adequate bad guys on the other. The reality of these newly emerging regimes answers. For some scholars, like Anton Shekhovtsov for example, is much more complicated than a simple dichotomy would be able the transition in Central Europe seems to be reversible, not to men- to explain. What we are facing is the emergence of a new type of governmention countries of the Western Balkans that seem to be stuck on their way to the EU, or the countries of the post-Soviet space, the tality where liberal order is openly attacked. In times of economic majority of which has not embarked on the path to the EU at all.3 and social crisis or any other major crisis as well as in times of a

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broadly felt crisis of democracy, new forms of authoritarian rule have proven to be perceived as attractive, flexible, adaptable, and more functional alternatives. What is emerging before our eyes, at least in some countries we are interested in, is new forms of regimes that reconcile competitive elections, multi-party systems, parliaments, constitutions and other elements usually associated with liberal democracies with the functional logic of authoritarianism and the mechanisms and techniques usually applied by authoritarian regimes (including strong party control of all processes in society and open or subtle repression). Those regimes adhere to the formal notion of democracy while creating a façade of formal democratic elements and even rule of law. They seek to underline their democratic character by a strong declarative and rhetorical commitment to democracy. Elections are regularly held and bitterly fought. The elections themselves are usually free of fraud. Furthermore, increasing limitations on fundamental rights such as the freedom of information, freedom of the press and the right to demonstrate can be observed. The governments have often justified restrictions and strong tendencies to equip the executive branch of the government with almost unlimited powers by pointing to the necessity of confronting internal and external threats. Ethnic or national issues, as well as religious questions or questions of territory and national sovereignty are often used by the regimes as a means to mobilizing voters or diverting attention from particular interests and non-democratic and non-transparent practices. 6

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Party (AKP) in Turkey or the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in Serbia the image of modernizing reformers. Populist leaders throughout Europe can mobilize disadvantaged social strata with their discourses against globalization, immigration and – last but not least – the EU itself. When additional crisis narratives (as seen recently in the case of the so-called refugee crisis or in the debates about terrorism) emerge, social mobilization is coupled with popular sentiments and fears and provides a very substantial foundation for populism and even extremism reaching deep into the realm of illiberalism. This new illiberalism goes hand in hand with closing borders, protecting the nation and celebrating the nation’s glory. One final remark on liberalism in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe: liberalism is about providing equal access to rights and freedoms but it was never about equal distribution of goods and social equality. Such an understanding of liberalism provided the foundation for the idea of the modern welfare state, an idea that has never really been rebuilt in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Instead, a profound socio-economic decline in some parts of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and quite prominently in the Balkans has undermined the legitimacy of democracy and Europe and opened up new spaces for the “return to the nation” and illiberalism. The “social basis for national populisms” (Fukuyama) will unfortunately continue to haunt Europe and its periphery. Creating legitimacy – how?

The longevity and stability of some authoritarian regimes proves A core assumption about Western liberal democracies being a the assumption that democracies are generally more legitimate normative role model for countries in Eastern and South-Eastern than hybrid regimes or autocracies wrong. Schlumberger claims Europe has lost a lot of its original credibility. The latest debates that authoritarian regimes may even enjoy some structural advanabout post-democracy and crises of democracy (see authors like tages over democracies when it comes to generating support as they Crouch, Fukuyama, Rosanvalon, etc.) underline the fact that the usually have more opportunities to control media and civil society crisis of democracy in the West (and particularly within the EU) and to monopolize the political discourse. 8 In short, they have an has changed the perception of democracy on its the periphery. The advantage when it comes to framing the political narratives. argument that free and fairly conducted elections are a necessary However, as Weber holds, the kind of legitimacy claimed by the but not sufficient condition of liberal democracies is yet another authority influences “the type of obedience, the kind of administraimportant assumption that is challenged here. The reduction of the tive staff developed to guarantee it” as well as the modes in which concept of democracy to a pure electoralism has certainly led to authority is exercised.9 Weber’s notion of legitimacy as a reciprocal significant problems. By placing a strong focus on the importance of relationship between the rulers and the ruled provides an important elections, the importance of other important elements of democracy tool that enables us to look beyond the façade of political reforms such as the active participation of citizens, the functioning of the and decode the essence of authoritarianism inherent to the regions state, or the redistributive ability of the welfare state have largely we examine. been underestimated. Gerschewski is among the few authors to have addressed the We argue that the weakening of realistic prospects of EU acces- question of legitimacy in the context of the debate on new authorsion within a reasonable timeframe supported the proliferation of itarian regimes. What he highlights is that all authoritarian sysgrey zone regimes in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood. The tems do indeed seek and manage to generate legitimation by the attraction of liberal democracy has diminished as a consequence population. Gerschewski distinguishes between “specific support” of enlargement fatigue and the EU’s fading interest in bringing the and “diffuse support” that regimes deploy in order to obtain legitEastern and South-Eastern countries closer to the community, but imation. “Specific support” refers to the regimes’ delivery of goods also with the tangible effects of the global economic crisis. (security, welfare and so on), whereas “diffuse support” refers to The  (neo-)liberal model in Eastern Europe was always based on what the regime “actually is or represents” (ideology, forms of the idea that the wild and liberal capitalism of the transition period religio-nationalistic claims, the charisma of leaders, and (real or would produce more winners than losers.7 Today it is obvious that imagined) external threats).10 this is no longer the case, not even in Poland, which has always Taking Gerschewski’s concept of legitimation and “specific and been presented as the one success story of neo-liberalism in Eastern diffuse support” as a point for further research and thinking, the Europe. The global financial crisis and the subsequent debates about assumption is that narrative and ethno-religious discourses (as part rising global inequality have become a truism in Central Europe, of the “diffuse support”) as well as continuous reference to internal the Balkans and in the post-Soviet space. Taking an even closer look and external threats constitute important elements of legitimacy at the countries that were lined up in the EU accession process or in our three regions. On the other hand we argue that maintaining are still part of the EU enlargement package (Turkey and the West- the stability and legitimacy of a regime in a long-term perspective ern Balkans), one can argue that in several cases the EU accession also requires a sufficient level of serving and satisfying people’s (or process and structural reforms in line with neoliberal conceptions popular) demands, which is why we examine the “specific support” provided a source for legitimizing the replacement of established by scrutinizing the clientelistic networks and alliances established power centers. Moreover, taking up a pro-EU line and the adapta- and maintained by the respective ruling parties. In that regard, the tion to neo-liberalism gave parties like the Justice and Development party apparatuses of ruling parties not only play a crucial role for The weakness of the European liberal role model

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No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

but not necessarily democratic and effective leader is privileged. Here we will probably find an interesting relationship between leaders and followers which might add an additional explanatory puzzle to understanding why so many “toxic leaders” could and can stay in power for long periods of time. Interesting explanatory concepts in this context are Ludger Helms’ recent studies on bad leadership in liberal democracies. Helms (2014: 51) underlines the growing importance of leadership in the political decision-making processes in democracies and concludes that the study of bad leadership “offers important clues as to how to avoid at least some of the mistakes that tend to undermine the prospect of good democratic leadership”. The problem here is that such advice is not a great help, particularly in “grey zone” regimes or in authoritarian regimes, as no institutional “learning mechanism” would be so powerful as to force bad leaders to withdraw. Institutions, mechanisms of institutional checks and balances as well as free media and civil The premiers of Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic – society in grey-zone regimes are generally too weak to stop bad Robert Fico, Volodymyr Groysman, Beata Szydło, Viktor Orbán and Bohuslav leaders doing harm to their societies. We do know, as Helms puts it, Sobotka – at the 26th Eastern and Central European Economic Forum in the that “smart institutions and a firm commitment to good democratic Southern Polish town of Krynica on 6 September 2016. Photo: Keystone leadership among both citizens and leaders have to come together” in order to have democratic and good governance in place.14 But the mobilization of the electorate on both the national and local what if the citizens like or do not resist the “bad leader”? What if levels, but are also central elements for maintaining and stabilizing the tools and mechanisms for manipulating the “published opinpower in the long run. In many ways these parties in the grey zone ion” and presenting that figure as a successful “crisis manager” are between democracy and authoritarianism combine charismatic effective and create popular support for such leaders? This is the leadership with machine politics. reality in many countries of Eastern Europe, in the Balkans as well In almost all countries discussed in this special issue, machine as in the post-Soviet space. Obviously, here we observe important politics have been combined with a leadership cult, ethno-religious differences between liberal democracies and non-democracies or discourses and the promise of revanchism and re-distribution illiberal regimes in terms of the quality of leadership: whereas a replacing ideology. As Scott holds, an important element of such liberal regime is about containing leaders and the power of the state, machine politics is precisely the aforementioned populisms and the an illiberal regime would always first ask how to contain followers, image of working for the little man created by political elites. The the people, and expand the rule of the state, the Leviathan, as much boss, as we can imagine here either Putin or Erdogan, Vucic or as necessary for the elites to stay in power. Orbán, “conveys the image of working constantly for the interests Taking a closer look at the relationship between governance and of the poor and his attention is focused on their concrete needs and leadership, and here first and foremost between bad governance deprivations. Hints of municipal corruption are winked at, even and bad leadership, we must take into account three important applauded, by the machine clientele as the social banditry of an layers of the correlation. The first is the correlation between the urban Robin Hood […].”11 institutional setup of the country on the one hand and the form of In many cases in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and in the governance and leadership on the other. The second is seeking to post-Soviet space this kind of machine politics has been made pos- provide answers about the cultural preconditions of bad leadership, sible by economic (neo-)liberalization, which has always entailed the aspect of morality of leadership and the effects of bad leadership the replacement of enforceable citizen rights by the “social contract on societies. And the third layer would take into account the relaof informality”.12 The erosion of formal institutions and the under- tionship between bad leadership and informal politics and strucmining of civic rights have created a blurred space, dominated by tures, which seem to be particularly resilient in illiberal regimes or uncertainty, in which informal, intangible relations have gained non-democracies. prominence. Informality has also been a deliberate “technique of governing.” All “more-or-less soft variants of authoritarian Causes and effects of bad leadership regimes”13 have relied on informality as a governance practice. Par- Looking at the first layer, we can assume that effects of bad leadticularly in light of weak or failing ideological movements, personal ership in countries with weak and inefficient institutions are much allegiance, based on material dependency, primordial ties such as larger than in functioning democracies. Bad policies executed by family, clan affiliation, ethnic origins or religion have represented bad leaders lead directly to poor governance. Normally we have the basis of clientelistic mechanisms of maintaining dependency good reasons to expect, at least in a liberal rule-of-law-based conand securing control. text, that the system of checks and balances should function and that political opposition, the media or a critical civil society can be mobilized against an inefficient or even corrupt power, to demand Authoritarian governmentality and bad leadership We see from a variety of cases that bad leadership and dysfunc- accountability or to recall or dismiss those in power. In functional tional governance are no longer the exception but are threatening democracies, institutions are strong enough to constrain or dissuade to become a rule in the region, which is backsliding in terms of bad leaders, even though the negative effects on the governance of a democratic governance due to a variety of reasons, one of the most country can also be found in liberal democracies. Here the case of harmful and disastrous being bad and unaccountable leadership. Berlusconi can serve as a cautionary tale: in Berlusconi’s case we saw Here the obvious question is whether there are particular reasons an extreme abuse of power that resembles bad leadership and govin this part of Europe that might explain the many examples of bad ernance syndrome in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, with all leadership. The weak institutional setup is obviously one. But also the related problems such as corruption, clientelism and a constant the still predominantly traditional, nationalistic and patriarchal attempt to undermine the institutions of a liberal democracy. But political culture creates a societal framework in which the strong normally, bad leaders should not be able to undermine institutions

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and ruin the economy of a country. The same goes for informal politics, which can also be expected in liberal democracies, but does not directly endanger the democratic character of the country. In grey-zone countries and regimes that can be defined as illiberal, bad leadership compounds existing patterns of policy making through informal politics, clientelism and patronage. Returning to the notion of bad leadership per se and the embeddedness of leadership in a specific political culture, we argue that the “bad” in bad leadership is not easily and clearly defined, nor is how to distinguish it from good leadership. “Bad” is not necessarily “bad” everywhere, which shows that bad leadership is always also a result of an observation, of attribution and of expectations. Expectations with regard to good leadership vary from country to country and even increase, but in which direction? Sometimes it is in a more conservative authoritarian direction and in liberal democracies it appears as a demand for greater transparency or efficiency. “Post-heroic leadership” is probably what democracies most want and seek today. But in many countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, as a very centralized country, people are on the lookout for strong (male) heroic leaders associated with power, personal strength, determination, performance, the capacity to mobilize followers etc. Looking at Russia under Putin, we see that political institutions always reflect the norms and the political culture of the society in which they are established. This is also true for other aspects of political life such as tolerance of bad governance, corruption or specific forms of informal politics. This brings us to reflect on the relationship between bad leadership, bad governance and regime types. This involves thinking about forms of bad leadership and their occurrence in specific political contexts. Maybe certain forms of bad leadership can be expected more often in a non-democratic context with only weak institutional checks and balances. Here an interesting dimension of the correlation between morally bad governance and ineffective leadership seems to be important.15 In a nutshell – you can be a bad leader without being a liar, a thief or an opportunist politician obsessed with political power. Not every leader is as unscrupulous as Berlusconi and not many leaders have the freedom of action or can build up a neopatrimonial empire of wealth and influence like Vladimir Putin in Russia. If we are just speaking about inefficient and ineffective leaders, their poor performance, then we have a lot of bad leadership even in countries like Switzerland, Austria or Germany. Now we can see particularly in transitional regimes in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and even more so in countries such as Russia “mixed” forms of bad leadership combining bad and inefficient governance, morally bad leadership and a certain amount of “toxic leadership”, both in isolation and more pronounced when occurring in a combination, with devastating effects on governance. By introducing the concept of “toxic leadership”, a new dimension can be added to the protracted relationship between leadership and governance. As Jean Lipman-Blumen shows by referring to the example of George W. Bush, toxic leadership can harm even the most stable democracies, not to mention countries with weak institutions and huge informal sectors.16 In describing the case of Bush as a toxic leader, Lipman-Blumen introduces major elements of the concept. She writes of a “combination of incompetence, arrogance, and stubbornness” as characteristics of Bush and any toxic leader. Many of the features introduced by Lipman-Blumen are easily found in cases of leadership in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, where arrogance and stubbornness are paired with patriarchal, traditional and hierarchically structured societies. On the other side stands the violation of liberal values and basic human rights mentioned by Lipman-Blumen, which points to the illiberal character of such forms of leadership. Putting the two dimensions together draws the contours of what can be described as bad governance. In

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such a context it can be easily seen to what extent bad leadership and bad governance form a symbiotic relationship. With regard to bad governance Helms has introduced two basic aspects: bad governance as bad policies and bad governance as violations of norms of liberal democracy.17 Good but weak leadership may yield ineffective policies. The same is also true for the strong, effective but “toxic” leader obsessed by his power ambitions who turns against democratic principles. Such a leader, for example Putin or Gruevski in Macedonia, produces bad governance in the form of widespread corruption and neo-patrimonial power networks. We should add here a third type of leader: the populist, nationalist type, which can be combined with the other two: the inefficient leader and the amoral leader violating norms. Obviously bad leadership – and this would be the third layer – is particularly important in grey-zone regimes, always also an informal and highly personalized kind of leadership. “Toxic leaders” do everything they need and are able do in order to keep their followers or clientele in a kind of “symbiotic” dependence on their networks by providing advantages such as clientelism and patronage, which are in fact the “archetypes” of negative informal structures, practices or institutions.18 In the context of bad leadership coupled with bad governance and weak institutions, the question of whether informal institutions strengthen or undermine democracy is fundamental and of enormous relevance today. A considerable number of rather (quasi-)authoritarian political regimes, particularly in the countries of the former Soviet Union, are based on personalized, informal networks of power.19 Strong, but ethically bad leaders use their personal power, networks and resources in order to stay in power. And they sell their “strong leadership” as “legitimate power”. Looking at the concept of bad and toxic leadership from a normative standpoint, certainly the question of values once again comes to the fore. Since we define bad or toxic leadership as a critical feature of grey-zone regimes or illiberal democracies, and since in these regimes control of the media, and thus also control over values of liberal democracies including good governance, is seen as a central tool of exercising illiberal governance, we should provide a few examples regarding the freedom of media and speech. Here the countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and the Caucasus have recently seen a sharp decline in media freedom (cf. RGOW 10/2015). The most indicative developments illustrating the deterioration of media freedom are related to the massive pressure placed on the media by political elites and power circles, which amounts to the aforementioned violation of basic human rights, one of the key features of toxic leadership. Is there a “cure” for new authoritarian temptation?

Jan Werner-Müller, following a rather pessimistic survey of worrying trends in Eastern Europe in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, goes on to search for possible alternatives to growing illiberal trends. And he finds the “cure” in the “people”, which – as he puts it – “may prove better than their political establishments”. And finally: “The people of the region must safeguard the legacy of their revolutions by once more showing such resolve – and blocking attempts by Orbánstyle populists to now steal them.” 20 “People”, usually framed collectively as civil society, play a key role as a democratic corrective force in all societies, all the more so in those that embarked on a transitional path from an authoritarian regime to a liberal democracy in the early 1990s. The idea is basically that civil society fundamentally helps to develop and sustainably embed a democratic political culture, thus preventing countries from lapsing back into authoritarian rule. Against this background, it is easier to understand why so much – and generally too much – is expected of civil society as a cure-all, especially in times of illiberal challenges. In order to form a realistic picture of civil society and citizens’ movements, its role and potential

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as well as its limitations, it is first of all essential to move away from over-simplified images of civil society and hopes of salvation. Civil society is not always or automatically a cure for illiberalism and a guarantee of sustainable democratic development. But in times of new clashes within societies, in times where the front lines between those defending values of liberalism and democracy and those negating and fighting them are increasingly visible and surrounded by conflicts, the “people” – be it assembled in the form of civil society or protest movements – once again becomes an agent of change or liberal resistance. This goes both for Eastern and South-Eastern European countries but also for all Western countries facing crises of democracy, extremist movements and ideologies, etc. One of the major moments of challenges to illiberalism, as seen in Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, Turkey or Ukraine, are social and protest movements (cf. RGOW 4–5/2015). In the past few years we have seen a new dimension and a new quality. Social protests, most of which we have witnessed recently, are the most important development of democratic politics in the regimes “in-between” in the past two decades. The political establishment, however, is fighting back against these new social movements with all its might. There are plenty of role models for authoritarian rulers, such as Putin or Erdogan, who only know the force of repression, the police and the deeply symbolic water cannons. Fukuyama, in his recently published Political Order and Political Decay argues that “Democracies exist and survive only because people want and are willing to fight for them; leadership, organizational ability, and oftentimes sheer good luck are needed for them to prevail.” 21 But in any case, social and protest movements, citizens’ action taken against “untouchable” political elites, against injustice, corruption, the malfunctioning of the state and the economy, and generally against illiberal trends spreading across the region under the guise of formal democracy, are creating a momentum of resistance against illiberalism and a new coalition assembled around the values of open societies.

3) https://lif.blob.core.windows.net/lif/docs/default-source/ publications/is-transiting-reversible-the-case-of-central-europe-january-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=8. 4) Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina: The Quest for Good Governance. How Societies Develop Control of Corruption. Cambridge 2015. 5) http://www.bti-project.org/en/home/. 6) Bohle, Dorothee; Greskovits, Bela: Varieties of Capitalism and Capitalism “tout court”. In: European Journal of Sociology 3 (2009), 355–386 (362). 7) Fukuyama, Francis: American Political Decay or Renewal. In: Foreign Affairs 4 (2016), 58–68. 8) Schlumberger, Oliver: Opening Old Bottles in Search of New Wine: On Nondemocratic Legitimacy in the Middle East. In: Middle East Critique 19, 3 (2010), 233–250 (236). 9) Weber, Max: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (with an Introduction by Talcott Parsons), NewYork 1966, 325. 10) Gerschewski, Johannes: The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Co-optation in Autocratic Regimes. In: Democratization 20, 1 (2013), 13–38 (20). 11) Scott, James C.: Machine Politics, and Political Change. In: The American Political Science Review 63, 4 (1969), 1142–1158 (1144). 12) Harders, Cilja: Revolution I und II – Ägypten zwischen Transformation und Restauration. In: Jünemann, Annette; Zorob, Anja (eds.): Arabellions. Zur Vielfalt von Protest und Revolte im Nahen Osten und Nordafrika. Heidelberg 2011, 19–42 (24). 13) Giordano, Christian; Hayoz, Nicolas: Informality in Eastern Europe. Structures, Political Cultures, and Social Practices, Bern 2013, 11–12. 14) Helms, Ludger: When Leaders are not good: Exploring bad leadership in liberal democracies across time and space. In: Kane, John; Patapan, Haig (eds.): Good Democratic Leadership. Oxford 2014, 51–69 (54, 64). 15) This is in fact a basic distinction introduced by Kellermann, Barbara: Bad Leadership. What it is, How it Happens, Why it Matters. Boston 2004. 16) Lipman-Blumen, Jean: The Allure of Toxic Leaders. Oxford 2004. A few remarks on the aims and the variety of papers in this 17) Helms, Ludger (ed.): Poor leadership and bad governance. special issue Reassessing presidents and prime ministers in North America, This special issue serves multiple purposes. First of all, we wish Europe and Japan. Cheltenham 2012. to take a closer look beyond the frequently and easily used terms “illiberalism” or “authoritarianism” by focusing on ongoing devel- 18) See Ledeneva, A. V.: Informality and informal politics. In: Handbook of Russian Politics and Society London 2012; Helmopments in the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space. The authors assembled in this journal provide ke, G. and Levitsky, S. Informal institutions and comparative deeper insights into the dynamics of regimes in Ukraine, Georgia, politics:  a research agenda. In: Perspectives on Politics 2, 4 Moldova, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bosnia (2004), 725–740. and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croa- 19) Levitsky, S. and Way, L. A.: Competitive Authoritarianism. Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge 2010. tia and Turkey. Obviously, not all of them can be described as illiberal or authoritarian; there are many shades of grey and variations 20) Müller, Jan Werner: Eastern Europe goes South. In: Foreign Affairs 3/4 (2014), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ in the countries’ historical and recent developments and in the ways eastern-europe-caucasus/2014-02-12/eastern-europe-goesthese regimes exercise power. In any case, on the basis of sound south. analysis of selected countries accompanied by rather general and comparative thoughts we aim to go beyond mere regionalism and 21) Fukuyama, Francis: American Political Decay or Renewal. In: Foreign Affairs 4 (2016), 58–68. towards a broader conceptual understanding of new illiberalism and authoritarianism. Trying to find and describe family resemblances and patterns of new illiberal or authoritarian governmentality on the European periphery is a task that we cannot entirely Vedran Džihić, PhD, Senior Researcher at the fulfil in this journal, but a first step towards a broader discussion Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip), has hopefully been taken. Vienna. Nicolas Hayoz, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Fribourg, Director of Notes the Interfaculty Institute for Central and Eastern 1) Behr, Rafael: As Le Pen rises Europe’s liberal dream is disapEurope, Director of the Research Programme Acapearing in front of our eyes. In: The Guardian, 9.12.2015. demic Swiss Caucasus Net (ASCN) and Regional 2) Ignatieff, Michael: New World Disorder. In: New York Research Promotion Program (RRPP) Western Review of Books 25 (2014), http://www.nybooks.com/artiBalkans. cles/2014/09/25/new-world-disorder/.

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I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

Anton Shekhovtsov

The No Longer Silent Counter-Revolution The rise of the new right must be seen as a reaction to the growth of post-material and cosmopolitan attitudes since the Second World War. The washed up catch-all parties and postmodernism have left an ideological vacuum that has been infiltrated by right-wing extremist parties. Yet it is not they that primarily profit from the present crisis of the EU but national conservative politicians such as Orbán or Kacýnski. – S. K.

In 1977, Ronald Inglehart published his widely acclaimed The The first phenomenon, “catch-all” political parties, is rooted in Silent Revolution, in which he argued that a “silent revolution” the period of extraordinary peace for the Western capitalist world had been occurring in the West as well as fundamentally chang- during the Cold War. The post-war European integration project ing it.1 The unprecedented prosperity experienced by Western aimed specifically at preventing violent conflicts between Euronations during the Cold War and the absence of total war, Ingle- pean states that were not part of the socialist bloc, and – partly hart maintained, contributed to the process of gradual transfor- due to the fact that the majority of the capitalist European states mation of individual values from materialist to post-materialist: were also members of NATO – they indeed succeeded in avoiding once needs related to physical survival are met, people move to military clashes. The feeling of security and perception of peace fulfil the needs for love, belonging and esteem, and then “intellec- as routine contributed to the rise of post-materialists, but also to tual and aesthetic satisfaction take on central importance” – the the emergence of “catch-all” political parties. In 1966, Otto Kirchlatter he termed “post-materialist values”. In the political sphere heimer described them as essentially mass-based election-oriented of the Western nations, the “silent revolution” was underpinned organisations that appealed not to particular groups within a sociby two major trends: (1) “a shift from overwhelming emphasis ety, but to the society in general. 5 Due to the liberal-democraton material consumption and security toward greater concern ic consensus in the larger part of the capitalist West, “catch-all” with the quality of life”, and (2) “an increase in the political skills parties differed little in ideological sense and produced fewer and of Western publics that enables them to play a more active role fewer big ideas, and as early as 1970s social movements “accused in making important political decisions”. 2 Naturally, post-mate- the political parties, left and right, of operating without vision”. 6 rialists were only a minority among Western societies, but they Simultaneously, the extended peacetime of the Cold War era were arguably best educated and most active in politics. Post-ma- allowed for the rise of yet another phenomenon: postmodern polterialists were also the main drivers of European integration and itics. The latter renounced ideological master discourses, most the fostering of cosmopolitan identity. importantly liberalism and Marxism, and claimed that no politBut there was also a “silent counter-revolution”, as Piero ical truth existed – only individual standpoints to interpret mulIgnazi termed it. 3 He argued that during the 1980s, against the tiple “realities”. Grand visions and big ideas were not necessarily background of “a growing dissatisfaction vis-a-vis the political vital instruments of electoral mobilisation for “catch-all” parties, system and a corresponding decline in confidence in its effica- but for political postmodernists they were anathema. cy”, 4 a new movement emerged in Europe that was simultaneBoth “catch-all” parties and political postmodernists, to a cerously a result of, and a backlash against, the silent revolution tain degree, provided fertile ground for the rise of the far right of the post-materialists; this movement was associated with the in the 1990s and, especially, in the 2000s. The former contributrise of a new type of far-right parties that were different from ed to the growing perception of liberal democracy as a project fascist organisations of the interwar period and the neo-fascist of the select few who allegedly lost touch with common people. parties of the post-war era. In contrast to the “post-materialist For many in Europe, liberal democracy was no longer simply an optimism” and cosmopolitanism of the presumably progressive ideology or a form of government; rather, it increasingly came to silent revolution, silent counter-revolutionaries demanded law be perceived as a symbol, or even an embodiment of the causes, and order enforcement and stricter immigration control. New of inequality. radical right-wing parties rejected multiculturalism and insisted Political post-modernists, on the other hand, contributed to on the active protection of what they considered to be national or the weakening of the post-war liberal-democratic consensus in European traditional values. But despite their sometimes signifi- the West by deconstructive attacks on the foundations of libercant electoral successes during the 1990s, the far right remained al thought. Political post-modernism also became a prominent largely in the opposition. Since then, however, many things have element of what has become known as the “return of Realpolichanged, and counter-revolutionaries opposing the liberal-dem- tik” in the 2000s. Since liberal democracy was just one of many ocratic consensus no longer appear to be silent. other forms of governance, relations between Western states and between the Western world and non-Western nations could be governed not by moral values but by moral relativism, not by libReasons for the rise of right-wing extremism In order to understand these changes, it seems important to brief- eral principles of justice, human rights and freedom, but by pragly discuss two relatively recent political phenomena that both matic considerations and individual national interests. In other reflect the inability or even unwillingness of modern mainstream words, international relations within the discourse of postmodliberal-democratic forces to articulate grand visions of a political ern Realpolitik should be governed by momentary assessments future of the West and the world. of fluid, contextual and circumstantial “realities”. This principle

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became toxic for the internal developments in the West, and its Austria, Hungary’s Jobbik, the French National Front or the Italimplementation resulted in the erosion of solidarity among West- ian Northern League, the “mainstream” counter-revolutionaries such as Orbán or Trump can draw on resources inaccessible to the ern states and the growth of isolationism. traditional radical right-wing populists, as well as implementing policies that would not differ much from those that could potenThe new and the old right When the liberal progressivist “end of history” ended with tially be implemented by the National Front or Jobbik were they Al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on the United States in September to come to power.16 2001, 7 the collective West – despite being militarily and economThe radical right-wing parties led the silent counter-revoically superior to any other bloc – appeared weak in terms of lution against liberal democracy in the 1980 and 1990s, but in philosophical and ideological opposition to the challenges posed the new century it is largely mainstream national-conservative by the enemies of liberal democracy. Proceeding from bad to politicians who take the opportunities enabled by the philosophworse, the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, the resulting Great ically sterile political space created by the ideologically exhausted Recession (the worst since the Second World War) and austerity “catch-all” parties and cynical political post-modernists, and are policies undermined the economic superiority of the West. More able not only to dramatically weaken the Western post-war liberrecently, Islamist terrorist attacks and fear of them, migration al-democratic consensus, but also to undermine the international and refugee crises, austerity policies, the Eurozone crisis and a security architecture. perceived lack of effective leadership has produced an environment that fosters isolationist thinking even further. With liberal Notes progressivism in retreat and few global visions articulated, many 1) Inglehart, Ronald: The Silent Revolution: Changing Values citizens of Western nations started seeking existential refuge in and Political Styles among Western Publics. Princeton 1977. local, regional, national and religious identities. 2) Ibid., p. 363. The far right embraced the opportunities offered by the 3) Ignazi, Piero: The Silent Counter-revolution: Hypotheses on spread of political, economic, cultural and existential anxieties the Emergence of Extreme Right-wing Parties in Europe. In: in the West. In contrast to the intellectually exhausted mainEuropean Journal of Political Research 22, 1 (1992), 3–34. stream liberal democrats, the far right do possess an ability to 4) Ibid., p. 25. offer global alternative visions for the world order. And unlike 5) Kirchheimer, Otto: The Transformation of Western Europepolitical post-modernists, the far right reject the idea of multiple an Party Systems. In: LaPalombara, Joseph; Weiner, Myron “realities”: only one reality exists and they are prepared to stand (eds.): Political Parties and Political Development. Princeton their ground. 1966, 177–200. But while the far right has obviously gained momentum in 6) Aronowitz, Stanley: Postmodernism and Politics. In: Social the last decade, this was not the radical right-wing parties that Text 18 (1987/88), 99–115 (101). became the embodiment of the no longer silent counter-revo- 7) Kagan, Robert: The Return of History and the End of Dreams. New York 2008. lution. Rather, it is Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s promise to build “an illiberal state” in Hungary; 8 it is the harsh 8) Full Text of Viktor Orbán’s Speech at Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádanti-immigrant rhetoric of the Czech president Miloš Zeman,9 fürdő) of 26 July 2014, The Budapest Beacon, 29 July 2014, the Slovak prime minister Robert Fico10 and the leader of the http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/full-text-of-vikPolish ruling party Law and Justice Jarosław Kaczyński;11 it is the tor-orbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-juBrexit referendum that “has taken the shame out of racism”12 and ly-2014/10592. led to a surge of hate crimes in the UK after the majority of voters 9) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/14/milosdecided to withdraw from the EU; it is the high-level appeasement zeman-czech-leader-refugees. of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin’s right-wing authoritarian 10) http://w w w.express.co.uk /news/world/610923/Slovaregime after the Russian invasion of Ukraine;13 it is the popularity kia-Robert-Fico-Refugee-Crisis-European-Union-Quoof the racist US presidential candidate Donald Trump. ta-Member-states. Meeting with Jarosław Kaczyński in September 2016, Vik- 11) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/polandrefuses-to-take-a-single-refugee-because-of-securitytor Orbán declared that Brexit was “a fantastic opportunity”, “a fears-a7020076.html. historic cultural movement” that allowed for “a cultural counter-revolution”.14 Kaczyński replied that they needed to “take the 12) http://www.irr.org.uk/email/brexit-and-xeno-racism-helpus-to-build-the-national-picture/. initiative” and change the EU. While their idea of a counter-revolution may simply be interpreted as the EU’s decentralisation 13) https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tighten-eusanctions-on-russia-by-guy-verhofstadt-2016-06. and devolving more power to national parliaments, it cannot be ignored that both Orbán and Kaczyński see European nations 14) www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e825f7f4-74a3-11e6-bf48-b372cdb1043a. html. as ethnically and religiously homogeneous entities. Their parties skilfully exploited ethnic and religious nationalism to mobilise 15) Mudde, Cas: Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Camthe voters, and after they came to power, they took steps to secure bridge 2007, pp. 22–23. full control over their states by transforming and degrading their 16) The Budapest-based Political Capital Institute noted that by, institutions, especially constitutional courts and public media. spring 2015, Fidesz had “implemented several measures that If radical right-wing parties  – despite the ongoing de-radwere originally part of Jobbik’s program”. See “Jobbik’s Policy Proposals Realized by Fidesz: A Summary in 10 Points”, Politicalisation process  – still struggle to present themselves as a legitimate and respectable part of the political process, neither ical Capital Institute, May 15 (2015), http://www.riskandforeOrbán, nor Kaczyński, nor Zeman, nor Trump, nor the leaders cast.com/post/flash-report/jobbik-s-policyproposals-realof the “Leave the EU” campaign in the UK need to prove the ized-by-fidesz-a-summary-in-10-points_818.html. political eligibility of their ideas that combine ultra-nationalism and populism – ideological elements that are considered major Anton Shekhovtsov, PhD, political scientist, curelements of radical right-wing ideology.15 Moreover, in contrast rently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Human Studies in Vienna. to the traditional far-right parties such as the Freedom Party of

No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

Vlastimil Havlík

Populism and Political Entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic The Czech Republic is considered an exemplary case of effective post-communist transformation and democratisation. But the populist rhetoric and politics of the current president and the rise of entrepreneurial parties represent a threat to this model of success. President Zenan uses a rhetoric of friends and enemies and his idea of majoritarian democracy offers very little protection to minorities. An unprecedented amount of political and economic power is concentrated in the hands of political entrepreneurs. – S. K.

such as Tomáš Masaryk, Edvard Beneš and more recently Václav Havel or Václav Klaus. In short, the Czech president, although he does not have any great powers, is not a normal politician, but an institution of great authority. The introduction of direct election to the presidency in 2012 by runoff (the two most successful candidates compete against each other in a second round) contributed to one of the most polarised election campaigns in the country’s history post-1989 and led to the election of Miloš Zeman, premier of a left-ofcentre government from 1998 to 2002. Shortly after he was elected president in January 2013, Zeman began to pursue a policy that poses a threat to the tried and tested structures of Czech parliamentary democracy. Firstly, it strengthens the position of the head of state without regard for the parliamentary principle of the form of government. Secondly, Zeman supports the model of majoritarian democracy and to this end uses populist images. Shortly after his election, the Czech Republic was gripped by a political crisis brought about by accusations of corruption levelled at premier Petr Nečas which ultimately led to his resignation and the collapse of the entire right-of-centre government. Despite the avowedly slight majority enjoyed by the right-of-centre parties in the parliament, Zeman decided not to appoint the coalition’s candidate the new premier, but instead chose his party-less friend Jiří Rusnok. Rusnok’s expert government did not receive a majority in the parliament however. Since Zeman was not prepared to create a normal party government, the parliament was dissolved and new elections were brought forward to the October of 2013. Along with his – ultimately unsuccessful – efforts to transform the political system into a semi-presidential sysIlliberal political culture in Prague Castle tem of government, Zeman’s populist action in appointing Political culture, as a collection of historically rooted and Rusnok reveals his perception of democracy: the president generally shared beliefs, feelings and values related to the refused to appoint a new right-of-centre party after the essence of political systems, is an important factor in poli- political crisis of 2013 because “that is not what the majority tics. It shapes our expectations of politics and our political of the population wants”. 4 Although Zeman explained that behaviour. Political culture contains a set of norms com- this presumed majority was not formed by his voters during prised of various sources – and politicians play a prominent the presidential elections, he pursued an illiberal populist role in its composition. 3 The president plays an especial- vision of a majoritarian democracy in which constructed a ly important role in the Czech Republic, since his seat of moral divide between the common people (which in fact coroffice is Prague Castle (the old seat of the Bohemian princes) responded to his voters and comprised less educated, older and the position has been held by important personalities people with respect for authority and left-wing leanings)

Most attention regarding the illiberal turn in East Central and Eastern Europe has recently been directed towards Hungary and Poland.1 This is hardly surprising, given Kaczyński’s project of a Fourth Republic (IV Rzeczpospolita) and Orbán’s national conservative vision for Hungary. In both cases attempts are being made (to an extent successfully) to push through political reforms that undermine the distribution of power between various control mechanisms and institutions, including the constitutional courts, thus shifting the systems of government towards the model of illiberal democracies. Historically, the Czech Republic has never been at the centre of such debates. This is hardly surprising, for country at the heart of Central Europe (together with Slovenia) has been considered a model of successful political and economic transition, since it can point to a relatively stable set of liberal political institutions, a calm party system and rather sustainable economic growth free of any great disruptions. 2 Political developments in recent years call this success story into question however. This article is concerned with the “populist turn” in Czech politics embodied by the policies of the newly elected president Miloš Zeman and the rise of new political entrepreneurs in the parliamentary elections of 2010 and 2013. In my opinion, the most recent rise of various populist actors whose pragmatic approach to politics goes hand in hand with a preference for the model of majoritarian democracy and a lack of respect for conventional mechanisms of democratic checks and balances represents a challenge for the principles of a liberal-democratic form of government and the political culture of the Czech Republic.

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characterised by economic pragmatism (good relations with China), Euroscepticism and a pro-Russian attitude (that is, denying Russian occupation of Crimea or ridiculing opposition to Putin  – Zeman described Pussy Riot as “half-prostitutes”10) . Or, in other terms: Zeman has skilfully constructed an essentially illiberal divide between the majority of society and various minority groups, including political and intellectual elites and migrants from Muslim countries. In the president’s strategy, these minorities, who are portrayed as inferior to him (and the common people), have become a target for ridicule in order to completely deny their legitimacy. In his opinThe Czech president Miloš Zeman visiting Russian president Vladimir Putin in May 2015. Photo: kremlin.ru ion, they do not deserve any of the and the others. The definition of these others depends on special protection typical of liberal-democratic forms of the context in question, but as a general simplification they government – or at least not without reservation. The term can be described as liberal, urban intellectuals (including “tyranny of the majority” was coined to describe this idea everyone who criticises Zeman) whom the president and his of democracy. As well as potentially impacting on the growing polarisaspokesman commonly refer to only as the “Prague café”. And finally, the Muslim immigrants have also become tion within society, Zeman’s attitudes and his actions – parpart of the president’s radicalised populist discourse: he usu- ticularly given the special role and perception of the instially uses right-wing extremist topoi in directly associating tution of the president in the Czech context – have a strong Islam and Muslims with terrorism and cultural and econom- influence on the country’s political culture. In other words: ic threats. As a result, xenophobia has become more prevalent Zeman (or indeed whoever is the Czech president) plays an because of Zeman’s public speeches. On 17 November 2015, extraordinarily strong role in determining the rules of the the 26th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Zeman even game. Under Zeman’s presidency, people can observe that gave a speech side by side with representatives of the right- ridicule, impolite behaviour, demagogy or lies and – even more importantly – an illiberal understanding of democracy wing movement “Bloc against Islam”. 5 are an everyday aspect of politics. Of course, Zeman is not the only politician to use these methods, but his prominent Populist ideas of friends and enemies Political disputes are part of politics, but it is also a question position makes him special case in this regard. of how they are conducted. The division between the people and the others constructed by Zeman is above all not based Anti-party populism on the usual ideological differences between the right and the A further illiberal development in recent years is the unprecleft or between conservatism and liberalism, but in essence edented concentration of political and economic power. For aims to completely disqualify opponents through insults instance, the party Věci veřejné (Public Issues), which gained and ridicule. This includes the aforementioned expression 10.9 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections of 2010, “Prague café” (implying people sitting around in cafés doing promised to fight corruption and introduce as many direct nothing, in contrast to the hard-working common people). democratic and participatory measures as possible, but the Demonstrators who had criticised the president during the party was two-headed: its hidden face was merely a business previous year at a rally marking the anniversary of the Velvet plan of its de facto leader and patron designed to enable his Revolution, were described as a “bellowing fascist herd”. 6 A security company to access state funds for public services. popular singer who had pointed to Zeman’s pro-Chinese The party ran like an entrepreneurial party lacking internal attitude was ridiculed as a “poor little girl” “who is not able democracy, not attempting to develop sustained ties with to speak three sentences without reading them”.7 And liberal a part of society but serving the economic interests of its intellectuals were compared with the elites of the authori- owner and pursuing a very murky ideological programme. tarian Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–1939). Reacting The discovery of this plan (and the corrupt behaviour of its to criticism by the Czech PEN club, Zeman’s spokesman members of parliament) soon led to internal division and declared that “the gulf between the so-called elite and the marginalisation of the party however.11 Czech citizens has not only become deeper, but has become In November 2011 Andrej Babiš, the owner of the Czech a deep chasm”. 8 On another occasion he announced via Republics’s largest agrochemical holding (Agrofert), foundtwitter that “according to the constitution, the people is the ed the party ANO 2011, which expressed its dissatisfaction only source of political power in the country, there’s not with corruption allegedly widespread in the Czech Republic. mention of the elites”.9 Anti-intellectualism has become an Shortly before the 2013 parliamentary elections, Babiš decidessential component of Zeman’s (and his spokesman’s) polit- ed to buy the publishing group MAFRA, which publishes the country’s two most widely read daily newspapers and news ical discourse. Another defining feature of the president’s anti-lib- portals. Following the elections, in which the party received eral attraction is his views on foreign policy, which are 19 percent of the vote, ANO 2011 formed a coalition with the

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Social Democrats (ČSSD) and the Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU-ČSL), and Babiš became finance minister. Similarly to Věci veřejné – but now openly – the party is run in centralist fashion with its leader and his cronies from Agrofert in prominent positions. Business not as usual

The threat to the foundations of a liberal democracy are clear: one of the most important characteristics of a liberal-democratic form of government is the separation of powers between the legislation, the executive and the judiciary, but also between the political, economic and media spheres. The fact that the leader of the most popular party acts as the finance minister, owns companies whose economic gain is closely connected to public subventions determined by the government, and owns important media represents an unprecedented concentration of power and the potential for using political functions for private interests. Some authors speak of oligarchic power structures when describing Babiš’s position in Czech politics. Although it is rather difficult to find direct evidence of the finance minister’s abuse of political power for financial gain, his companies’ profits have risen sharply on the basis of public tenders. Some studies also point to the media bias towards Babiš’s party, since they either criticise only his opponents or hardly ever report on the owners of Agrofert. Babiš’s career under the communist regime as a economic representative abroad, his alleged collaboration with the communist secret police (although a court in Slovakia concluded that his file did not constitute evidence of collaboration) and his very reputation since the 1990s as a very pragmatic entrepreneur (sometimes teetering on the edge of legality) do little to suggest the Slovak billionaire has much sympathy for liberal-democratic politics. It is thus hardly surprising that he has repeatedly questioned the role of parliament as a forum for discussion (terming it a “big den of nonsense”12) and has expressed his desire for limited institutional rights for the opposition in order that he might have more time for work.13 That does not mean that ANO 2011 is attempting to transform Czech democracy into a kind of authoritarian or even totalitarian regime, but the manager-like, expert-based ways of populist politics leave little room for democratic negotiation and protection for minorities. *** In conclusion, it can be said that in recent years the liberal face of post-1989 Czech democracy has been under unprecedented attack. This article has presented two significant causes: firstly the populist communication strategy of the president who (to an extent blindly) undermines some of the basic principles of liberal democracy, including protection for minority rights, and promotes the development of an illiberal political culture. An important aspect of the “presidential threat” is his orientation regarding foreign policy and his Euroscepticism, which are rooted either in his political pragmatism (a significant part of Czech society has Eurosceptic and pro-Russian leanings) or in personal economic advantages (Russian firms are alleged to have financed Zeman’s 2013 election campaign). Secondly, we can observe the rise of political entrepreneurs in whose hands unprecedented power is concentrated and who have only the slightest respect for the principles of liberal democracy. Both threats must not only be associated with certain actors, but must also be seen in the broader context of the growth of an illiberal political

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culture throughout the Czech Republic which could open the door to genuine non-democratic alternatives. Notes

1) Krasztev, Peter; Van Til, Jon (eds.): The Hungarian Patient: Social Opposition to an Illiberal Democracy. Budapest 2015; Stanley, Ben: Confrontation by Default and Confrontation by Design: Strategic and Institutional Responses to Poland’s Populist Coalition Government. In: Democratization 23, 2 (2016), 263–282. 2) Merkel, Wolfgang: Plausible Theory, Unexpected Results: The Rapid Democratic Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe. In: Bakke, Elisabeth; Peters, Ingo (eds.): Twenty Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Transitions, State Break-up and Democratic Politics in Central Europe and Germany. Berlin 2011, 57–76. 3) Vgl. Pye, Lucian W.; Verba, Sidney (eds.): Political Culture and Political Development. Princeton 2015. 4) Vládu sestaví Rusnok, rozhodl Zeman. Postavil se proti stranám; http://zpravy.idnes.cz/zeman-predstavilnoveho-premiera-bude-jim-rusnok-fby-/domaci.aspx?c=A130625_145418_domaci_kop. 5) Zeman zpíval s Konvičkou hymnu. Národ není xenofobní, nenechme sebou manipulovat, pronesl prezident; http://video.aktualne.cz/dvtv/zeman-zpival-s-konvickou-hymnu-narod-neni-xenofobni-nenechme/r~4f4e7dac8d5511e594520025900fea04/. 6) In his speech Zeman characterised the participants of a demonstration against him in the previous year as follows: “Bellowing is an instrument used by the fascists, bellowing is an instrument of the herd that gathered here last year.” 7) Chudinka holčička, řekl Zeman o Dusilové, podle níž nemá podlézat Číně; http://zpravy.idnes.cz/chudinka-holcicka-rekl-zeman-o-dusilove-podle-niz-nemapodlezat-cine-117-/domaci.aspx?c=A160417_120405_ domaci_kop. 8) Spisovatelé píší Zemanovi: Pane prezidente, šíříte nenávist; http://svobodneforum.cz/spisovatele-pisi-zemanovi-pane-prezidente-sirite-nenavist/. 9) h t t p s : / / t w i t t e r . c o m / p r e z i d e n t m l u v c i / s t a tus/668764143055425537. 10) Zeman opět provokuje: Bakala je zloděj, Pussy Riot poloviční prostitutky; http://www.lidovky.cz/bakala-je-zlodej-a-podvodnik-pussy-riot-polovicni-prostitutky-p7y-/zpravy-domov.aspx?c=A160225_191303_ln_ domov_ELE. 11) Havlík, Vlastimil; Hloušek, Vít: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: The Story of the Populist Public Affairs Party in the Czech Republic. In: Perspectives on European Politics and Society 15, 4 (2014), 552–570. 12) Ministr financí Andrej Babiš v Interview ČT24, http:// www.mfcr.cz/cs/aktualne/v-mediich/2014/ministr-financi-andrej-babis-v-interview-18. 13) Lidovcům dochází trpělivost s arogantním Babišem. ANO už se mělo rozkoukat, řekl Bělobrádek, http:// zprav y.akt ua lne.cz/domaci /politika / babis-v yhovel-lidovcum-pokud-elektronicka-evidence-trzeb-neb/ r~6528fc44701111e594170025900fea04/. Vlastimil Havlík is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Societal Studies at the Masaryk University of Brno. His research focuses on, inter alia, populism, Czech politics and Euroscepticism.

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No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

Magdalena Solska

Ambivalent “Good Change” in Poland Following its victory in the recent elections, the party Law and Justice (PiS) has quickly passed a number of controversial laws concerning the Constitutional Tribunal, the administration and the media. Despite its claim to represent the will of the people, the PiS does not have an electoral mandate to radically restructure the state. The party’s long-term success depends on whether it can keep its social promises. – R. Z.

The year 2015 marked the end of two terms in power for the centre-right Civic Platform (PO) and its coalition partner, the Polish People’s Party (PSL). The conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party unexpectedly won the presidential elections in May and five months later obtained 38 % of the vote and thus an absolute majority of seats in the Sejm (Polish Parliament). For the first time in the Polish semi-presidential system of power, one party controls the double executive and the legislative. Furthermore, two populist anti-establishment parties, Kukiz’15 and KORWiN, managed to win 14 % of the vote and attract around one third of voters under 30, mostly high school and university students (see RGOW 12/2015, 9–12).1 The victory of the PiS can be attributed to its rather skillful campaign addressing moral issues as well as traditional Polish values, and presenting new, dynamic candidates for the most relevant posts. The PO, in contrast, was visibly weakened by the “wiretapping scandal” of 2014, whereby relevant PO public officials including the foreign minister, the head of the National Bank and the head of the secret service were recorded in several exclusive Warsaw restaurants. Furthermore, the PiS responded to the anti-immigrant sentiments of many Poles and refused to accept migrants’ quotas imposed by the European Union and agreed upon by the previous government. Another decisive factor was a successful appeal to young people, pensioners, and inhabitants of rural and suburban areas, whose economic situation has been precarious. 3 It is they who felt neglected by the previous government, associated mainly with reductions in public spending, which was, however, a necessary measure to counteract the financial crisis affecting e. g. Hungary. As a result, Poles granted the PiS the right to govern on its own and to launch the promised “good change”, involving social assistance for families4 and a reduction of the age of pension eligibility. At the same time, it conducted several institutional reforms concerning the Constitutional Tribunal, the civil service, public media and making the Minister of Justice the general prosecutor (cf. RGOW 3/2016, 9–10). All the new acts were introduced rapidly, without proper public consultations and entailing several provisions that could undermine the autonomy of these institutions. Critical voices have been heard at home and abroad ranging from “authoritarianism à la Putin”, “constitutional coup d’état”, “a war against liberal democracy” to “infantile autocracy”. Has Poland turned from a master pupil to the lame duck of the EU? Is Polish democracy really in danger? Conflict surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal

one of the determinants of the new political order in the country. Finally, when the new constitution was introduced in 1997, the Tribunal became a “referee” of public politics conducted by different parliamentary majorities. 5 Most importantly, it declared the new law on lustration, prepared earlier in 2006 by the PiS and supported by the PO, as partially unconstitutional. Since then lustration in Poland has not moved forward. This is why the PiS has always regarded the CT as a strongly politicized institution. Earlier in 2015, the previous PO-PSL coalition introduced an amendment to the new Law on the Constitutional Court, which enabled it to propose candidates for the CT judges, whose terms in office were to expire after the new parliamentary elections. In the beginning of the October, the old parliament elected five new judges out of the total fifteen. The first three were elected to replace those whose term in office expired on 6 November, before the constitution of the new Sejm. The latter two judges were chosen to replace those whose term in office ended in December – at a time when the new parliament would undoubtedly already be in place. The governing coalition argued that it was necessary to secure the continuity of the CT’s full composition. On the contrary, the PiS stated that it was rather “a politically-driven attempt to prevent the new majority from electing the judges.”6 Accordingly, President Andrzej Duda refused to swear in all five judges elected by the old parliament. On 2 December the PiS majority elected five new CT judges, who were immediately sworn in by the president. On the same day, however, the CT ruled that the early election of the two “December judges” was unconstitutional and the president was obliged to swear in three remaining judges appointed by the old Sejm. The government delayed the publication of this decision, which was necessary to grant it a binding force, whereas the president has not complied with that CT ruling so far. Furthermore, the PiS introduced a new bill on 24 December, which, according to domestic and foreign experts as well as the Venice Commission, could paralyze the work of the CT in the future.7 This bill did not undergo any public consultations and was immediately signed into law by the president. All in all, the conflict has been initiated by the PO-PSL coalition’s hasty nominations, but the PiS has demonstrated no will to resolve it on the basis of a compromise, nor has it abided by the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal. It clearly discredits the party fostering the “good change” and may undermine the authority of the CT in the long run. National or party media?

The Constitutional Tribunal (CT) in Poland was introduced in Also in December the party changed the media law and replaced 1985 to cover the legitimacy crisis of the totalitarian system under all the executive boards and CEOs of public media companies. General Wojciech Jaruzelski. After 1989, in the context of the tran- While such practice is not new, the most controversial aspect consitory “small constitution”, the Constitutional Tribunal became cerned the temporary decision that the Director General of public

Photo: Keystone

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legal means of limiting and controlling the exercise of power”.13 Such liberalism, or in Sartori’s terms, “freedom from tyranny”, shall be guaranteed by the Constitutional Judges, who, as a matter of fact, do not have a democratic mandate. And this, in turn, the PiS is reluctant to accept. The vice minister of justice once stated that the “old” CT (before the appointment of five new CT judges by the PiS) would block reforms such as the “Family 500+” programme – reforms resulting from the will of the people.14 The PiS has correctly identified the problems of Polish society and its call for social justice. Perhaps it is using this social programme to distract attention from the policies subordinating state institutions. The institutional changes, however, even the weak position of the Constitutional Tribunal, do not have to mean the end of a democratic order. It all depends on the elite’s behavior in the long run, whether they play by the rules inherent to these institutions and whether political and social pluralism is not curMarch by PiS supporters with signs declaring “It was an attack”, in reference to the Polish government plane crash on 10 April 2010, and “Poland – let us tailed. It is therefore too early to categorise the changes carried follow the path of Lech Kaczyński”. out by the current PiS government. They undoubtedly display a tendency to control state institutions, to use these institutions to television was to be appointed by the Minister of the Treasury. 8 discredit the past ruling elites, to strengthen and shape national Eventually, the new law on national media introduced in July feelings and to construct recent history. It is thus necessary to 2016 altered the legal status of the public media, which were to closely observe the party’s next steps. At the moment, popular become “national institutions” subordinate to a new National support for the PiS is as high as that for all four oppositional Media Council and financed by an audiovisual tax. The “nation- parties combined. However, if its social promises turn out to be al media” should promote national history and culture, respect pure demagogy, at the next elections the Poles may surprise again. for Christian values and ethical principles. They should serve to promote civic activism, presenting diverse opinions and stances, Notes shaping the content and form of their messages according to the 1) http://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/wybory-parlamprinciples of editorial independence.9 Under the new director of entarne-2015-wyniki-glosowania-grup-zawodowych,589085. state television, Jacek Kurski, the former head of the presidential html; http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2016-07-25-marczecampaign of the late President Lech Kaczyński, channel 1 (TVP wski-en.html. 1) has become very one-sided. For instance, when it reported on 2) http://whogoverns.eu/another-shift-in-polish-politics/. the speech of Barack Obama at the NATO Summit in Warsaw, 3) http://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/wybory-parlamthe sentence “I expressed to President Duda our concerns over entarne-2015-wyniki-glosowania-grup-zawodowych,589085. certain actions and the impasse around Poland’s constitutional html. tribunal […]”10 was simply omitted. Moreover, the national media 4) The programme “Family 500+” entails 500 zloty (ca. 120 euros) for every second and further child. extensively cover the monthly commemorations of the plane crash in Smolensk in 2010 (cf. RGOW 9/2011, 19–21), organized 5) http://fakt y.interia.pl /rapor t y/rapor t-spor-wokol-tk / komentarze/news-rewolucja-w-tr ybunale-konstytucy by the PiS in front of the Presidential Palace. Additionally, a new jnym,nId,1940562. parliamentary commission on Smolensk has been established to once again investigate the causes of the plane crash and demon- 6) https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/NIT2016 _ Poland_0.pdf. strate the negligence of the former ruling elite. At the same time, President Duda has become the honorary patron of the newly 7) http://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1667754,1, prezydent-podpisal-nowa-ustawe-o-trybunale-konstytucy released propaganda film Smolensk, whose plot revolves around jnym-oto-11-jej-najwazniejszych-zalozen.read. the planned attack on the Polish head of state, Lech Kaczyński. Special film presentations are organized for schools across the 8) Bader, Katarina; Zapart, Tomasz: Polarisiert, politisiert und vielfältig. In: Osteuropa 66, 1–2 (2016), 131–148. country. Whereas the state media have become clearly pro-government, it is noteworthy that the private media landscape 9) http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/Druki8ka.nsf/Projekty/8-020-1772016/$file/8-020-177-2016.pdf. remains diverse and, for now, not in danger, however deeply it is 10) https://www.rt.com/news/350621-polish-censors-obamasplit into pro- and anti-PiS camps.11 democracy/. 11) Bader, Zapart: Polarisiert, politisiert und vielfältig (comLiberalism or the “will of the people”? The last parliamentary elections with a turnout of 51 % showed ment 8), p. 141. that the most frequent choice in Poland is electoral abstention. As 12) Interview with Prof. Radoslaw Markowski: Kaczyński po a result, the PiS could achieve an absolute majority with only 19 % wsze czasy. In: Gazeta Wyborcza 16–17 April (2016), p. 3. of votes of the eligible electorate.12 This would appear far from 13) Sartori, Giovanni: How Far Can Free Government Travel? In: Journal of Democracy 3, 6 (1995), 101–110. sufficient for a party to speak and act on behalf of the whole nation. Nonetheless, the party presents itself as the only true representa- 14) http://wpolityce.pl/polityka/275463-patryk-jaki-trybutive and protector of the common good. In its dominant narrative, nal-konstytucyjny-blokowalby-nasze-reformy-szanuje-opinthe PiS creates an artificial division between “liberal post-comie-sadu-najwyzszego-ale-sie-z-nia-nie-zgadzam. munism” and a “truly free Poland of solidarity with the poorest” while reducing the term “liberalism” to radical economic reforms Magdalena Solska, PhD, is a postdoctoral researchand individual freedom. However, contrasting liberalism with er and lecturer in political science at the Intersocial solidarity is misleading, because democratic order needs faculty Institute for Central and Eastern Europe both. Political liberalism is concerned with the “structural and (IICEE), University of Fribourg.

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No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

Grigorij Mesežnikov

The Extreme Right Challenge to Slovak Democracy Since the parliamentary elections in March 2016, a right-wing party has been represented in the Slovak parliament for the first time. The People’s Party– Our Slovakia is a radical antisystem organization seeking to abolish liberal democracy. The other parties represented in the parliament refuse to work with the right-wing extremists, but they remain a challenge to democracy in Slovakia. – S. K.

In March 2016 the right-wing extremist People’s Party–Our The first group of factors includes issues related to the Slovakia (L’S-NS) was elected into Slovakia’s parliament, overall development of Slovak society in recent decades, the receiving 8.04 % of the vote (14 seats in the assembly). The public perception of the socio-economic impact of reforms, the party ran in the 2010 and 2012 elections but only gained 1.33 % effectiveness of the exercise of power and the mainstream elites’ and 1.58 % of the vote and failed to qualify. Now, for the first addressing of societal challenges, and the persisting patterns of time in the history of post-communist Slovakia, the anti-sys- value orientations and types of political culture within the poptemic political force whose activities and overall profile stand in ulation (authoritarianism, paternalism, xenophobia). Another contradiction to the fundamental principles of liberal democ- obvious aspect is the impact of such factors as the mobilizing racy is represented in the legislative body. The party’s ideo- power of ethnic nationalism and anti-Roma racism, the ideological background and the political preferences of many of its logical legacy of the collaborationist war-time fascist Slovak members, including its leader Marian Kotleba, are marked by state that is still attractive to certain part of the population, the an evident inclination to fascism. The party rejects the current susceptibility of certain groups of the population to the isolaforeign policy orientation of the Slovak Republic based on alli- tionist ideas in the perception of Slovakia’s foreign policy and ance with the states of the democratic West and deep political, the country’s position in Europe and in the world, anti-Amereconomic, security and defense integration into Euro-Atlantic icanism, EU-phobia, anti-Western sentiment etc. structures. On the contrary, its leaders express sympathy for The second group includes diverse factors that are neverthe foreign policy of the Russian Federation, the state whose theless related in their complexity and co-shaping of the whole policies constitute one of the biggest security threats for the picture: reactions of the population to the migration wave to European Union and NATO today. Europe from countries with different ethnic and religious characteristics to the population (even though this wave completely bypassed Slovakia), the use of a specific segment of social media Reasons behind the rise of the L’S-NS The rise of populist and extremist forces is an evident recent and networks for communication and receiving information, trend in many European states. Xenophobia has become a pow- the penetration of “alternative” political and historical narerful mobilizing tool with an impact on policies, particularly ratives, including classic conspiracy theories, and ideological in Central Europe. In Slovakia, the national-populist parties infiltration from the outside supporting the formation of views have been the constituent parts of the political landscape since rejecting the values of liberal democracy. the fall of the communist regime and the introduction of parliaAn important situational factor was the weakened ability of mentary democracy. These parties operated in the Slovak par- the “standard” parties to effectively reach out to voters, which liament in all legislative cycles since 1990, in some cycles even led to a decline in their electoral support and helped the extremas ruling parties. Despite their populist nature and authori- ist party to take over a considerable part of their electorate. tarian tendencies in the exercise of political power, however, A phenomenon that manifested itself in Slovakia in the 2016 they were not anti-systemic extremist formations marked by elections to a greater extent than in elections in previous years totalitarian ideologies. The L’S-NS undoubtedly uses populist was the activation of those parts of the population that normally anti-establishment rhetoric and used populist methods when belong to the category of non-voters. A substantial part of these appealing to voters, but its main characteristic is not that it voters in 2016 opted for the “alternative” (newly created) parties, is a populist and anti-establishment organisation, but that it while many of them supported just the right-wing extremist is an extremist and anti-systemic one. Its goal is to replace L’S-NS. The overall success of the party was also due to the the existent socio-political system with another in which the stronger inclination of first-time voters. According to exit polls basic features of the liberal-democratic political system, a free carried out on election day, of all competing parties the L’S-NS market economy and an open, culturally diverse society would received the highest number of votes in this category. disappear. The lack of efficiency and the often poorly qualified perWhy has this party become a relevant part of Slovakia’s party formance of the state institutions (bodies with executive and system? It is the result of the interaction of multiple factors. judicial powers) in securing the strict legal framework for politSome of them can be described as long-term, associated with the ical and other public activities of members of the right-wing deeper trends in society’s development, while others are rather extremist scene also contributed to the success of right-wing situational, associated with the recent events and tendencies in extremists in 2016. This resulted in the creation of an atmodevelopments within the country and around the world. sphere of tolerance for the open spreading of racist ideas and

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messages containing propaganda promoting inequality and violence. This atmosphere provided comfortable conditions for the activities of right-wing extremist groups, for their communication with sympathizers, allowing them to poison the public discourse with views that were in irreconcilable conflict with the principles and values of liberal democracy. Factors associated with the formation of the historical consciousness of the population, especially the young generation, also played a role. The activation of representatives of a revisionist trend among historians, supported by part of political establishment (including government and academic institutions) and the apparent neglect of certain topics in the school curriculum (for example, the history of the Second World War, the crimes committed by the genocidal regime of the fascist Slovak state in 1939–1945, the nature of totalitarian regimes and ideologies, the values of freedom, democracy and human rights, the danger of nationalism and racism, the importance of solidarity and religious tolerance) led to relativizing interpretations of many historical events and to blunting the critical perception of the most problematic ones. An eloquent testimony about the right-wing extremist L’SNS is offered by the personal profiles of its leading representatives, functionaries, members and people placed on its party list in the parliamentary elections. Alongside the long-known activists of radical-nationalist orientation there were persons who have had problems with the law, individuals who have committed acts of violence with racist motives, participated in physical clashes with the police, spread racial hatred, condoned the acts of violence against Roma, Jews and migrants, glorified Nazism and Hitler or approved the Holocaust. Among those who have got into parliament on an L’S-NS ticket at least three persons charged and tried or investigated for criminal offenses (including violence) motivated by extremism or racism. Reactions following the elections

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as to where there was room for its activities, and where there are boundaries for interactions between it and the rest of the political class and civil society. The definition of the L’S-NS as a “fascist” party was accompanied by a policy of isolating it from the political “mainstream”. By labelling Kotleba “fascist” and refusing to meet with him in the presidential palace after the elections, President Kiska set boundaries that will be difficult to cross. During his visit to Krupina, the region where the L’S-NS achieved the best results in the elections, Kiska said of the leader of the party: “Apart from the fact that he is marching in uniform with torches and declaring that the [anti-fascist] Slovak National Uprising [of 1944] was the saddest event in our history, he says referring to nearly 60 thousand Jews who were deported during the Slovak State and did not return, having been killed, that it is not a problem of our people, because we are not the Jewish but Slovak people […] Kotleba is simply fascist”.1 Later President Kiska stated: “We must understand the reasons for open support of neo-Nazism, fascism, racism, that the hate speeches are spreading in a more open manner. But that does not mean we must compromise with their adherents or avert our eyes from them apologetically”. 2 The programmatic arsenal of the L’S-NS, the personal composition of its leadership, the level of expertise and professionalism of its structures, its post-election activities, including the first experience in its performance as a parliamentary party, confirm the obvious fact that this political entity is not an organization that complies with the standard process of preparing and providing the policy solutions, but is a force aimed at eliminating the existing system. Proposals presented by this party in its documents and statements of its prominent representatives are not based on reliable expertise. In the current system they are not practically implementable. It is simply not possible to integrate the L’S-NS into the existent democratic system as its standard constituent. With its current program and declared priorities, the L’S-NS is sentenced to existence as a fringe political organization. Therefore, the most likely future scenario is that it will continue to present the inherently anti-systemic proposals, will continue to criticize the existent system and established “mainstream” political actors and will carry out various activities outside of parliament in an effort to retain or to increase its electoral support. Although the right-wing extremist party L’S-NS is currently not in a strong enough position to be able to remove the liberal-democratic model, its presence in parliament constitutes a serious challenge to liberal democracy in Slovakia, to its norms and principles. Spreading their malignant messages, the right-wing extremists are trying to create an atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust in the institutions of a democratic state, in the rule of law and the principles of equality of citizens. This is a test of the ability of democratic politicians to defend democracy.

During the first five months after the elections, as a parliamentary party with a 14-member caucus the L’S-NS behaved passively; its participation in the legislative process was minimal. Its members submitted only one legislative proposal (during the period in question 100 legislative proposals were submitted to the assembly for deliberation). The core performance of the party after it entered the parliament included continuation of activities outside of the parliament and promotion of its traditional agenda through public events. The L’S-NS initiated the petition for the referendum on Slovakia’s withdrawal from the EU and NATO, organized the demonstration against Gay Pride in Bratislava entitled “The protest march against the perverts”, announced that it would send its own “public order patrols” onto trains for the protection of “decent people” who supposedly receive no protection from the state from the “Gypsy extremists”. Regarding the ideological nature of the L’S-NS, a particularly important aspect was the general consensus spontaneously formed after the elections in 2016 that it is a fascist Notes party. The party was described thus by leaders of the vast 1) Prezident: Kotlebu Kiska označil za fašistu [President majority of parliamentary parties, by president Andrej Kiska Kiska said Kotleba is fascist], SITA, April 7th, 2016. and representatives of numerous NGOs. After the elections, 2) Andrej Kiska’s speech on memorial day of the Slovak the Slovak media published a high number of analyses written National Uprising in Banská Bystrica. August 29th, 2016, by experts (historians, political scientists, sociologists, psyhttps://dennikn.sk/minuta/547171/?ref=mpm. chologists) and journalists in which the L’S-NS was defined as a “fascist”, “neo-fascist” or “neo-Nazi” party. Irrespective Grigorij Mesežnikov is a political scientist and of the terminological nuances of using such definitions, espepresident of the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) in Bratislava. He was a key author of the reports cially differentiating between particular streams, in the current on Slovakia in Nations in Transit published by socio-political context of Slovakia it was an important sign: Freedom House from 1998–2014. the right-wing extremist organization received a clear message

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No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

Zoltán Kiszelly

Hungary’s Illiberal State: Model or Pariah? The international community has criticised Hungary in recent years for introducing political reforms aimed at an authoritarian restructuring of the state. The author discusses this model of an “illiberal state” against the background of the historical experiences of the East Central European countries. The proclaimed goal of the governing party Fidesz is greater political sovereignty within the EU. – S. K.

are the mere blinking of an eye. Hence the national elites seek to preserve and reinforce the nation state as a framework for modernisation at any price. Moreover, after a long period of peace in Central Europe, Hungarians currently see themselves on the threshold of new, larger conflicts (buzzwords abound such as the “new Cold War” and the “modern Migration Period”). In such situations, the realistic school of international relations advises consolidation of resources and sovereignty to gain room for manoeuvre when faced with distant centres of power with their “selfish” interests. “Die for Poland?”, “Die for Hungary” – the West answered with a resounding “No” in 1939 and 1956. There were (are) always “more important and higher” considerations. Of course, the twenty-first century cannot be compared like for like with the twentieth; humanity has (hopefully) learnt from history. What have remained however are the historical reflexes which in CEE tend towards mistrust and pessimism. And the Western power centres are currently doing as little as possible to assuage this mistrust (“silent treatment” and majority decisions in the EU). In Hungary and CEE attempts are being made to improve the health of the nation The historical context As is well known, everything is different east of the River state and to prepare for the anticipated time “after this EU”. Elbe. There people feel separated from the western part of the The Visegrád states continue where the British left off followcontinent and try to make up for lost time. The prospects of ing Brexit. Under the banner of “liberal democracy”, Hungaliberal development in politics and the economy following the ry fell from the region’s frontrunner in 1989/90 to bringing up revolutions of 1989/90 depended on market forces that had to the (economic) rear in 2010. Hence the conservative national develop as freely and as close to the Western model as possi- elites, in consensus with the majority of voters, came to the ble. To achieve this, people were prepared to give up national conclusion that the liberal path was not leading the country sovereignty for integration into supranational organisations. in the right direction and that Fidesz should be given a chance. In Hungary in 2010, this project was brought to an end by a This widespread trust in Fidesz prevails – partly because there are no appealing alternatives. landslide victory for Fidesz. Hungary and the many small and medium-sized states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) created by the Treaty of Definition Versailles (1920) historically found themselves on the periph- The term “illiberal democracy” was coined by Fareed Zakaria ery of power in each of these supranational integrations and and in Western discussions is considered somewhat loaded. empires, all of which sought to establish large uniform eco- Not least for this very reason, in Hungary people speak pronomic spaces with uniform regulations, administration and grammatically of an “illiberal state” in order to avoid queslanguage wherever possible. Perceiving themselves to have tioning the democratic character of the political order. Viktor been the losers, people had only had bad experiences with Orbán’s government can be democratically voted out at the oversized integration projects and saw themselves as a mere elections in 2018. marketplace for Western goods and as a reservoir of cheap We know from Winston Churchill that democracy is not labour. This has barely changed to this day. the best form of rule, but the best to have been devised thus For 150 years, Hungary was part of the Ottoman Empire, far. But democracy has many manifestations – one need only the Habsburg ruled over it for 400 years, and the Soviets for think of the different systems of government in the USA, 45. The only constant has been the nation state. In historical France, Germany or Switzerland. It would be foolish to take perspective, the twelve years of EU membership since 2004 any of these as a compulsory model for all other countries. In his speech at the summer academy in Băile Tuşnad/Tusnádfürdő (Transylvania, Romania) in July 2014, Viktor Orbán spoke of the necessity of transforming Hungary into an illiberal state. This necessity, he said, resulted from the obvious long-term crisis of liberal democracy (of the “West), which was becoming clear in the transformed global geopolitical situation, the persistent leadership crisis besetting the EU and in particular the stagnation of the Eurozone. Is Hungary, a member of the supranational organisations of liberal democracies, on the road to becoming an illiberal state? This is a completely new phenomenon and hence this experiment is being followed closely in both the East and the West. In the final years of communism, Hungary was considered (along with Poland) to be the experimental site for reforms that played a significant role in the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. It remains to be seen whether the most recent Hungarian (and Polish) experiment will be imitated or prove to lead to a dead end; in the following I seek to provide a sketch of some of the key features of this illiberal model that might serve as the basis for future discussion.

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are won in this centre (by the votes of moderate swing voters); hence the governing party attempts to keep its political rivals away from this centre. It is not least for this reason that an economic redistribution is taking place in favour of the opinion-leading (upper) middle class. Prior to 2010, the Socialists (MSZP) and the Liberals (SZDSZ) were able to appeal to this political centre, but the disappointing results of their time in government (austerity measures between 2002 and 2010 and their dogmatic adherence to a neoliberal economic policy) and continuity in their party leadership pushed these parties to the margins of the left-wing. Also, since 2010 these parties have splintered into many small and medium-sized parties fighting for the same voters (ca. 15–20 % in surveys). To the right of Fidesz stands the right-wing extremist party Jobbik (ca. 10–15 % in surveys), which has become less militant and less anti-Semitic in reason years but still appeals to more or less the same voters as Fidesz. Jobbik differentiates itself from the governing party by stressing that it is not corrupt, but today Fidesz has a meta-issue, like it had with the reduction of overheads during the last elections in 2014: the refugee question, which is far better suited than the issue of Walking hand in hand: the goal of Polish premier Beata Szydło and Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán is to strengthen the power of the executive corruption to appealing to and retaining voters far beyond the in their respective countries. boundaries of its own party base ahead of the next elections Foto: Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland  in 2018. Moreover, the two margins of the party spectrum are not capable of forming a coalition, highlighting the governing For a long time during the nineteenth and the early twen- party’s strategy of divide and rule. In a mass democracy, politicians and parties “must” be tieth century, Hungary itself imitated the British model of parliamentarianism, before opting for the German chancellor populist (“governing by opinion polls”) in order to gain model in 1990. But the new basic law passed by Fidesz in majorities, and hence populism cannot be considered a spe2011 swings back towards parliamentarianism, which many cific feature of this model of an “illiberal state”. see evidenced by the removal of the constructive motion of no confidence. A system of government can be defined as an Prospects “illiberal state” if it devises liberal (democratic) structures The CEE states are in a reciprocal relationship with one in such a way that the executive gains in power over other another. This is particularly true of Hungary and Poland, authorities, whereby care is taken not to break (constitu- both renowned as pioneers of reforms in their respective tional) and international laws and treaties while expanding integration systems. Today these states are attempting to the executive’s room for manoeuvre through targeted (and prepare their nation states for the twenty-first century in a cardinal) domestic law-making and balancing “hard” polit- “New Medieval” period and the age of globalisation. They ical and economic borders abroad. A political weapon to this are carrying on where the British left off after their exit. The end is the permanent and manifest mobilisation of voters United Kingdom wants to leave the EU in order to increase using symbolic conflicts and issues (such as the “struggle its state’s economic liberalism and political sovereignty. As a less economically developed country, Hungary is for liberation from Brussels”) in order to consolidate political power. The political mandate obtained in this fashion is striving to modernise via greater political sovereignty withintended to tame the unleashed economic forces (as advocat- in the EU and a reduction of neoliberal economic policies ed by Franklin D. Roosevelt or John Maynard Keynes after domestically. The “illiberal state” was invented as a politithe Great Depression) and put them at the service of “forced cal vehicle to this end, with the intention of modernising the modernisation”. country in the interests of national conservative (not liberal, Political power – for instance in the form of special taxes libertarian transnational) elites. So far, the illiberal system has worked rather well for the and restructuring of the market – is also used for (economic) strengthening and primitive accumulation of capital by governing party, since a divided opposition has not posed national big business. In individual strategic spheres such as any real threat. Nor is there external pressure on Hungabanking, the media, energy and trade, uniform national (but ry to transform itself that cannot be absorbed by political not necessarily state) property is strived for in order to keep means. Viktor Orbán’s government must rather demonstrate as much of the added value created by these spheres inside the economic capacity of its system before the parliamentary the country. (Foreign) manufacturing companies and direct elections of 2018. Should Donald Trump become the next investors on the other hand are supported in the interests of American president, our examples of illiberal democracy will a “patriotic” economic policy and reindustrialisation rather most likely have to be expanded to include the USA. than hindered. The central political force field

Since 2010, Fidesz has established a multi-party system with a dominant people’s party (30–35 % in surveys) and a divided opposition, whereby the moderate right (Fidesz) occupies the political centre. Experience shows that elections in Hungary

Zoltán Kiszelly is a political scientist at the János Kodolányi University of Applied Sciences and a political advisor in Budapest. He studied at the ELTE University in Budapest and was a fellow of the DAAD and the German Bundestag.

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Senada Šelo Šabić

Croatia’s Experience with Liberal Democracy In Croatia the political elite suppressed controversial debates in the lead up to the country’s accession to the EU so as not to endanger the process. This is now coming back to haunt them, since the lack of profound societal and political change is becoming obvious. The marriage referendum of 2013 thus demonstrates not only conservative attitudes in large parts of society, but also voters’ frustration with the political elite. – N. Z.

The referendum on amending the Croatian constitution with a it formally fulfilled EU requirements for membership that definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman espouse liberalism, in essence the nature of society changed took place on 1 December 2013, exactly five months after the little. country joined the European Union. Roughly 38 % of the total It is all too easy to dismiss Croatian people as backward, electorate took to the polls, with 66 % voting in favour and 34 % nationalist, anti-democratic, etc. But they have been the same against. As a consequence, the Croatian constitution has been all along, the difference is that the modus operandi of politics amended to refer to marriage as a heterosexual contract (see changed. The framework of the public debate was determined RGOW 8/2016, 23–25). by the priority of the EU accession, which also meant that the The referendum has been taken as a sign of the derogation of content of the debate was filtered. 3 In order to steer the course minority rights in the country and a U-turn in the process of of accession to the EU, Croatian politicians obscured and surthe consolidation of liberal democracy and European values.1 passed any serious debate in society on serious issues reflecting Critics of the referendum, liberal civil society, vocally protested the conditions of an EU candidate post-war transition country. with a whole list of arguments: there was no objective need to Ethnic relations, reconciliation, the position of Church in sociseek another precise definition of marriage as a union between ety, relations with neighbours – these and other similar topics two opposite sexes – because an existing law already regulated were downplayed for the sake of not compromising Croatia’s this matter; the referendum was costly – 47 million HRK could accession progress. have been spent, for example, on childcare centres or schools; Undoubtedly, there was domestic consensus that Croatia’s it violated adopted values of full equality for all minorities, future lies in the EU (and NATO). Yet, this support was not including sexual minorities. The European Union could only universal and some conditions were more difficult to meet than express its concern to a member state. A mechanism of moni- others. Highly sensitive issues related to the legacy of the war toring a candidate’s alignment with liberal democratic values in the 1990s, regional cooperation, minority protection were controversial for many in society but not publicly discussed. was lifted upon Croatia’s entry into the EU. Croatian politicians feared that allowing in the public space discussion which would reveal the conservative nature of the Neglected conservative civil society To many who have followed the Croatian accession process, society would put brakes on the accession process. They had the quick change of public sentiment came as an unwelcome little trust in citizens and, in return, citizens demonstrated little surprise. After all, wasn’t Croatia the country that had to go trust in their politicians. To shift focus from thorny issues (and propel enthusiasm) through an eight-year, most demanding accession process which included inventions like opening and closing benchmarks, a successive governments advocated EU membership on two series of checks to ensure that laws are not just adopted but main arguments – the return to the European family of nations actually implemented? Wasn’t Croatia the country for which a and prospect of wealth. Identity and economy were engines of completely new chapter, number 23, was introduced, designed accession. The notion of re-joining the core Europe rested on especially to tackle issues of justice and fundamental rights? notions of romantic longing, respect for enlightenment, hope After all, if Croatia, with relatively developed institutions and of progression and on a sense of historical justice for it was an ethnically homogenous society did not make it, what can be Croats who bled at the European borders, defending Europe expected from less developed Western Balkan countries with from Ottomans and other intruders. An image of Antemurale unfinished state building processes, weak institutions and Christianitatis became vivid again. The promise of better life rested on the promise that Croatia’s economy would grow once greater ethnic diversity? The example of Croatia adds to the already growing list of it joined the exclusive, the richest and the most developed marcases of unravelling democracy across Europe. 2 Entrenching ket in the world. and sustaining democracy remains a challenge for democratic Yet, this vision, in reality, was based on two main beliefs – veterans, much more for fresh starters. However, this obser- as a member of the EU Croatia would no longer be Balkan vation rests on an assumption that Croatia is regressing from and as a member it would have accession to EU funds. There a level of relatively high democratic standards and is compro- has been very little, almost no discussion about what Croatia mising already embraced liberal values. Yet, this assumption would contribute to the EU, what dowry it brings into the marmay be flawed. It is more likely that Croatia never achieved the riage? The realization of these goals, however, proved difficult. status of a country with entrenched liberal norms. Although EU demanded cooperation with neighbours and Croatia very

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Croatia’s accession to the EU was advocated with two key arguments: a return to the European family of nations and the prospect of prosperity. Photo: Keystone

reluctantly agreed to this formal necessity. Implementation of critical structural reforms was delayed in hope that once in, Croatia would use EU funds to finance its development and thus mitigate effects of eventual reforms. The third referendum in Croatian history

The referendum on marriage was the third in the Croatian history. The first was on independence 1991 and the second was on joining the EU in 2012. There is some irony to sequence. Fearing a low turnout at the EU accession referendum, the government changed the existing regulations4 so that a majority of voters who turn up at the poll would decide on the outcome of a referendum. Referendum had polarizing effect on the society. The Catholic Church, as a bastion of traditional values, supported and assisted mobilization of conservative forces. Yet, the debate did not oscillate only between conservative-liberal world views. Many expressed a notion that now, finally, citizens had a chance to express their opinion on an issue that bothers them. Not everybody who joined the debate on referendum was interested in the question at stake – if a homosexual union can also be called marriage – but they supported referendum on grounds that political elites, who systematically silenced all uncomfortable voices for the sake of higher goal of EU accession, by their own miscalculation (changing the referendum rules) eased conditions for the use of direct democracy instrument. It could be costly, but its worth is beyond doubt concluded one author5). The error of liberal and pro-EU elites was that they were basically passive. They relied on the authority of Brussels and the pull factor of promised prosperity to trade for hardship the society had to undergo before it would enter the promised land of membership. This was unreal and the backlash was imminent. Instead of initiating debate on all aspects of the accession and the responsibility of future membership, pro-accession elites repeated the same phrases of pending benefits, circumventing painful reforms for the sake of popularity. Vox populi

Disagreement and polarization in the society over identity issues is sharp. However, moralizing arguments or panic reaction on the part of liberal intellectuals on the derogation of democratic values in the society may not be constructive, even just. In Kulenović’s 6 interpretation of Rawls, the value of liberal democracy lies exactly in its capacity to allow for

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safe expression of different opinions and maintenance of public space made up of chaotic, perhaps uneasy reality of contested world views. Perhaps we are making our conclusions too soon. This is not to say that it is acceptable to circumscribe any minority rights in a society. But instead of trying to prove the other side wrong, perhaps a more useful approach would be to focus on new solutions. Instead of flirting with populism, genuine liberal democratic politicians would do better to offer progressive ideas and new social contract based on principles and values they stand for. In the case of Croatia, the collapse of a government after its eight months in office were spent on pushing a conservative agenda opens a possibility for change. September 2016 may reproduce a stalemate 7), but a path of entrenching liberal democracy never promised to be straight and fast; the long-term goals require today’s investment. Those 34 % who in the referendum on marriage voted against the definition of marriage as solely a union between a female and a male human being are a (relatively large) pool of citizens a committed liberal democratic politician can start from. Notes

1) Veselica, Lajla: Croatia Votes on Anti-Gay Marriage Referendum. In: The Huffington Post, 1 December 2013,http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/01/croatia-gay-marriage-referendum-_n_4366465.html; Croatians vote against gay marriage. 5 December 2013,http://www.economist. com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/12/croatia. 2) Kauffmann, Sylvie: Europe’s Iliberal Democracies. In: The New York Times, 9 March 2016,http://www.nytimes. com/2016/03/10/opinion/europes-illiberal-democracies. html?_r=0; Horvat, Srećko: Croatia’s vote forbidding gay marriage: a sign of the rotten heart of Europe. In: The Guardian, 4 December 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2013/dec/04/croatia-gay-marriage-vote-europe-rotten-heart. 3) Dejan Jović, a professor of political science at the University of Zagreb, spoke early about officially compelled public silence on sensitive political issues in Croatia. 4) Earlier regulation stipulated that the referendum outcome would be decided by 50 % +1 votes out of total eligible voters. 5) Šikić, Roko: About referendum which apparently costs 47 milion kunas (in Croatian). In: Politika Plus, 2013, http:// www.politikaplus.com/mobile/novost/90617/Roko-Sikic-O-referendumu-koji-navodno-kosta-47-milijuna-kuna. 6) Kulenović, Enes: Brak i Kulturkampf. In: Političke analize 16, December 2013, 14–18. 7) Raos, Višeslav: The Curious Case of Croatia. In: Green European Journal, 26 August 2016, http://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/the-curious-case-of-croatia/. Senada Šelo Šabić works as a scientific associate in the Institute for Development and International Relations in Zagreb. Her research interests include Croatian foreign policy, Southeast Europe, EU enlargement, development cooperation and migration. She holds a Ph. D. in political science from the European University Institute in Florence (2003) and has earned two Masters degrees – in international relations from the University of Zagreb (1999) and in peace studies from the University of Notre Dame, USA (1996). Senada Šelo Šabić is editor-in-chief of the Croatian International Relations Review and is a teacher at the University of Zagreb.

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Jasmin Mujanović

Fractured Authoritarianism in Bosnia-Herzegovina The Dayton Peace Agreement of early 1996 introduced a successful process of state-building to Bosnia-Herzegovina which has come to a standstill during the last decade however. Necessary reforms to the constitution and the political system are foiled by a corrupt political elite and an ethnic quota system created by the Dayton Peace Agreement itself. At the same time, social dissatisfaction is on the rise. – R. Z.

Between 1996 and 2006, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was the poster child for successful post-war political and economic reconstruction. Although the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) had administratively fractured the country, with the support of the U. S. and EU, BiH took dramatic strides towards definitive Euro-Atlantic integration: the adoption of a single monetary regime; the creation of a unified armed forces and special police force; and the overall normalization of relations between the country’s once warring communities. BiH appeared definitively on the path, as many remarked, “from Dayton to Brussels.”1 But in the decade since, the wheels have fallen off the Bosnian state-building project. Repeated EU and NATO brokered agreements and deadlines have fallen by the wayside, decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) remain unimplemented, while the country’s leaders consistently flirt with the rhetoric of renewed conflict – amid growing social discontent that spectacularly came to the fore in 2014 (see RGOW 4–5/2015, 29–33; RGOW 7/2014, 18–20). And even the recent EU candidacy application has already stalled, with crucial measures “adopted” repeatedly but never implemented. 2 What has happened in BiH since 2006 to have so dramatically altered the country’s development, and what does it mean for the international community’s policy in the country in turn? Bosnia, in theory

The complicated constitutional arrangements incorporated into the DPA by the international community in the winter of 1995 were intended to balance the competing claims of each of the warring factions in the Bosnian War (1992–1995). Accordingly, the DPA and subsequent rounds of arbitration established a state with one nominally “central government” – albeit with three presidents, two chambers of parliament, and one council of ministers – two entities, one special district, and ten cantons. Each of these units and sub-units was designed as an autonomous ethnic enclave, with only a handful of examples of multi-ethnic units in a country where this had once been the norm. This complex arrangement was for a country with a population of less than four million people – and half the size of Iceland. Subsequent moves by the international community, however especially the establishment of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) – made clear that the DPA was intended to be the beginning, not the conclusion of the peace and democratization process in BiH. With the involvement of the international community, and chiefly the strong backing of the U. S. and Germany, BiH made

remarkably rapid progress within the first post-war decade. Arguably, the high-water mark of this period was the string of attempted constitutional amendments between 2005 and 2009. Of these, the so-called “April Package” (2005–2006) was the most significant, as it came within two votes of adoption in the BiH parliamentary assembly. 3 But owing to both the shifting geopolitical priorities in Washington and Brussels, and popular but disingenuous critiques of the U. S. and EU’s involvement in the country as “colonial” (by vocal minorities within the international policy community) 4 Western backing for this progress dissipated. The logic going forward was a combination of the belief that BiH had come far enough in the previous ten years that reversals of its political and economic transformation were virtually impossible, and that the country’s future progress needed to be the product of “local ownership” and will. While conveniently optimistic, this logic was founded on a gross mischaracterization of the past decade’s events, and the nature of the BiH political establishment and system as a whole. Bosnia, in practice

Consider the following: since 1996, despite two decades of direct international involvement and state building efforts, BiH has been consistently rated as an only “partly free” state by the global monitoring organization Freedom House. By comparison, in 2009 Tunisia was rated as “not free”, yet by 2016 the country was “free” only five years after the toppling of the Ben Ali regime in Tunis that had ruled the country since 1987. 5 The question arises then as to what has prevented the genuine democratic transformation of BiH. In a sense, the dirty little secret of the contemporary Western Balkans is that while the old state dissolved, the old regime never did. In this respect, one does not need to distinguish much between the late Yugoslav communist establishment and the subsequent nationalist cliques, as in most cases the former simply mutated into the latter. In their most recent evolution, the remnants of both have become “Europeanists” of various sorts and degrees. Even the most vocal nationalists today, like the president of BiH’s Republika Srpska entity (RS) Milorad Dodik, speak of their desire to join the EU. But this supposed desire for EU (and, in most cases, NATO) membership has not been accompanied by a genuine embrace of the core liberal-democratic values and norms that are the foundation of the entire Euro-Atlantic political and security architecture. Moreover, in contrast to countries like

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Tunisia, where the adoption of democratic practices and norms was necessarily preceded by a popular revolution, as it was in most of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, such civic insurrections have yet to occur in BiH, or indeed in most of the Western Balkans. Instead, despite the supposedly grand ideological transformations of the region’s elites, the nature of their rule has changed little. Notwithstanding the adoption of technically “free and fair” elections, contemporary BiH is best thought of as a fragmented authoritarian state, wherein the respective entity, cantonal, and even municipal boundaries serve to delineate the various pockets of control by one of the country’s leading six (or occasionally seven) parties. 6 And each of these parties controls each of these pockets, in turn, as their own private fiefdom. The DPA’s byzantine ethnic quota system ensures that democratic accountability is so difficult to achieve as to be all but impossible. The HDZ BiH, for example, has blocked government operations on both the state and FBiH level with only 7 % of the vote, as in the period between 2010 and 2014. Indeed, so rigid are the provisions for ethnic quotas and vetoes in the current constitution that non-ethnic parties are either prevented from governing (despite winning as much as a quarter of the popular vote) or forced to migrate to the nationalist “center”. Moreover, the country’s so-called “asymmetric federalism” means that political reforms in one canton or entity often have little if any bearing on their neighbours. As such, the state of civil liberties, media freedoms, and the general political climate for democratic dissent and opposition, for instance, is dramatically worse in the RS than it is in the FBiH. While Goražde, the seat of the tiny Bosnian-Podrinje canton, is often cited as the country’s leading economic success story, Mostar, the seat of Herzegovina-Neretva canton, and the fourth largest city in the country, has failed to organize municipal elections since a 2004 OHR decision created a unified city statute. All of this has led the political scientist Asim Mujkić to argue that under the provisions of the Dayton constitution “[under] the cover of the legitimacy conferred by free and fair elections, citizens as individuals are stripped of any political power.”7 Given than we are now half a decade removed from the (still unimplemented) Sejdić-Finci decision by the ECHR that found the Dayton constitution patently discriminatory in the manner in which it reserved power exclusively for ethnic Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, it is difficult to argue with Mujkić’s assessment. In his words, BiH is not a polis; instead it is an “ethnopolis.” But even this characterization is somewhat beside the mark. After all, as the ideological mutations of BiH’s elites indicate, their commitments to nationalism are no more genuine than their one time commitments to Marxism, or their purported desire for EU membership. The Sejdić-Finci decision is only one of a host of unimplemented international and local judicial decisions. Even the rulings of BiH’s own Constitutional Court are routinely flouted, and not merely by the Dodik government in Banja Luka, but also by the SDA and HDZ BiH. In truth, BiH’s political establishment so brazenly and routinely ignores and defies the country’s laws and constitution as to have placed the whole polity in a permanent “state of exception.”8 Corruption, cronyism, and criminality are the norm, whereas lawful implementation and behaviour are the exception. And while conditions differ, sometimes from town to town, on the whole the country’s politics cannot be described as democratic in any meaningful sense of the term.

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Constituting democracy

All of this is to say that as a peace accord, the DPA has held up remarkably well. Unfortunately, as a foundation for BiH’s democratic development it has failed, merely preserving a peculiar, internally fractured authoritarian regime. Contrary to the apparent consensus within the policy community, there is little chance that the impetus for reform will come from within this regime. Instead, as in other authoritarian states, change will have to come from the outside in, and from the bottom up. That revolutionary impulses exist in BiH was proven by the events of February and March 2014.9 That similar episodes of social insurrection will occur again is inevitable, given the country’s catastrophic political and economic climate. It remains only to work out the manner in which these pressures can be definitively released, and harnessed. The former can only be a local enterprise, while the latter will necessarily involve the engagement of the international community as has been the case in Tunisia. The sooner policymakers in Brussels and Washington realize this, and begin to prepare for the coming upheaval, the sooner we can dispel our illusions about BiH as it actually exists, and prepare for how the country might yet be. Notes

1) Hays, Don; Crosby, Jason: From Dayton to Brussels: Constitutional Preparations for Bosnia’s EU Accession. In: United States Institute of Peace Special Report, October 2006: http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SRoct06_2. pdf. 2) Mujanović, Jasmin: Bosnia-Herzegovina’s EU Candidacy: Symbolic or Substantive? In: European Council on Foreign Relations, February 23, 2016: http://www.ecfr.eu/article/ commentary_bosnia_herzegovinas_eu_candidacy_symbolic_or_substantive_6011. 3) Perry, Valery: Constitutional Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Does the Road to Confederation go through the EU? In: International Peacekeeping 22, 5 (2015), 490–510. 4) Knaus, Gerald; Martin, Felix: Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Travails of the European Raj. In: Journal of Democracy 14, 3 (2003), 60–74 (pp. 61–63). 5) Puddington, Arch; Roylance, Tyler: Freedom in the World 2016 – Anxious Dictators, Wavering Democracies: Global Freedom Under Pressure. In: Freedom House: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016. 6) These being the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), and the Alliance for a Better Future (SBB). 7) Mujkić, Asim: We, the Citizens of Ethnopolis. In: Constellations 14 (2007), 112–128 (p. 113). 8) Agamben, Giorgio: State of Exception, Chicago and London 2005. 9) Arsenijević, Damir (ed.): Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Fight for the Commons. Baden-Baden 2014.

Jasmin Mujanović, PhD, political scientist and policy analyst, whose research focuses on contemporary southeastern European affairs and the politics of post-authoritarian and post-conflict democratization more broadly, http://www.jasminmujanovic.com.

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Jovana Marović

The Thin Line Between the Party and the State in Montenegro In Montenegro, the governing party, the DPS, has been able to remain in power for two and a half decades. This permanent rule has led to the close entwinement of party and state on all administrative levels; the party uses state resources to mobilize voters, turns a blind eye to corrupt local authorities and protects officials from being held accountable. Yet electoral support for the DPS remains high. – N. Z.

Montenegro is the only Western Balkan country that has not experienced a democratic change of government, changed by elections. Continuity of the same ruling elite, which has been untouchable for more than a quarter of a century, has affected the line separating the leading Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) from the public administration. In such circumstances, the abuse of power, use of public resources for party purposes and excessive employment within the public administration are common. Although the legislation is constantly improving, in practice, under the influence of political leadership, norms and standards are adapted and interpreted differently while accountability (for misdemeanours, both criminal and political) is lacking. The decades of state control by the DPS have caused a lack of democracy in at least three respects:1 adopted standards and norms2 do not achieve the desired achievements and progress in practice, as they are not implemented consistently; free expression of one’s will at elections is questionable due to the fact that all the previous elections have been followed by scandals, irregularities and misuse of state resources for party purposes; institutions and procedures, although reformed, still function in a frozen political context and remain under strong political influence, not functioning according to the standards required by contemporary advanced democracies. There are many examples of such abuses but three are particularly illustrative and have gained the greatest attention both at home and abroad.

persons involved has been deemed politically accountable. The prosecution failed to react promptly and ex officio. Under the European Commission’s pressure and demand for measurable results, the State Prosecutor’s office started an investigation but did not consider anything about the above-mentioned activities to constitute an offense and concluded that there were no legal grounds for pursuing criminal charges. However, as a method of political action, numerous offenses were indeed committed in this affair: violation of equality and especially equality in employment, abuse of official positions and power. The DPS is using the state structure and the public administration for the purpose of obtaining voters. Hence, the state is the main employer and the public administration is cumbersome, 3 with a large number of redundant employees, while at the same time the unemployment rate in the country is high at 17.32 %. 4 This is the main reason why the public administration reform is not taking place as envisaged. The document on the internal reorganization and rationalization of the public sector prepared three years ago has remained “dead”, since the number of employees was not reduced. Data shows that in the period from 2013 to 2015 the number of employees at the local level even increased. Last year the Ministry of Finance classified a confidential document on the state of local finances, which also contains information on the number of employees at local level. In Montenegro, therefore, information on the number of employees is protected and is not public.

The Audio Recordings Affair

Budva: Metropolis of Montenegrin Tourism

Although the government of Montenegro is elected by dem- Budva municipality is an example of a failure to uphold regulaocratic procedure, no election has been held without doubts tions, corruption and illegal construction damaging the municconcerning its regularity and abuse of state resources for party ipal budget and property. Although the matter was long the purposes. Concrete evidence of such manipulations is provided by the “audio recordings affair” that was documented by the European Commission’s progress report and the GRECO’s (Group of states against corruption) annual assessment, but had no proper epilogue. Transcripts of leaked audiotapes from the meeting of the leading Democratic Party of Socialist’s Council were published by the independent daily newspaper DAN in 2012 and made clear to the public some of the electoral manipulations. The transcripts suggest the strategy of “buying” voters with a variety of benefits, but primarily with jobs in the public administration. The transcripts also revealed alleged efforts by the party leaders to mobilize voters in the state-owned enterprises and public bodies to vote for the DPS, even criticizing the leniency of certain directors towards opposition. Parliamentary inquiry was initiated but View of Budva on the Adriatic coast, the site of several corruption scandals only resulted in the adoption of a technical report. None of the in recent years. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Bratislav Tabaš

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Longstanding head of the government Milo Đukanović at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on the occasion of Montengro’s joining the defence alliance on 19 May 2016. Photo: U. S. Department of State

topic of speculation, the prosecution first took action in 2011. This coincided with the call from the European Commission to demonstrate measurable results in combating corruption in order to start negotiations for full membership of the EU. However, while the construction of certain facilities was presented from the very outset as abuse of office, four years later and shortly after taking office, the Special State Prosecutor classified it as the action of an organized criminal group which had used the municipality for personal gain. He continued on-going trials and filed several criminal charges against several persons including two former mayors, secretaries of the Secretariat, and other employees in the local administration and public enterprises, the total number of crimes and cases running to over 30. In two cases (TQ Plaza and Jaz beach), the damage is estimated to be over €10 million. The Special Prosecutor identified the former DPS vice president and political director of the ruling party as the head of the criminal group, although he did not hold any positions in Budva. The prosecution accepted plea bargains from most of the defendants but such practices have opened up new controversy on whether certain fines and prison sentences are sufficient in relation to the harm it has caused the budget. Budva is an illustrative case study which reflects well the longterm violation of the laws and procedures and abuse of power. All the crimes in Budva took place in the context of silent approval on the part of the DPS for a number of years.

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Director of Public Procurement Administration, but all maintained their initial positions that there was no concrete evidence as to whether any illegal actions had taken place and thus political responsibility could not be established. It was only after great public pressure that the Special Public Prosecutor initiated the investigations – in February 2016. However, the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office has, reportedly, determined that the former chief of police did not misuse his position and, therefore, did not cause damage to the state budget and property. It is unknown whether the other proceedings have been launched. The case highlights constant and usual practices: the frequent violations of the Public Procurement Law;6 the denial and transfer of responsibility between state authorities; the lack of impact of the parliamentary control mechanisms.7 The State Audit Institution’s reports are not sufficient evidence for the inspection or the State Prosecution. 8 The Special Prosecutor’s reaction was late as usual and did not determine personal accountability.9 *** Support for the DPS is still substantial and prior to the October elections stands at around 40 %. Opposition lists still cannot achieve significant support, which leads us to the conclusion that citizens believe in the “democracy forms” by the DPS. Alternatively, citizens are still deciding to vote for the DPS under pressure or because of certain benefits. In both cases, the ruling party has huge room for maneuver. Notes

1) There are also other forms, such as pressures on free media and censorship, but will not be covered by this text. 2) Primarily adopted norms of the acquis since as a candidate country for EU membership Montenegro is obliged to fully harmonize legislation with it. 3) Almost every third citizen of Montenegro works for a public authority or company. 4) Montenegro Unemployment Rate 2002–2016, Trading Economics, accessed 15 September 2016, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/montenegro/unemployment-rate. 5) The Ministry of the Interior’s reaction, http://www. gov.me/naslovna/vijesti-iz-ministarstava/156849/Utvrdiva nje-odgovornosti-za-slucaj-Limen ka-je-za konska-ali-i-moralna-obaveza-prema-gradanima.html. 6) In this case the law was broken, since there was no public The “Limenka” Case tender for work worth several millions. The “Limenka” case concerns the Security Centre building in Podgorica, which cost 15 million euros and was built without 7) The Parliament’s Oversight of the Executive in 2014, Institute Alternative, April 2015, http://media.institut-alternatiprior public tender. Under the contract agreed with the conva.org/2015/09/ia_the-parliaments-oversight-of-the-execustruction company, the police were committed to transfer part of tive-in-2014.pdf the land as compensation for work performed. Such a provision was disputed by the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office on the 8) Audit finding: Evidence and Indication”, Institute Alternative, April 2016, http://media.institut-alternativa.org/2016/05/ grounds that state property couldn’t be used for compensation. ia-cooperation-bet ween-the-sai-and-prosecutors-ofThe land was sold later on through public competition to the fice-in-montenegro.pdf. Montenegrin prime minister’s brother for 3 million euros. However, the police administration has failed to fulfill contractual 9) Even though it is clear that the budget has been damaged by the police’s failure to fulfill the contractual obligations. obligations and didn’t move officers out of the building until 2010. Djukanovic sued the state in 2012 and won. Under the High Court’s decision, confirmed by the Supreme Court, the state is required to pay 10.5 million euros from the budget and Jovana Marović, PhD, has been an Associate Felthe taxpayers’ money. The reactions of the state authorities that low at Institute Alternative, a Podgorica-based followed were not well coordinated and were frivolous. The Minthink tank, since 2010. Since March 2012 she has istry of Finance declared its insistence on determining responbeen a member of the working group for Chapter sibility. Via an official statement, the Ministry of the Interior 23 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, in prepa“encouraged” the authorities to do the same. 5 The parliamentary ration for Montenegro’s EU accession. Jovana is also a member of the Balkans in Europe Policy anti-corruption committee conducted a control hearing of the Advisory Group (BiEPAG). Minister of the Interior, the Supreme State Prosecutor and the

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No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

Marko Vujačić

Serbia: The State Besieged, Society in Distress While Serbia has a multi-party system, in reality it is dominated by one party. The parties do not offer political programs and plunder state resources, thereby creating clientelistic networks. In 2016 many citizens protested in Belgrade against alleged illegal practices on the part of the municipal authorities. This engagement by civil society gives cause for hope, but how the protest movement will pan out is uncertain. – N .Z.

In the last decade of the 20th century, political Europe experienced a triumph of representative democracy. It was widely seen as a regime preferable to all other known forms of governance, “the end of history” as Francis Fukuyama argued in 1989, claiming that the Western type of liberal democracy had proved throughout history to be a “fundamentally better system (ethically, politically, economically) than any of the alternatives”.1 In this decade, the EU finalized its single market, the borders fell between its member states, the newborn European citizen was able to travel and cross borders unchecked, to trade, seek employment, provide services and invest throughout the EU, and the Euro was launched by the end of the century. The promise of a life of democracy and prosperity was also offered to all Europeans, including those who had lived behind the Iron Curtain for many decades, provided that their countries fulfill a fairly demanding and comprehensive set of criteria related to democracy, the rule of law and economic relations, and thus qualify for full EU membership. Theories of democratic transition and consolidation flooded academia. For example, the famous Linz and Stepan structural theorem outlines five arenas of consolidated democracy.2 In essence, the argument goes, a consolidated democracy exists in a functioning state in which the following five arenas are in interplay: (1) free and fair elections with political parties competing for representation of public interest; (2) economic relations that secure fair distribution of public goods and market allocation of resources with accompanying rules and regulations; (3) rule of law and the hierarchy of norms providing guarantees of fundamental rights and freedoms, legal certainty through the predictability of norms, and fair and efficient administration of justice; (4) a rational and accountable bureaucracy that administers and implements laws and regulations; and (5) autonomous civil society which provides ideas and inputs demands concerning political society, thus covering the middle level of politics and ensuring societal cohesion. Although a multiparty system was introduced in 1990, in the wake of revolutionary changes in Central and Eastern Europe, Serbia was a latecomer to the process of democratic transition. It was not until 2000 that Serbia got rid of Slobodan Milošević caesarist regime and embarked on a journey towards democracy and the promised European future. Sixteen years on, in my opinion, Serbia’s democracy is far from consolidated and EU membership is nowhere in sight. In fact, I will argue in this article that Serbia is presently experiencing a major setback in its democratic development. In order to do so, I

will in part utilize the Linz/Stepan consolidated democracy theorem outlined above as a theoretical toolkit for crafting my argument. Parties without programs

For most of the 26 years since the reintroduction of the multiparty system, the Serbian electorate has repeatedly returned to a “winner takes all” party model whereby one party dominates the political scene and occupies all the most important public offices and sinecures. This was the case with the Socialist Party of Serbia (1990–2001), the Democratic Party (2007–2012), and the Serbian Progressive Party (from 2012 onward). The dominant party often keeps smaller parties tied to it, providing an impression of a coalition government, when in fact these smaller parties remain insignificant, as most of them would not be able to independently pass the electoral threshold. At the same time, the dominant political parties are tightly controlled at all times by a strong leader who is the face of the party and the regime. This situation breaks one of the basic trade-offs in democracy: that political parties constitutionally enjoy privileges in exchange for serving public interest. Political parties in Serbia do not perform even their basic functions: (a) notwithstanding a few exceptions, they virtually have no social base or a particular group they consistently represent, e. g. workers, farmers, entrepreneurs, etc. The names of political parties (socialist, democrat, liberal) or the ideological divisions remain largely irrelevant, as all combinations of post or pre-electoral coalitions are possible. For example, today the parliamentary majority is composed of conservatives and social democrats, one self-proclaimed revolutionary socialist leftist party and one right-wing populist party, two national minority parties, and both monarchist and republican parties, as well as proEU and pro-Russian parties. Instead of having one governing party that has obtained an overwhelming majority of seats and could legitimately govern on its own, Serbia has a chimera of a quasi-coalition government; (b) the function of political parties in democracies where they offer competing policies and programs as their main product is almost absent. Even if the parties form some programs and policies in the election cycle, they never look back at it after the elections; (c) parties do not come to power by competitive elections. Nor do elections determine who will be in power and who will form the opposition. Firstly, small and insignificant parties form pre-election coalitions with bigger ones, thus surviving by entering the parliament. Secondly, the election process itself is deeply corrupt. In order to obtain votes, parties literally offer

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Rule of law and civil society

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party currently dominate the political scene in Serbia.  Photo: Wikimedia Commons

material goods in exchange, thus buying off entire groups of citizens, mainly those who live in poorer city quarters and districts, e. g. the Roma population, who often live in areas with extremely harsh conditions. 3 In sum, elections are barely competitive. The dominant party almost exclusively controls and utilizes public resources for its electoral gains. One of the key achievements of post-Milošević Serbia, the relatively free and fair election process, with political parties competing for representation of public interest, has been severely endangered. Clientelist networks

As per the second Linz/Stepan arena on economic relations, it is safe to say that the economy in Serbia, while undergoing a volatile recovery, does not work for most of the people, but only for a select handful. The middle class has never fully recovered from the international economic embargo from the 1990s, which was accompanied by the economic transformation. The economy is still dominated by the public sector, and the state subsidizes both public and private businesses in a non-transparent manner. 4 The beneficiaries of such a system can primarily be found among the ranks of the party, occupying most important public sector managerial posts, e. g. in the postal, railway, electricity, energy and transport industries. Furthermore, hiring in these companies based on job vacancy announcements, open calls or merit is still an exception to the rule. The party-appointed managers rather select loyal party members for positions on all levels: while receiving a salary, the appointee is expected to work for the party – e. g. to be on the campaign trail when needed, or to post comments praising the party leader on news portals. At the same time, in the private sector struggling businesses base their productivity on tax evasion and in large part operate at the expense of their workers, who often work in harsh conditions. Reports of maltreatment and abuses of basic workers’ rights are widespread. 5 That is why most of the people still prefer public administration and public sector jobs, and the pathway for those is party membership. In sum, public goods are distributed unevenly, while the market economy is both distorted by state intervention and poorly regulated. As a result, the middle class, which in theory should represent the backbone of any consolidated democracy, has almost vanished.

The rule of law, respect for fundamental rights and freedoms, legal certainty and efficient administration of justice all remain a challenge, all stressed repeatedly in yearly EU Progress Reports for Serbia. 6 In the absence of a functioning state in this sense, an elected government simply lacks the power to deliver on any electoral program it may have put before the people. Serbia is systematically incapable of ensuring that its legislation is enforced in practice. For example, in the election night of 24th April 2016, without any official court warrant, a squad of masked unidentified people, allegedly a part of a private security firm, took control over a part of Belgrade’s Savamala quarter, and demolished mostly illegally constructed buildings. People caught on the spot were tied down, their cell phones were taken away, they were threatened not to call the police, and instructed to look down and not in the direction of the demolition work. Attempts to reach the police were futile, as both the city’s communal police and the republic’s police refused to intervene, which suggested they had been instructed in advance. Vesna Rakić Vodinelić argues in her analysis that the demolitions were undertaken in violation of all laws, bylaws and ordinances that regulate the matter. Citing articles 262 and 263 of the Law on General Administrative Procedure, she claims that “even if all the demolished objects were illegally built, no demolition should take place without a warrant for demolition, a directive on compulsory execution of the demolition, without a notice to the owner or user of the building to remove all belongings and people; demolishment should not be performed under masks and at night.”7 The citizens and civil society reacted angrily with a series of protests against such illegal practices, demanding the resignations of the head of the Belgrade police force, the minister of the interior and the mayor of Belgrade. A special report on the matter was issued by the ombudsman, outlining key facts and demanding the authorities be held accountable. 8 Only a month and a half after the occurrence, Prime Minister Vučić hesitantly admitted, without naming names, that the top local officials were responsible for the demolitions. However, no criminal proceedings against the perpetrators have been launched to date. This example is only one of many testifying to the lack of a functioning public administration in Serbia, law enforcement, legal certainty, and fair and efficient administration of justice. Serbia lacks the basic capacity to enforce its laws and administer policies throughout the territory. Furthermore, public control or influence over the government is meaningless when the government itself lacks sufficient capacity to implement its laws and policies. Save in few control mechanisms of the national parliament, such as public hearings or parliamentary committee sessions, where citizens may be able to participate and ask questions of elected or appointed public officials, there are not many instances in which the public can hold public officials accountable. Access to these mechanisms remains fairly limited, as the MPs have the sole power to decide whether such mechanisms are to be used and utilized. In a situation in which the dominant party controls the national parliament, and individual MPs lack the autonomy to act against the will of a party leader, there is almost no possibility for the general public to utilize these existing control mechanisms. Civil society and citizens who wish to express dissatisfaction are left to stand alone. Domestic and international funds for the support of civil society have been steadily shrinking over the years. Individual citizens belonging to an army of a vanishing middle class, disillusioned about politics and

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political parties, and preoccupied with daily life problems, can hardly be motivated to act. In circumstances in which most of the media are also controlled by the government, a series of peaceful protests triggered by illegal demolitions in Belgrade’s Savamala quarter, with turnouts of more than 10,000 citizens on all four occasions, demonstrated a surprising level of citizens’ vigilance and defiance towards the regime. In a short space of time, Filip Ejdus argues, the citizens’ protest has created a new space not just for the critique of endangered democratic achievements, but also for the articulation of the most diverse political voices: “For the first time since the beginning of democratic transition, a local citizens’ initiative with little money and a lot of good ideas has managed to unify the political imagination of many citizens of Belgrade.”9 However, he claims, the protest is facing a dilemma: either to continue as a citizen’s movement which serves as a corrective for the Buildings destroyed in Belgrade’s Savamala Quarter during the night of 24–25 April 2016. Photo: Wikimedia Commons /Mickey Mystique government, or to actively engage in politics as  a political party. In both situations the initiative faces challenges: the awakened citizen’s energy will drift away democracy is besieged by these tendencies, and Serbian sociin the face of the protests’ lack of clear results and success; ety is deeply in distress. on the other hand, turning the initiative into a political party would alienate those who protest against the established polit- Notes ical parties and who have simply lost trust in politics. Civil 1) Fukuyama, Francis: The end of history?. In The National society, although it has demonstrated signs of life, is thus Interest (Summer 1989), http://www.ou.edu/uschina/gries/ systemically incapable of acting autonomously and covering articles/IntPol/Fukuyama%20End%20of%20History.pdf. mid-level politics. 2) Linz, Juan J.; Stepan, Alfred: Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Postcommunist Europe. Baltimore 1996. *** 3) ht t p: //w w w.bl ic . r s/ve s t i /p ol it i k a / k r iv ic n a- pr ijava-zbog-kupovine-glasova-biraca/n3kb46t; http://www. In this article I have utilized the Linz/Stepan structural theob92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2010&mm=04&drem on five arenas of consolidated democracy to describe the state of democracy in Serbia. My analysis demonstrates that if d=22&nav_id=426278; http://www.blic.rs/vesti/politione chooses to observe political process, or economic relations, ka/nova-stranka-naprednjaci-kupuju-glasove-besplatthe rule of law or public administration, or the state of civil nim-lekarskim-pregledima/0zhwpp7; http://www.blic.rs/ society, one will inevitably detect a process that testifies to vesti/politika/priznali-da-su-kupovali-glasove-za-bokana/ the structural crisis and decay of representative democracy in hme67d5. Serbia, with a rather gloomy outlook. There is no true demo- 4) In his recent book Machine for Wasting Money (2016), political scientist Dušan Pavlović describes in detail his cratic representation of citizens, nor specific social categories and groups and interests. There is no control over the govexperience as a counselor to the Minister of the Economy during 2013/14, claiming that the system of public subsidies ernment and no viable opposition, which means the effective to public and private companies is deeply prone to corrupabsence of accountability. Thus, Serbia is a besieged state, a facade of democracy in which a political clique, and the party tion, clientelism, cronyism and the creation of a pork barrel leadership in particular, tightly controls the entire process of economy. governance (via public institutions, including independent 5) http://www.kurir.rs/pelene-ili-otkaz-zaposleni-ne-smejuagencies, chambers of commerce, public companies, public u-wc-na-poslu-clanak-942693; http://www.rtv.rs/sr_lat/ media broadcasters, etc.) and where elections and democratic ekonomija/aktuelno/u-kakvim-uslovima-rade-zaposleinstitutions, ideologies, programs and policies are all a mere ni-u-juri_713941.html. formality. 6) Serbia 2015 Report: http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/ pdf/key_documents/2015/20151110_report_serbia.pdf, Under President Boris Tadić’s administration (2004–2012) pp. 11–17. all these tendencies were already in place and Serbia was slowly sliding back towards an invisible authoritarian regime. 7) http://pescanik.net/bauk-kruzi-sava-malom-bauk-lazi/. Today, under Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić’s administra- 8) http://www.ombudsman.rs/attachments/article/4723/ savamala.pdf. tion (2012 onwards) the process is in full swing. This regime is personalized; it is named after the person who holds most 9) http://pescanik.net/patkica-na-raskrsnici/. of the power, regardless of his constitutional role). Citizens or civil society have little or no say whatsoever. Public service is captured in the jaws of party feuds, ineffective, slow, Marko Vujačić, PhD candidate at the Karl Franzens unprofessional, and deeply corrupt. It runs without control or University of Graz in the area of diversity manageaccountability, and without the incentive to work to improve ment and governance; senior researcher at the the situation and act against systemic corruption. Serbian European Research Academy Belgrade (EURAK).

No. 9/10 2016 RSEW

I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

Arben Hajrullahu

Kosovo between Unsolved Problems and Ideas of Liberalism Despite the efforts of the international community, democracy in Kosovo remains weak and corruption and organised crime are widespread. The main obstacle on the path to greater rule of law remains the unsolved Kosovar–Serb relations, on which the conditions of EU membership for both countries have regrettably failed to have any impact. – N. Z.

1) Kosovo’s political elite fails to establish a relationship based on reciprocity with Serbia; 2) Serbia is not yet fully convinced that it actually should recognize Kosovo, since none of the big powers has demanded with any levity that recognize Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state; 3) a part of the international community offers Serbia a kind of preferential treatment. Following the NATO bombings in 1999, Serbia has often been considered the main belligerent party in the wars and aggression against other former Yugoslav federal entities, but primarily as a victim of the dissolution process of the former Yugoslavia. My argument here is that the prospect of European integration does remain key to promoting reforms and untying this Gordian knot. All parties involved in Serb–Kosovar relations, however, continue to be guided by short-term interests without any clear vision on how to achieve a genuine lasting solution in the disputes. In addition to the general perception that “EU institutions are often unwilling to take stands against illiberal trends”4 and that the EU is facing serious internal problems, one key additional problem is that the EU has no common position on Kosovo’s sovereignty and is somewhat exhausted from previous enlargements as well as from the continuing instability in the Western Balkans in general. Some Western commentators The crux of the problem: non-recognition Despite the lack of progress, low scores in the democracy devel- even express the opinion that the EU deceived the democracy in opment index and severe criticism, local and international stake- Kosovo itself. 5 Thus it is impossible to use the real prospect of holders continue to declare Kosovo’s Euro-Atlantic integration EU integration process as a sustainable strategy to foster more process as the leverage for a liberal consolidated society and rule inclusive societies based on liberal values in the region. of law. Nonetheless, the crux of the issue is in fact Kosovo’s Kosovo and Serbia were never able to reach an agreement on non-recognition by Serbia and five EU member states. This the status of Kosovo. On the one hand, governments in Kosovo problem impacts not only on the Serb–Kosovar relations, but prefer to remain intransparent about the concessions made and also has wider implications for the Euro-Atlantic perspective obligations taken against the international community and do not, of the country and the Western Balkan region in general.3 Since as a result, really tackle the more immediate problems facing the the unresolved issues between Serbia and Kosovo are the main country, such as high unemployment rates, a weak economy and obstacle on the path to creating a more integrated and more liber- high levels of organized crime. On the other hand, successive goval society, a very basic question should be asked: what in fact has ernments in Serbia have sworn that Kosovo’s independence and (not) been achieved in overcoming the lasting conflict between sovereignty will never be accepted and are simultaneously trying Serbia and Kosovo since 1999 onwards? to squeeze concessions for their own geo-strategic interests from On the one hand Kosovo needs recognition by Serbia. For the Russian Federation, the EU, and the US at the very same time. instance, without Serbia’s recognition, Russia and China are not expected to ever accept Kosovo’s membership of the UN. On The role of the international community the other hand, Serbia needs it too; as long as Serbia has a de Certainly, some steps have been taken towards improving facto and de jure open dispute over the territory of Kosovo, it Serb–Kosovar relations. For example, in 2010 the UN General can hardly be considered a functioning democratic state with a Assembly adopted Resolution 64/298 by which it welcomes the defined territory, a condition of the EU membership to which readiness of the EU to facilitate the dialogue between Kosovo Serbia aspires. Since both parties need more or less the same and Serbia. 6 As a result, in March 2011 the EU launched a process thing to make their future EU membership a reality, why is this of “technical dialogue” between the parties, meaning in essence not happening? The reasons are many. To summarize, however, between the governments of Serbia and of Kosovo, but named the following three factors should be taken into consideration: publicly only as dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade.

After the fall of the communist regimes in Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, the Serbian state revoked Kosovo’s autonomy and implemented a “policy aimed at changing the ethnic composition of Kosovo and creating an apartheid-like society”.1 Only military intervention by NATO in 1999 would eventually create the conditions that offered the perspective and hopes for a liberal inclusive society and state institutions based on the rule of law. However, even after foreign intervention and decades after the fall of the communist regimes, a lack of accountability and illiberal and authoritarian tendencies remain prevalent in the Western Balkan region. According to democracy indicators compiled by Freedom House’s Nations in Transit 2015 report, there are presently no consolidated democratic regimes in the Western Balkans. Serbia is ranked as a semi-consolidated democracy; Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro have worse democracy scores than they did five years ago, while Kosovo is ranked as a semi-consolidated authoritarian regime on a similar level to Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. This means that the country’s ruling parties attempt to mask authoritarianism or rely on informal power structures with limited respect for the institutions and practices of democracy. 2

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The bridge over the Ibar links the two parts of the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica, the symbol of the split in Kosovar society.  Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Nonetheless, the content of the agreements reached so far appears to actually challenge and hinder efforts to create an inclusive society, foster liberal values and achieve Kosovar statehood more generally. For example, based on the “First Agreement on principles governing the normalization of relations”, reached on 19 April 2013, strong elements of ethnic-based segregation in Kosovo are to be legalised. Furthermore, as a result of this agreement, Serbia’s role in Kosovo has been upgraded to that of a co-decision party dealing with pure Kosovo domestic issues. Meanwhile, Serbia’s government has sought to advance its aspirations to EU membership, but has continued to not recognize Kosovo’s independence and sovereignty. Moreover, Kosovar expectations from the EU are to facilitate and assist a comprehensive solution to a wide spectrum of issues between Serbia and Kosovo, such as that of missing persons, the return of pension funds to citizens of Kosovo, border demarcation, energy, transportation and so on. For all involved parties in the Serb–Kosovar issues, however, one question remains unanswered: how can a lasting normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia occur in the absence of mutual recognition and the divided EU policy on the same issue? Mutual recognition as equal partners, states, between Kosovo and Serbia would help Kosovo and the whole region to identify and pursue a country-centered agenda of sustainable development, functioning market economy and rule of law as the key elements and preconditions of functional democratic liberal values and social cohesion and inclusion. Kosovo and the Western Balkan region in general, however, have to face another reality. In Kosovo, first the UNMIK administration and then EULEX, together with Kosovar institutions, failed to guarantee effective rule of law and legal security. Despite statements by local institutions and international organizations operating in Kosovo that they are committed to establishing and strengthening rule of law, high-level organized crime and corruption remain widespread. For instance, the stated purpose of the EULEX mission was to assist the Kosovo authorities in further developing and strengthening an independent judiciary, police and customs service in line with European best practices. The reality, sadly, is that even the EULEX Mission is suspected of involvement in corrupt practices. 7 In addition, the European Court of Auditors finds that overall EU assistance to Kosovo has not been effective. Furthermore, the report notes that although aid to the judicial sector has been “helpful”, the judiciary continues to suffer from political interference, inefficiency and a lack of transparency. 8 Thus EULEX has failed in many respects to help Kosovo institutions create a judicial system based on independence, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. The emergence of the need to create a special court outside of Kosovo for the purpose of judging alleged crimes in Kosovo in 1998

and the years after 1999 illustrates the combined failure of local and international institutions to create a locally driven, impartial system of justice and rule of law. In fact, the real perspective of using the EU integration process as a tool for more inclusive societies and for overcoming conflict between Serbia and Kosovo appears to be more of an imaginary vision than a tangible reality. Each government in Belgrade before and after 1999 states that the recognition of an independent and sovereign state of Kosovo will not happen. This results, on the one hand, in the mobilization of ethnic Serbian nationalism for internal politics in Serbia. On the other hand, this policy of non-recognition of Kosovo by Serbia is (mis-) used to blackmail the Western world and to undermine all efforts to build a functioning state based on inclusion and rule of law in Kosovo. In this struggle, the question of how to reach long-term and stable relations between Kosovo and Serbia in the absence of mutual recognition remains something of a mystery. To conclude, the normative framework created over the years, as well as the societal level of economic and political development, do not offer room for optimism for more liberal and more integrated and inclusive societies in the region. Kosovo is not a member of key regional and international organisations,and it has limited and often internationally disputed sovereignty. UNMIK is still active, although significantly reduced. In addition, Kosovo’s citizens remain the most isolated and the poorest people in the entire European continent. For the younger generations in Kosovo, the period prior to June 1999 is not a point of reference. For them, the reference point is the living standards of their peers in the region and beyond, in the Western world. A lack of prospects, isolation and poverty in a highly turbulent regional and the global political context have a larger impact on young people, and thus the future of the country, including ideas of a society based on liberal values and on effective rule of law and social ‘justice’. And, last but not least, the image of a European future for Serbia and Kosovo, as equal partners in a wider community of states, continues to remain a desiderium of all those who embody liberal views and reject any type of segregation, exclusion, authoritarianism and violence per se. Notes

1) Independent International Commission on Kosovo, at: http:// reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/F62789D9FCC56FB3C1256C1700303E3B-thekosovoreport.htm. 2) ht t p s : //f r e e dom h ou s e . or g /r e p or t /n a t ion s - t r a n s it / nations-transit-2015#.VvHOCFlKZog. 3) Kosovo and Serbia after the ICG Opinion, ICG Europe Report N°206, 26 August 2010. 4) Anton Shekhovtsov: Is Transition Reversible? The Case of Central Europe. Legatum Institute, January 2016, p. 24: https://lif.blob.core.windows.net/lif/docs/default-source/ publications/is-transiting-reversible-the-case-of-central-europe-january-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=8. 5) http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/augsteins-welt-geschmiertes-kosovo-1.3117301. 6) http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/ RES/64/298&referer=http://www.un.org/en/ga/64/resolutions.shtml&Lang=E. 7) https://euobserver.com/justice/126319. 8) http://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR12_18/ SR12_18_EN.PDF. Arben Hajrullahu, PhD., Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Prishtina, founder and director of the Centre for Political Courage in Prishtina.

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I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

Dane Taleski, Dragan Tevdovski, Trajche Panov and Viktor Dimovski

Maintaining a Hybrid Regime: The Case of Macedonia Macedonia represents an exceptional case in analyses of hybrid regimes. Although the population suffers from a high level of inequality and a low level of democracy, it rarely mobilizes for widespread protests; only occasionally are demands made for more democracy and redistribution of wealth. A well-developed system of clientelism ensures the regime’s survival. – N. Z.

“Hybrid regimes” is a term used by scholars to denote political systems which are neither democratic nor authoritarian.1 These are political systems characterized by democratic elements such as contested elections and existence of political opposition, but in which democratic rights and freedoms are diminished to a level that strongly favors the ruling political structure. There are several different concepts that have been used to define and explain these systems, such as delegative democracy, semi-democracy, illiberal democracy, disctablanda and democradura, competitive authoritarianism, semi-authoritarianism, defective democracies and electoral authoritarianism. 2 It has been argued that, inter alia, economic prosperity and stable economic growth lead toward democratization. 3 It has also long been argued that economic development promotes democracy, 4 and it has been shown that democracy correlates positively with GPD per capita and GDP growth. 5 However, the inferences between democracy and income per capita are not that clear. 6 On the other hand, extensive state control over the economy, natural resources and redistributive politics allows an authoritarian government to exercise control over elites and voters. 7 A conventional view is that economic crisis, negative growth or contraction of the economy open up opportunities for democratization. Historically, there has been a close correspondence between lowering inequality and increasing franchise. Therefore it is claimed that “only with a sufficient high level of inequality does democratization become a necessity”. 8 One would expect that if there were high social inequality, then there would be strong public demands to democratize in the forms of social disorder or revolution.

However, the inferences between inequality and democracy are not that straightforward. Three clusters appeared when we plotted the countries. The results are displayed in graph 1 below. The first cluster of countries shows greater inequality and a high quality of democracy. These are mainly the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In these countries, neo-liberal market reforms have increased income inequalities. However, the quality of democracy improved and there is sufficient freedoms to absorb the social pressures. In the second cluster, the countries have lower inequality and lower quality democracy. These are egalitarian authoritarian countries. Some are resource-rich, such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, others, like Belarus, are not. Coercion and the costs of protest are very high. In addition, they all make significant efforts, despite the high level of corruption, to redistribute wealth to maintain social peace. The third set comprises countries that have higher inequality and a lower quality of democracy. The expectation of revolution and public demands to democratize are highest among these countries. For example, Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are in this cluster and have seen a range of protests in recent years, confirm this expectation. On the other hand, Macedonia has the highest income inequality among all countries and democracy there has been steadily deteriorating since 2008. However, there have been no significant protests demanding more democracy and/or more redistribution. Macedonia as an outlier

The Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), the right-wing conservative-nationalist party, came to power in 2006. They introduced different measures increasing income inequality. For example, they introduced a flat 10 % tax and cut Democracy and inequality To see the inference between income inequality and democracy down on social welfare. Cheap labor was an important element we created a data base of 28 newly democratizing countries from in their strategy to attract FDI. As a consequence, about 30 % the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Central and of the population lives in poverty, even including families of Southeastern Europe. To measure income inequality we took people who have a guaranteed minimum income. Since 2008, democracy has downgraded in parallel to the the Gini indices from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database.9 As a measure of democracy, we took data from rising income inequality and the government has become more Freedom House’s Nations in Transit reports.10 Freedom House authoritarian. The government’s critics have been attacked measures democracy on a scale from one to seven, higher scores in the media and have suffered discrimination and persondenoting lower quality of democracy. We gathered all available al harassment. The VMRO-DPMNE has captured the state, data between 2003 and 2015, which yielded 378 observations. A public employment having become available only for the parPearsons’ correlation shows that there is a positive relationship ty’s clientele. The judiciary has been placed under control and between improving democracy and lowering inequality. The the parliamentary majority fall in in blind obedience. There correlation coefficient is 0.317 and it is significant at a level has been a clamp-down on critical media and the others were of 0.01. This shows that democracy has better redistribution bought off. Opposition leaders have been arrested and have mechanisms than authoritarian regimes, and that it is a prefer- faced selective legal proceedings. However, the rise of inequalable regime from an individual point of view. ity and the degradation of democracy, which in theory are

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Budget size and selected spending in Macedonia, in Euros, necessary conditions for a revolution, were not sufficient for percents mark annual increase (2005–2014) large scale protests in Macedonia. This is because technocratic policy making provided tarYear Budget Salaries Subven­ Social Contracts / geted and narrow spending to benefit specific social groups. increase tions transfers Services For example, students received vouchers to buy computers at affordable prices. Pensions and salaries in the public admin- 2005 1.6 Bn 363 Mil 49 Mil 67 Mil 52 Mil 22 % 3 % 4 % 3 % istration were increased. Farmers received state subventions. 2006 5 % 22 % 5 % 3 % 17 % None of these measures were strong enough to change the social 10 % 20 % 8 % 3 % 16 % picture in the country. However, all were intended to margin- 2007 2008 17 % 14 % 6 % 2 % 17 % ally improve the situation of as many individuals as possible 2009 0 % 16 % 6 % 3 % 16 % within the group. Access to the benefits was closely linked with 2010 3 % 15 % 6 % 3 % 15 % support for the ruling party. Party officials employed in the 2011 5 % 15 % 6 % 3 % 15 % public administration administered the implementation of these 2012 5 % 14 % 6 % 3 % 15 % measures and made lists of people who received the benefits. If someone from the lists showed dissent, she would be reminded 2013 3 % 14 % 6 % 3 % 15 % that the benefits could be revoked, and if she did not comply – 2014 2.7 Bn 375 Mil 201 Mil 103 Mil 407 Mil 6 % 13 % 7 % 3 % 14 % the benefit would be revoked. The lists were also used to ensure “secure” voter support. VMRO-DPMNE activists would visit Source: Ministry of Finance. Final reports of the budget of the Republic individuals who got benefits from the state to remind them of Macedonia (2005–2014) that they were obliged to vote for the party or they would lose the benefit. The spending measures required the state budget to be 33–58; Schedler, Andreas: Electoral Authoritarianism: The increased mainly by borrowing and increasing the public debt. Dynamics of Unfree Competition. Boulder 2006. The data for the budget size and selected spending (i. e. salaries, 3) Przeworski, Adam et al.: Democracy and Development: subventions, social transfers and contracts/services) are shown Political Institutions and Well-being in the World. Camin table 1 and demonstrates that the state budget increased by bridge 2000. Boix, Carles; Stokes, Susan C.: Endogenous 60 % between 2005 and 2014. For example, the sum for social democratization. In: World Politics 55, 4 (2003), 517–549. transfers almost doubled, the sum for subventions quadrupled 4) Lipset, Seymor M.: Some social requisites of democracy: and the sum for contracts/services, ranging from public tenders economic development and political legitimacy. In: Amerito temporary employments, increased eightfold. can Political Science Review, 53, 1 (1959), 69–105. 5) Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A.: Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge 2006. Conclusion There is a theoretical expectation that a rise in inequality cre- 6) For example Acemoglu, Daron et al.: Income and democracy. In: American Economic Review 98, 3 (2008), 808–842, find ates demand for more democracy. Most of the post-communist no relationship; while Che, Yi, et al: The impact of income democracies support this theory. However, there are different on democracy revisited. In: Journal of Comparative Ecopathways. On the one hand, there are neo-liberal democracies in CEE that have higher inequality and quality democracy that nomics 41 (2013), 159–169; Moral-Benito, Enrique; Bartoprovides freedom to absorb social pressures. On the other side, lucci, Christian: Income and democracy: Revisiting the evithere are egalitarian authoritarian regimes, mainly in the CIS, dence. In: Economic Letters 117 (2012), 844–847; Benhabib, that do not provide freedoms, but ensure that income inequalJess, et al: Income and democracy: Evidence from nonlinear estimations. In: Economic Letters 118 (2013), 489–492, claim ity remains low. The potential for revolt is highest in hybrid otherwise. regimes in which inequality is high and quality of democracy is low. However, the regime in Macedonia has defied these odds. 7) Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce et al.: The Logic of Political SurIt has managed to maintain itself by creating elaborate distribuvival. Cambridge 2003. Ross, Michael L.: Does Oil Hinder Democracy?. In: World Politics 53 (2001), 325–361. tive policies for specific target groups. The aim has not been not to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the citizens, but to 8) Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A.: Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge 2006, p. 69. build patronage networks and to create serfdom. 9) Solt, Frederick: The Standardized World Income Inequality Database. In: Social Science Quarterly 97 (2016). Notes 1) Diamond, Larry: Thinking About Hybrid Regimes. In: 10) Freedom House, Nations in Transit https://freedomhouse. org/report-types/nations-transit. Journal of Democracy 13, 2 (2002), 21–35. 2) O’Donnel, Guilermo: Delegative Democracy. In: Journal of Democracy 5, 1 (1994), 34–51; Diamond, Larry; Linz, Juan; Lipset, Seymour M. (eds.): Politics in Developing Dane Taleski, PhD, is a Fellow at Centre for Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy. BoulAdvanced Studies in Southeast Europe, University of Rijeka, and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for der 1995; Zakaria, Fared: The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Southeast European Studies, University of Graz. In: Foreign Affairs, November/December 1997; O’DonDragan Tevdovski, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at nel, Guilermo; Schmitter, Philippe; Whitehead, Laurence the Faculty of Economics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius (eds.): Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Prospects for University in Skopje. Democracy. 4 vols. Washington DC 1986; Levitsky, Steven; Trajche Panov is a Doctoral Candidate at the EuroWay, Lucan: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism. In: pean University Institute in Florence, and a lecturJournal of Democracy 13, 2 (2002), 51–66; Ottaway, Marina: er at the James Madison University. Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism. Viktor Dimovski, PhD, is an independent researchWashington DC 2003; Merkel, Wolfgang: Embedded and er based in Skopje. Defective Democracies. In: Democratization 11, 5 (2004),

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I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

Cengiz Günay

The Authoritarian Turn in Turkey and the Weakness of the Authoritarian System Following the attempted coup on 15 July 2016, Turkey is experiencing an authoritarian turn. But its underlying causes go back much further. When the governing party AKP came into power in 2002, it allowed itself, in an alliance with Kurds and liberal forces, to be led by a pro-EU orientation. But in recent years, with accession to the EU looking unlikely, it has sought a monopoly on power. This strategy is helped by the blurred boundaries between the governing party and state functions, the marginalisation of opposition voices and a network of patronage for its own supporters. – S. K.

Turkey is a prime example of the dramatic decline in the quality of democracy and the rise of illiberal authoritarian tendencies. Various factors, including the end of realistic prospects of joining the EU, have contributed to this authoritarian turn. The country has been continuously sliding towards becoming a competitive authoritarian system since 2011 at the very the latest, following the outbreak of unrest in the Arab world.1 In the case of Turkey, this development is characterised by a stark monopolising of power, an increasing blurring of the boundaries between state functions and the governing party, the governing party’s unchecked access to state resources, increasing control of the media, restrictions to the freedom of the press and the extensive limitation of democratic protest at elections. In recent years state funds have been used to create a media and economic bloc close to the government. This in turn guarantees the governing party’s hegemony over the public discourse and its monopoly on economic redistribution. Parallel to these developments, the governing Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Party for Justice and Development, AKP) has increasingly lost ideological substance. Its most prominent representatives from its early years are now no longer in the parliamentary club or its institutions and have largely become isolated. They were replaced by people who have shown absolute loyalty to president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. That is, the monopoly on state power has gone hand in hand with Erdoğan’s monopoly on power within the party. While the Gezi protests in 2013 (see RGWO 7–8/2013, 13–15) introduced a new phase marked by the delegitimisation of public protest and stricter security laws (in response to the protests a new security law was passed granting the police far-reaching rights), following the failed coup of 15 July 2016 there have been extensive “purges” and a changing of the guard in public and even in the private sector. This article primarily examines the structural framework and those factors contributing to the monopolising of power in Turkey.

The EU accession process causes a reform bottleneck

Awarding Turkey the status of an official candidate country in 1999 had the effect of boosting democratisation. Many of the

political obstacles to liberalising the system were overcome and a pro-EU coalition was formed from a broad spectrum of interests, from Islamists and Kurds to Kemalists. While oppressed groups such as Islamists and Kurds hoped for greater freedoms, many Kemalists saw the prospects of joining the EU as preserving secularism and the Kemalist character of the state. For a long time the Kemalist establishment, led by the army, had delayed the democratic opening up of the country out of concerns it might strengthen Islamic forces and encourage Kurdish separatism. The parliamentary elections of 2002 took place in the shadow of the severe financial crisis that had rocked the country since the previous year and had the effect of a political earthquake. None of the established centre parties managed to get back into parliament. The AKP suddenly achieved an absolute majority. Only a year earlier it had been born of the schism in the Islamist camp brought about by reformists around Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The party was founded as a result of the realistic assessment that ideological Islamic politics had next to no chance of success in Turkey. The party programme reflects the de-ideologisation and adaptation to global discourses and concepts. Taking up a pro-EU line and continuing the economic reforms introduced in consultation with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) following the financial crisis are two prime examples of the pragmatism shaping AKP policy from the very outset. Supported by entrepreneurs, by liberal and to an extent even Kemalist elements, the AKP wasted no time in pushing through extensive legal reforms, for instance new penal and civil codes and far-reaching changes to the constitution. The institutional reforms enabling adaptation to European norms and procedures reduced the predominance of the military and Keralist bureaucracy. The constitution passed in 1982 under the aegis of the army following the military coup of 1980 introduced many controlling bodies intended to limit and check the power of elected governments. Such controlling bodies include the university council, the highest radio and television authority and the powerful National Security Council. All of these bodies contained military men along with representatives of the Kemalist bureaucracy. The National Security Council

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new forces better disposed towards the AKP or indeed created by the party. At this time, an important role was also played by the Gülen movement, named after the preacher, which was mainly active in the education sector and whose supporters had been increasingly forcing their way into state institutions since the 1980s. The movement provided the religious and well-educated cadres that the governing party lacked at the time. Several court cases in which leading Kemalist and ultra-nationalist circles were accused of conThe Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the mass demonstration against the failed military putsch spiring against the elected (“democracy and martyr assembly”) in Istanbul on 7 August. Photo: Keystone AKP government led to a massive restructuring within the ranks of mil(MGK – Milli Güvenlik Konseyi), was dominated by the gen- itary officers, which mainly benefited officers close to the erals. The reforms related to EU accession led to restructuring Gülen movement, as became clear after the attempted coup and new personnel within these bodies. The military men of 15 July. were replaced by civilians appointed by either the government or the parliament. This squeezing out of the military was not accompanied by fundamental structural reform however. The The disappearance of EU prospects and its consequences centralist and authoritarian character of the Kemalist state A second important factor weakening the already weak and remained untouched. moreover non-democratic balance of power and checks and Although the reforms introduced with an eye on EU acces- balances was the loss of realistic prospects of accession to sion were in line with basic liberal values, the process did not the EU. While for many secular people in Turkey hope of usher in the development of a liberal democracy, but laid the joining the EU, albeit in the distant future, had guaranteed the democratic and above all the Western orientation of the foundations for reinforcing authoritarian tendencies. country, these hopes were dashed by the negative signals coming from individual European capitals. In response, Turkey was gripped by a wave of anti-European and anti-imperialist The system becomes unbalanced Reducing the influence of the military was an important nationalism. The ruling AKP could mobilise this atmosphere step towards democratising the political system, but it was for its own ends by alluding to the Ottoman past and pronot accompanied by an extensive restructuring of the state moting a popular culture characterised by films, TV series, or decentralisation. The military had always played a spe- music, architecture and cuisine full of Ottoman references. cial role in the tradition of Turkish statehood: it was the only In this context one can also observe that Tayyip Erdoğan institution to enjoy complete autonomy from the government. acted with greater certainty and contrariness, particularly in It had its own budget and its own jurisdiction free from civil dealing with Western partners. The third significant factor paving the way for the AKP’s control. In this sense, the ousting of the military amounted to the dissolution of the separation of powers, albeit an monopoly on power on all levels of the state was the end of its cohabitation with Kemalism. State president Necdet Sezer’s undemocratic one. 2 Since the founding of the Republic in 1923, the army had term in office came to an end in 2007. The former president considered itself the guardian of secularism and the country’s of the constitutional court was considered to be a dyed-inWestern orientation. Following the transition to a multi-party the-wool Kemalist. Since all laws had to be ratified by the system in 1946, it had often intervened against elected govern- president and the president also had the power of veto over ments. Together with the Kemalist bureaucracy, which con- appointments to government positions, many critics of the trolled the powerful state machinery, the military regarded AKP considered Sezer to be a safeguard for Kemalist-type themselves as a counterweight to the elected governments, secularism. Especially due to his power of veto over appointwhich in their opinion were all too often populist and driven ments in the public sector, Sezer balanced out the absolute by their own interests. The generals and officers perceived political power of the AKP government. themselves as serving as a corrective force on behalf of the The nomination of Adbullah Güls, one of Erdoğan’s old state’s positivist orientation, putting Western orientation and cronies, as Sezer’s successor led to the ultimate splintering of secularism before democracy. the fragile pro-EU coalition formed by liberals, secularists, The reduction of military and Kemalist influence in the conservatives and Islamists who had supported the reform state and the economy went hand in hand with the rise of process.

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The consolidation of power

The disappearance of structural obstacles was followed by a phase of consolidating power that continues to this day, principally characterised by a party-political personnel policy in public institutions and companies close to the state and by the marginalisation of oppositional and critical voices. Increasingly authoritarian actions are legitimised by scenarios of external and internal threats. Alternatingly, representatives of the Kemalist establishment, the Gezi protest movement, the Gülen movement and the Kurdish movement are labelled enemies of the democratic system, as extreme, foreign elements in a nation portrayed as homogenous. In this context, the failed coup provided fresh “ammunition” for a new “enemy”. In a discourse led by the rhetoric of friends and enemies, the AKP is portrayed as the only legitimate democratic force, on the basis of its strong electoral support. The party’s battle against its opponents (real and imagined) is dressed up as a battle for democracy. This discourse can also be observed in public institutions and the judiciary due to the blurring of the boundaries between the state and the governing party. The redistribution of state resources to entrepreneurs close to the AKP via privatisation and awarding licenses, contacts etc. has created a corporate sector close to the government. The involvement of the governing party and its leaders in the economy has further reinforced their hegemony. Many people have begun to feel that nothing can be achieved without the AKP. Even among the less well-off, patronage networks have created relationships of financial dependency. Many people fear that the end of AKP rule would mean the end of their jobs, their status and their prosperity. Their associating their own well-being with the continuation of AKP rule is a significant factor contributing to the party’s grip on power.

The attempted coup and its consequences

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nationalist orientation and not least due to the alliance with the ruling party. Gülenists often replaced Kemalist forces, whom the AKP long considered the greater threat. The background to the break between Gülen and Tayyip Erdoğan is not clear, but the Gülen movement’s increasing claims to power played a role in it. In 2012 at the latest, the government began to squeeze out the Gülen movement. However, from the current perspective it turns out that this was done only half-heartedly and it is often not easy to determine where the AKP ends and where the Gülen movement begins. The attempted coup provided the government with the opportunity to declare a state of emergency and to take rigorous action against the movement. The government’s response confirms the suspicion however that it is reacting without any plan. In this regard, the mass dismissals, the arrests and the restrictions placed on critical journalists are not a sign of strength, but must be considered a sign of weakness. Whether the AKP is forced to embark on a more inclusive path once more or whether it will become even more authoritarian remains to be seen.

Notes

1) Levitsky, Steven; Way, Lucian: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism. In: Journal of Democracy 13, 2 (2002), 51–65. Levitsky, Steven; Way, Lucan: Competitive Authoritarianism.
Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge 2010. 2) Ülgen, Sinan: From Inspiration to Aspiration. Turkey in the New Middle East. In: The Carnegie Papers. Dezember 2011; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/turkey_mid_ east.pdf. 3) Baskan-Canyas, Filiz; Canyas, Orkunt F.: The Interplay between Formal and Informal Institutions in Turkey: the Case of the Fethullah Gülen Community. In: Middle Eastern Studies 52, 2 (2016), 280–294.

The events of 15 July 2016 highlight above all the weaknesses of AKP rule. Ironically, the challenge to the party’s predominance came not from Kemalist forces, but from members of the military widely considered to have been close to the Cengiz Günay, PhD, Senior Researcher at the Gülen movement. The nationalist-religious movement that Austria Institute for International Affairs (oiip) has risen around the preacher Gülen was strongly represented in Vienna. principally in the judiciary, the security forces and the education sector. Several universities and above all preparatory courses for university entrance exams were connected to it and were considered important places for the recruitment of cadres. The placing of these cadres in the public sector or in companies and media groups close to this movement is an expression of the reciprocal relationship between formal and informal structures that has always existed but that has gained in significance due to the polarisation in society. 3 The Gülen supporters were considered to be loyal allies of the AKP The Turkish government reacted to the Gezi protests in 2013 with stricter security laws. due to their faith, their Photo: Wikimedia Commons (VikiPicture)

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Natalia Timuş

Moldova’s Democratic Decay Once the poster child for the EU’s Eastern Partnership, the Republic of Moldova is in crisis. A massive corruption scandal and an unstable party system whose actors tend to pursue their own interests have endangered the country’s hitherto successful democratization and its European integration process. – R. Z.

The concentration of power and authoritarianism represent major challenges to the democratic consolidation within the post-Soviet space. Some ex-USSR republics, such as Belarus or Central Asian countries, have moved away from democracy into consolidated authoritarian regimes. Others, like Georgia and Ukraine, have successfully reinstalled the democratic rules of the game through electoral (or colour) revolutions. A prime example of European democracy promotion?

But the Republic of Moldova represents an exception. Since its independence, it has avoided radical political transformations such as authoritarianism or revolution. Until recently, Moldova has been regarded as the most democratic post-Soviet state (apart from the Baltic countries) and a success story of European democracy promotion beyond the EU borders. The pro-European reformation of the Communist Party (PCRM) during its governing period, the signing of the Political Partnership between the PCRM and the opposition parties with respect to European integration (2005) and the strong pro-EU public opinion1 illustrate the successful democratic reforms and political stability of the Moldovan state. Moreover, even during the tumultuous years of 2009–2011, when Moldova was shaken by recurring political crises, the pro-democratic and pro-European societal and political actors managed to join forces to resist the authoritarian tendencies of the governing PCRM. Moldova fell short of a revolution in April 2009 and underwent a democratic transition of power from the PCRM to the Alliance for European integration. 2 In the context of political instability in Georgia and Ukraine, which have experienced illiberal tendencies and the reversal of the democratic gains of electoral revolutions, Moldova has emerged as a regional example of democratic continuity and as a successful model of EU external leverage. The country has advanced significantly on its path towards democratic consolidation and European integration from 2009–2015. Visa liberalization and later visa-free agreements, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), as well as the EU Association Agreement (AA) have been gradually granted by the EU as part of its ‘more for more’ neighbourhood approach. These incentives represented rewards for Moldova’s voluntary commitment and compliance with the European liberal-democratic requirements.

decisive role in reversing the democratic achievements and triggering instability. In order to understand the current political situation, it is crucial to examine the post-Soviet political developments and the role of the main socio-political actors, as well as the external influence on domestic transformations. Despite the overall continuity of democratic practices and structures, the Moldovan political system has been shaped by post-Soviet challenges similar to those that have facilitated the illiberal developments in the ex-USSR. The party system has remained weak, experiencing regular fluctuations in the degree of fragmentation and fluidity (i. e. the emergence and death of parties). By 2005, the Moldovan party system had achieved a certain level of consolidation in party identity and party age. But the predominance of individual political entrepreneurs and their strategic behavior resulted in recurring party fissions and fusions. Political entrepreneurialism and Russian influence

This largely explains how the small Democratic Party, owned by Moldova’s biggest oligarch, Vladimir Plahotniuc, managed to become a key political player by attracting various prominent leaders (from the left and right of the political spectrum). For example, the PDM increased its votes from 3 % to 12.5 % between April and July 2009 in early parliamentary elections, after the split of a group of PCRM members, led by the party’s number two, Marian Lupu. Following the strategy of positive incentives (offices, financial rewards) but also blackmail, the PDM has regularly enlarged itself by attracting political players from its opponents. But the political instability and party system fragmentation were also caused by external factors. The increase in the degree of party system fragmentation during the 2014 elections, specifically among the left-wing parties, was largely the result of the increased Russian influence. Similarly to its policy concerning other East European countries, Russia’s primary aim is to prevent Moldova’s deeper integration into the EU and to keep it within the Russian sphere of influence. The reformed Socialist Party (PSRM), backed by Russia, emerged as the winner of the 2014 elections (20.51 % of the vote). It promised to annul the EU Association Distribution of parliamentary seats (101 seats) 2009–20143 April 2009

July 2009

Nov. 2010

Nov. 2014

Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM)

60

48

42

21

Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM)

15

18

32

23

Liberal Party (PL)

15

15

12

13

13

15

19

Legacies within the post-Soviet space

However, recently the country has fallen into democratic decay, becoming yet another regional victim of illiberal and authoritarian tendencies. The vicious circle of political crises and high-level corruption scandals put Moldova in the international spotlight as a country that has failed its stern democratic and European test. What are the factors behind the recent democratic failure? This study argues that the country’s democratic regression is linked to common legacies within the post-Soviet space. The fragility of the Moldovan democratic system, as well as the growing Russian influence in its ‘shared neighborhood’ with the EU have played a

Democratic Party (PDM) Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM)

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Agreement and to join Putin’s regional projects (the Custom’s Union and the Eurasian Union). ‘Patria’ was another pro-Russian newcomer, led by a controversial Russian-based businessman lacking knowledge of the state language and political experience. 4 Overall, Russian-backed parties have been successful in achieving their broader goal – distancing Moldova from the European integration objective. By promoting a nationwide divide in domestic and foreign policy alternatives, based on EU and Russian-backed political models and regional projects, these parties have deepened the political crisis and encouraged socio-political instability through staged public protests and votes of no confidence aimed at triggering early elections. The prevalence of strategic over principled-oriented behavior on the part of political actors represents another key factor behind Moldova’s democratic decay. More than two decades after the collapse of the USSR, Moldovan parties still lack well-defined ideological profiles, being less constrained in altering their policy Demonstration against the corrupt government elites with anti-oligarch Photo: Wikimedia Commons positions. Until recently, the European integration objective rep- banners in Chișinău in September 2015. resented a unifying and consolidating factor among the pro-democratic parties and even for a government–opposition partner- boiling point for the public, which took the streets to express its disship. But the recurring political deadlocks since 2009 reveal that content with the corrupt ruling elites and the interplay of business cost-benefit calculations are the driving force for Moldovan parties. and politics (see RGOW 12/2015, p. 3). The 2014 elections had the The cycle of political crises is largely determined by the failures of lowest turnout since Moldova’s independence (57.28 %). This result ‘pro-European’ coalition governments. Although the pro-Europe- reflects voters’ disillusionment with the political actors, specifically an parties share similar political principles, based on democratic with the center-right parties that had betrayed their pro-democratic reforms and compliance to EU requirements, they remain primari- and pro-European principles. Brussels was aware that Moldova was ly political competitors seeking to increase their political gains. As a fragile success story. But in the context of regional illiberal and a consequence, the coalition parties have used the negotiations over authoritarian developments, the country was vital for legitimizing the indirect election of the president (elected through a two-thirds the EU’s role of external democracy promotion. parliamentary majority) to bargain over governmental portfolios To conclude, Moldova’s recent democratic regression has to be or key offices. The repeated failures to reach consensus concerning assessed via analysis of both domestic and external factors. This an acceptable presidential candidate or prime minister revealed the study has shown that the illiberal tendencies have been present in prevalence of political entrepreneurialism over principle-oriented the Moldovan political system since the collapse of the USSR. But behavior. The European stance appears to be an electoral shield these tendencies have become more evident since 2014, when the for parties, which however have failed to prove in practice their vicious circle of political crises, coupled with high-scale corrupcommitment to the European liberal-democratic model. tion scandals and increased Russian influence, resulted in democratic decay. The Moldovan political elites have failed the stern democratic and European test, demonstrating the prevalence of Lack of long-term structural reforms Last, but not least, the fragility of Moldova’s democratic system political entrepreneurship and the lack of democratic maturity. derives from the lack of long-term, structural democratic reforms. Despite the successful democratic changes, particularly since 2009, Notes the governing elites have prioritized quick changes and short- 1) 77 % in 2004 and 72 % in 2009, Public Opinion Barometer, IPP, term reforms. For example, they have focused on implementing Soros Foundation Moldova. reforms to qualify for visa-free travel and the DCFTA with the 2) A governing coalition established in August 2009, comprising EU. These achievements have been sold to the public and to the EU the Liberal-Democratic Party (PLDM), the Democratic Party and international actors as proof of the political elite’s pro-dem(PDM), the Liberal Party (PL), and Our Moldova Alliance (AMN). ocratic and pro-European commitment. 5 But little advancement has been gained in implementing the EU Association Agreement. 3) http://www.e-democracy.md/elections/parliamentary/. The pro-European coalition forces have claimed that compliance 4) Timuş, Natalia: A democratic and European stern test for Moldovan political elite, blogpost, 23 March 2015, availto European requirements is at the top of their political agenda. But one year after the signing of the AA, Moldova was lagging able at http://whogoverns.eu/a-democratic-and-europebehind with 40 % of its implementation. By early 2016 less than an-stern-test-for-moldovan-political-elite/. 50 % of the agreement had been implemented. This outcome is 5) Popescu, Nicu: Moldova’s Fragile Pluralism. In: Russian Polmerely the result of the political struggle between major parties for itics and Law 50, 4 (2012), 37–50. ministerial portfolios and official functions. This reality confirms 6) Timuş, Natalia: The Impact of European Democracy Promothat EU democratic leverage with its East European neighbors tion on Party Financing in the East European Neighbourhood. primarily depends on the degree of discretion of the ruling elites In: European Integration online Papers (EIoP), 12 August 2010; in adapting to EU requirements. 6 Timuş, Natalia: Democracy for Export: the European­isation of Electoral Laws in the East European Neighbourhood. In: The failure of long-term democratic reforms is not only due to East European Politics 29, 3 (2013), 289–304. the strategic behaviour of domestic elites. The EU is also accountable for this outcome. Brussels has been closing its eyes to the lack of progressive reforms and the prevalence of incremental problems Natalia Timuş, PhD, researcher at Maastricht Gradsuch as high-level corruption. The theft of $1 billion from three uate School of Governance and UNU-MERIT and major domestic banks in November 2014, representing nearly oneadjunct professor at the Middle East and Mediterfifth of Moldova’s annual gross domestic product, has represented a ranean Campus, SciencesPo, Paris.

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Olexiy Haran, Mariia Zolkina

After Euromaidan: Democratic Elections vs. Personalised Parties and Informal Practices One of the Euromaidan’s central demands was that elections be brought forward and fundamental changes be made to electoral procedure. While new elections did take place on all levels and were recognized by the international community as free and fair, the parliament only passed the law on local elections. The existing system of parliamentary elections however remains the same as under the former president Yanukovych. New alternative parties on the other hand remain at a disadvantage. – N. Z.

During the 2012 parliamentary elections, Ukrainian President in the context of Ukraine’s mixed electoral system would have Viktor Yanukovych decided to abandon the proportional system meant that many MPs in the existing “old” parliament ran the and replace it with a mixed electoral system: half of the MPs were risk of not being re-elected. Therefore, it was very unlikely that elected on party slates, while the second half of the MPs was most MPs would vote for a new electoral system. Moreover, demelected in single-mandate majoritarian districts. Majoritarian ocratic factions needed to ensure the loyalty of the majoritarian districts enabled the authorities to manipulate the result. First, half of the parliament to pass urgently needed measures. The best such an electoral system made possible the election of latent example was the ratification of the Association Agreement with supporters of the ruling party, as “self-nominated” candidates. the EU in September 2014. To pass the agreement, the democrats Second, it provided additional opportunities for falsifications needed the votes of former members of the Party of Regions. and violations in majoritarian districts, especially remote rural At the same time, the involvement of Russian regular troops in districts, where it was much more difficult for electoral observ- the Donbas in August 2014 meant that unity in the parliament ers to control the process. As a result, in 2012 three opposition would be essential if urgent and immediate decisions needed forces won on party slates and collected more than 50 % of the to be adopted, including the prospect of introducing a state of vote, while Yanukovych’s Party of Regions obtained 30 %, and emergency. However, maintaining the previous electoral law, which the Communists managed to garner 13 %. But a parliamentarian majority was formed by the Party of Regions and the Commu- included a mixed electoral system, a 5 % electoral threshold, and a ban on blocs, was unfavorable for the new parties that had nists combined, based on the majoritarian MPs. emerged during the Maidan. As a result, ‘new’ faces in politics (civic activists, journalists, experts) decided not to unite under New parliament, old electoral system1 Bringing forward parliamentary elections was one of the main the banner of a new political party that would have represented demands of the Euromaidan in the winter of 2013/14. The Euro- the new potential “Maidan Party”, as they were not certain to maidan also demanded changes in the electoral law, specifically exceed the 5 % threshold. Instead, they ran on the party slates of the establishment of a proportional electoral system with open more powerful political forces, including the presidential party party lists. Therefore, changing the electoral system and hold- Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the prime minister’s People’s Front. ing early parliamentary elections were among the demands of Euromaidan and the main promises of Petro Poroshenko and 2014: The parties’ personalization other democratic presidential candidates in the early presidential Pre-term elections were scheduled for October 26, 2014. The elections in May 2014. However, this promise was not fulfilled electoral campaign in the fall of 2014 was reduced to 45 days. and the old mixed electoral system was kept in place. Why? Therefore the chances of “new faces” running in single-mandate President Poroshenko wanted to gain the largest faction in the districts being elected decreased. For the political parties, a short parliament. The most reliable mechanism via which to achieve electoral campaign meant competition, not so much of ideas and this goal was to preserve the majority component of the electoral programs, but the use of political technologies for the effective system, as the self-nominated majoritarian candidates connected mobilization of voters, which included the name of leader in the to the business sector would naturally join the winner in the party’s title (Petro Poroshenko Bloc or Radical Party of Oleh parliament. In addition, voters were often swayed to choose a Lyashko). certain party list because of the personality or charisma of the According to all forecasts, pro-European forces won the party leader. Therefore, the president, who enjoyed a high level overwhelming victory, gaining in total almost 70 % of the of popularity, 2 expected that his party would benefit from a high vote. For the first time in independent Ukraine, the Commudegree of support, in both the proportional and majoritarian nist Party did not exceed the threshold (neither did the far right). systems. This party served as the silent “junior partner” of the Party of There was also another justification, absolutely acceptable to Regions and was viewed by Ukrainian society as Russia’s “fifth the expert community: removing the majoritarian component column”.

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Election campaign rally with Petro Poroshenko in Lviv on 22 May 2014.  Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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This clear and concise, if not overly simplified, message proved to be very effective during the short electoral campaign. However, despite a considerable decline in ratings, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc formed the largest faction in the parliament, as majoritarian MPs joined this group. Thus, there were two winners of the parliamentary elections: the two “parties of power”. It was a positive sign that in a time of war and economic crisis, Ukrainian voters did not follow populist slogans and trusted those who were in power. It also meant that the monopolization of power by one political force was unlikely; the president and prime minister had to work together. Another surprise came with the success of a new political reformist force, Samopomich (Self-Reliance). This political movement managed, similarly to the People’s Front, to mobilize the voters during a rather short period of time. Before the end of October, Samopomich did not obtain more than the 5 % threshold in the electoral polls but in the end obtained 11 %! Ukrainian society’s demand for “new faces in politics” and a “new quality of policy” materialized through electoral support for Samopomich, which was evenly distributed throughout Ukraine. Samopomich was able to overcome the threshold in all the regions of Ukraine, including the Donbas. Under the current political configuration, President Poroshenko, who possessed the largest faction in the parliament, tried to extend his latent powers, providing tough competition to Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and his party. However, economic and wartime conditions were forcing the two main parties of the coalition to work together. Their mutual cooperation was a pre-requisite for Western support and aid from international financial institutions. Therefore, even after the resignation of Yatsenyuk in April 2016, the coalition of two main parties remained (see RGOW 6–7/2016, p. 15–17). The local elections of 2015: More competition

At the same time, former members of the Party of Regions, but old practices known now as the Opposition Bloc, 3 passed the threshold. It While the law on parliamentary elections was not changed, in was surely politically suicidal for any other parliamentarian July 2015 the main political forces in the new parliament adoptparty to have a coalition with the Opposition Bloc. But the ed a new law on local elections. However, this law introduced very fact that these politicians survived and again became MPs a complicated and unfair system. The voter votes for a party testified that political lustration in post-Maidan Ukraine is candidate in a certain district. The total number seats gained somewhat limited. by the party should correspond to the number of votes gained by the party candidates in total. But the place in the party slate Results of the 2014 parliamentary elections is then measured by the number of votes (as a percentage) each (only shows parties over the five-percent threshold) candidate received in his own district: that is, the winner in one district may lose the seat to his fellow party member who Party Votes in millions (%) gets more votes in another district. Moreover, because of this People’s Front 3.48 (22.14) system of counting, it cannot be ruled out that in some cases Petro Poroshenko Bloc 3.43 (21.82) an electoral district may not receive a seat in the local council Self-Reliance 1.72 (10.97) at all. Certainly, this is not a system with open party slates as legislators claimed. Most experts hope that this system is a Opposition Bloc 1.48 (9.43) transitional one and that it will be changed for the next local Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko 1.17 (7.44) elections. Fatherland 0.89 (5.68) The results of this system were mixed. In the previous 2010 Source: Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine: http://www.cvk.gov. local elections, the Party of Regions used administrative presua/pls/vnd2014/wp300?PT001F01=910 sure to the full extent. Even in those local councils where the opposition won on party slates, the majoritarian component As for the performance of ‘post-Maidan parties’, the main sur- shifted the balance in favor of the authorities. Therefore, the prise was the success of the new People’s Front led by prime new system in which the final result depends only on the party minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which took first place in the votes prevented such monopolization, as it is difficult for one party slates, receiving 22.14 % of the vote, even slightly ahead party to attain 50 %. 4 This was especially true for the Donof the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (21.82 %), although the Poros- bas, which was the traditional base for Yanukovych’s Party henko Bloc was the undisputed front-runner of the race during of Regions. Local elections on October 25, 2015, were the first the entire electoral campaign. The People’s Front articulated competitive elections for almost 20 years in the Donbas. The a very straightforward message to their potential voters: “Do Opposition Bloc – which is based on the remnants of the Party you want to see Yatsenyuk as prime minister? Vote for “PF”!” of Regions – did well, as it retained influence in the Donbas.

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country democratic forces suffered from the traditional democratic illness: disunity. What next?

The results of electoral changes after the Euromaidan are mixed. Three rounds of elections (presidential, parliamentary, and local) were recognised by the international community as free and fair. Ukraine’s Freedom House ranking for electoral process improved from 4.0 in 2013 to 3.5 in 2016. 6 However,the paradox is that under the new, democratic rules of the game the parliamentary electoral system remained the same as it had been when introduced by the authoritarian-inclined former president Yanukovych. There is a strong debate among politicians and in society about whether to have new pre-term elections. However, a new electoral campaign will most likely result in confrontation between key Personalised election campaign in 2014: election posters of the People’s Front with the slogan “Vote for Arseniy Yatsenyuk for prime minister! Vote People’s Front!” political forces, an increase in fervent populism,  Photo: Keystone disruption of existing reformist efforts and destabilization, thus playing into the hands of Putin. However, its results were lower than in 2010 and it lost its According to different polls, the new Rada will be still fragmonopoly on power in the region. mented and the formation of a new coalition will be difficult. Mostly, this was due to the “new political project, which President Poroshenko and the two ruling parties will try to included the newly founded parties Vidrodzhennia (Renais- avoid it (especially the People’s Front, for whom the results of sance) and Nash Kraj (Our Land), based to a great extent on snap elections will be fatal). In the debate on the new pre-term elections, one of the key defectors from the Party of Regions. These defectors represented the more “moderate” part of the Party of Regions and issues is whether the electoral system will be changed. Both it could be interpreted as a split in the former Yanukovych the authorities and the oligarchic opposition would like to party. In general, the Party of Regions was built as a typical keep the old system or use the complicated and unfair system conformist ‘party of power’ with no programmatic, ideological introduced for local elections. Under the present conditions, a base. Not surprisingly, as soon as Yanukovych was ousted, a monopolization of power does not seem to be likely. Rather, it lot of MPs defected. As a result, Vidrodzhenniaand Nash Kraj is a chaotic situation which presents opportunities for manipmanaged to seize part of the traditional electorate of the Party ulation in different spheres, including the electoral system. of Regions. In this sense, they were used by the new authorities Instead, young democratic forces and civil society activists to reduce the results of the Opposition Bloc. The fact that there would like to change it and to move to open party slates. is no united party in the east and south which opposes Kyiv is a positive sign. However, people connected to Yanukovych Notes returned to politics on other partys’ electoral tickets. 1) Haran, Olexiy; Zolkina, Maria: A Year After Euromaidan: There was another compromise between the ruling authorPro-European Forces Wins the New Parliament. In: Insight Turkey 16, 4 (2014), 33–44. ities and former ‘regionals’ regarding the 30-kilometer zone close to the frontline in the Donbas. For security reasons it 2) Elections were widely recognized by the international comwas decided to postpone local elections in this area. However, munity as free and fair. Poroshenko won in the first round in the strategic city of Mariupol, situated 15 kilometers from with 55 %, the next democratic candidate, YuliaTymoshenthe frontline, elections were held. The city is economically ko, gained 13 %, while the candidate from the former Party controlled by the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who was close to of Regions, SerhiyTyhypko, received only 5 %. Yanukovych. As a result, candidates close to Akhmetov won 3) This title of the formally ‘new’ party was one more example in Mariupol. As in many other places, electors voted not for of political manipulation from former supporters of Yanuideology or party programs but for strongmen who had access kovych’s regime. to resources, who could invest in the solution of local needs 4) http://nv.ua/opinion/haran/pobeda-senkevicha-i-draand who were present in local media. ma-vilkul-filatov-pervye-itogi-vyborov-80445.html. This revealed another contradiction. The Euromaidan and 5) http://www.dif.org.ua/en/publications/press-relizy/pressPutin’s subsequent aggression led to dramatic shifts which ress2015.htm. resulted in consolidation of Ukrainian society. For example, 6) Sushko, Oleksandr; Prystayko, Olena: Ukraine. In: according to a poll conducted in October 2015 by respectable Nations in Transit 2016, https://freedomhouse.org/report/ Democratic Initiatives Foundation in the Ukraine-controlled nations-transit/2016/ukraine. Donbas, Ukrainian all-national identity took first place for the first time. Only 4 % of respondents were in favor of sepaOlexiy Haran, PhD, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy; Academration from Ukraine of the so-called “people’s republics” creic Director, Democratic Initiatives Foundation in ated by Putin. 5 But these changes were not transformed into Kyiv. support for democratic political forces. Nevertheless, in some Mariia Zolkina, PhD candidate, University of Kyiv places democratic forces succeeded. For example, in MariuMohyla Academy; Political Analyst, Democratic pol, the new democratic party People’s Force obtained 8 % and Initiatives Foundation. appeared in the second place. Unfortunately, throughout the

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Giga Zedania

Democracy and Liberalism in Georgia: Uneasy Ties Georgia’s political system is characterised by charismatic leaders and their networks. So far, all of its governments have struggled to come to terms with changes in power or to deal fairly with the opposition. While after 2003 the government leant towards a rather authoritarian liberalisation, in the current climate – and under the influence of Russia – an illiberal concept of democracy is once again on the rise. – R. Z.

means, for the opposition to gain power (constant features of these attempts being suppression of free media, the creation of false opposition parties as a substitute for genuine opposition, and exacerbated conflict with NGOs). Each of these dominant parties was centered around a charismatic leader with more power than a democracy should have allowed; each was weakly institutionalized, being more of a network around the leader than a modern-day organization or “machine”. This difficulty with ‘splitting the apex’ – which is a difficulty of democracy – is intimately linked with the difficulty of the rule of law too. The genesis of the rule of law does not stem from an enlightened elite that wants to establish reasonable rules, but is born of necessity. Its origin lies in the fact of an essential split within society and politics between at least two major parties and the awareness that this split cannot be overcome Problematic changes of power Could it be that the aim was not as clear as it seemed? Or was by the destruction of one of the sides. This necessity leads to the country led astray? When it comes to definitions of democ- the introduction of the third authority – the law, guaranteeing racy, the one suggested by Niklas Luhmann – “the splitting that each party shall not be subject to unlimited suppression of the apex of the political system” – seems to be one of the by the other.3 It is exactly this desire for unlimited suppression most elegant. 2 The idea behind this definition is that the most on the part of the ruling parties that at different times hindered important trait of the democratic political system consists in the process of establishing the rule of law in Georgia, slowing the possibility of changing the power-holder. There is always down its democratic development too. This is the difficulty competition between the government and the opposition and with liberal democracy in Georgia on the structural level. But this possibility is essential to the functioning of the system. there are other, semantic or ideological difficulties. Thus it is a significant observation that, after gaining independence, Georgia has been experiencing troubles exactly at this Undemocratic liberalism or illiberal democracy? point of ‘splitting’. As its 25-year history shows, it has always Discussions of liberal democracy in Georgia have often been been a problem of ceding or receiving power: the first change in characterized by twin temptations to imagine liberalism withpower came about through the civil war (or coup d’état, or how- out democracy or democracy without liberalism. It was the ever one defines it: the 1992 toppling of Zviad Gamsakhurdia), link with which the country had a problem. Liberalism without the second through a peaceful revolution (the Rose Revolution democracy as such was never openly articulated, but was more of 2003, ousting Eduard Shevardnadze) and only at the third or less implied in the dream of authoritarian modernization attempt did it come about through elections (the 2012 defeat which appeared soon after the Rose Revolution of 2003. The of Mikheil Saakashvili – although even in this case the revo- idea behind this dream was to have a stable party in power as lutionary aura defined the election process and right after the long as the economic transition was completed, Euro-Atlantic victory, the new coalition in power, led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, integration was achieved and the political system was stabilized was prone to acting like it was a post-revolutionary govern- and immunized to the threats emanating from Russia or from ment). As the country awaits the next parliamentary elections the forces that would play into Russia’s hands. Not that this on 8 October 2016, it is time to think about the reasons for dream was ever clearly put on the agenda, but it was hovering in the atmosphere, suggesting Singapore as one possible model these difficulties. What is most interesting in this history of power changes is of development. The problem with this dream was that it was how much the system constituted after each of them; although liberalism which suffered most in this combination – the major at its apex at different times it united groups with vastly dif- tenet of the criticism of the otherwise rather impressive record ferent social and cultural backgrounds, values and skills at of the revolutionary (or, from a chronological point of view, different times resembled each other. Each time a dominant post-revolutionary) government, which efficiently built basic party system was established, its main mission was to render institutions of the modern state, was its poor performance with it impossible, via all legal and extralegal, formal and informal regards to maintaining the rule of law, protecting human rights During and immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union, it seemed that the future of the fifteen newly constituted states was clear – there had to be a double transition to liberal democracy and a market economy from state socialism and the totalitarian/authoritarian political system. After more than a quarter of a century, this simple path looks more than problematic.1 To take the Georgian example, charismatic leaders – with their loose networks of friends and allies presented as political parties – came to the foreground of the political system. This, in turn, gave rise to the intimate linkage of political interests with economic activities. Despite important transformations, the goal of stable liberal democracy with a free market has remained distant.

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pro-Russian political parties have had a realistic chance of entering the Georgian parliament, albeit with little chance of gaining a significant number of seats there. If we conclude from the Georgian experience that there is no way you can have the dream of democracy without liberalism and liberalism without democracy and that in the setting of a modern political system the two should go hand in hand, there are several positive things to be said about recent developments in the country: first, neither the idea of liberalism without democracy nor the idea of democracy without liberalism was clearly articulated and put forward as government agendas. They have been functioning in the shadows, operating in the background. There have been policies and practices linked with both of these in different periods of recent Georgian history, but to date the outward consensus has remained that liberal democThe parliamentary elections of 2012, here in front of a polling station in Poti, saw the first democratic change of power in Georgia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Bertramz) racy is unavoidable as the only model of development. Second, the prospect of European and Euro-Atlantic inteand upholding property rights – in other words, everything the gration plays an important role in maintaining the consensus on word “liberal” stands for. Democracy without liberalism has been far more popular the subject of liberal democracy as a desirable goal for the counan idea since this revolutionary government was replaced by a try. There is even a certitude that if the prospects of integration more conservative one. The idea consists in the claim that the had been stronger, the progress in political, legal and economic sovereignty of the people should not be limited by the values spheres also would have been greater. But this ‘conditionality’ and rules which are not of ‘peoples’ own making’. In reality it (which is significantly weaker in regards to Georgia than it has is about majority rule, which would like to disregard any kind been in the cases of Eastern European countries) and socializing of minority group, political, ethnic, religious or sexual. While the Georgian political and societal elite into European values and accepting the primacy of the people’s will, it will not accept the practices has played an important role in acting as a counterballimitation of this will by the basic principles of human rights or ance to the authoritarian and illiberal tendencies in the Georgian a constitution. But if we apply the formula developed by Fareed political system – a function which the indigenous civil society Zakaria, who talked of “illiberal democracy”,4 we should say that with its weak grassroots basis could not fulfill alone. Third, notwithstanding the fact that the political systems this model lacks not only liberalism, but is in want of democracy as well. As one might expect, at the time when these ideological constituted after each change in power tend to have essential representations and fantasies were actualized, the critics were identical features, there is an important difference in the way accusing the government of supporting the rule of an informal power changes hands. From civil war to revolution to elections – and unlimited charismatic leader in possession of unrivaled there seems to be a normalization process taking place which political and economic resources and subverting the very prin- could make the idea of government and opposition exchanging places a trivial and frequent experience in Georgia. As the Hunciple of democracy. This idea of democracy without liberalism is not necessarily tington test tells us, a consolidated democracy is one in which indigenous in its making. It is heavily influenced by the Russian the peaceful turnover of power through elections between at developments of recent decades. Russia is the country where least two groups has happened at least twice. 5 So far, Georgia has the concept of “sovereign democracy” was coined, the function experienced this constitutional change through elections only of which to a large degree was no less than the rejection of the once. We will have to wait. legitimacy of liberal values and the actors associated with these values. This is an important element of Russian soft power, since Notes there is hard power behind it. The Russian influence is a strong 1) Carothers, Thomas: The End of the Transition Paradigm. In: temptation for the powerful and the uninformed in the post-SoJournal of Democracy 13, 1 (2002), 5–21. viet space. To the powerful it promises the alliance with a state 2) Luhmann, Niklas: Die Zukunft der Demokratie. In: ibid.: Soziologische Aufklärung 4. Beiträge zur funktionalen Difwhich does not require to conform to any standard of accountferenzierung der Gesellschaft. Opladen 1987, pp. 126–132. ability to the people and protection of the individual. And for the uninformed, Russia is a symbol of the lost security which 3) Maravall, Jose Maria; Przeworski, Adam (eds.): Democracy and the Rule of Law. Cambridge 2003. existed in the Soviet Union, with its minimal but all-inclusive social safety net, as well as the major actor defending ‘traditional 4) Zakaria, Fareed: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy Home and Abroad. New York 2003. values’ against the advent of globalization. This type of influence, the aim of which is to combat ‘pernicious westernization’ 5) Huntington, Samuel: Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Oklahoma 1991. and liberal values as the core of this process, has been on the rise in recent years in Georgia (as well as in many other countries in the region), channeled through numerous media outlets financed and supported by the Russian state. It is not without palpable Giga Zedania, Full Professor and Rector of the Ilia effects – this is the first time since more than a decade that openly State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.

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I L L I B E R A L T E N D E N C I ES

Natasha Wunsch

Democratic Backsliding: The End of EU Transformative Power? EU enlargement strategy is facing a stern test. If Europeanisation and democratisation have gone hand in hand, increasingly authoritarian tendencies and democratic backsliding in the new member states threaten to cause a domino effect in the candidate countries that could spell danger for the EU as a political project. – R. Z.

Democratic backsliding has emerged as a major challenge to the presumed transformative power of the European Union (EU). The notion of ‘transformative power’ was originally developed in the context of the 2004 enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).1 It sustains the political, economic and social change the EU has been able to foster in third countries by the mere virtue of providing them with prospects of membership and backing this up with explicit conditionality and a close monitoring of reform progress on the ground. Despite the unequal progress made by the candidates of the CEE region towards EU membership, the eventual accession of eight CEE countries in 2004, joined by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, appeared to confirm the effectiveness of incentive-based transformation, earning enlargement policy a reputation as the EU’s most successful foreign policy tool. A decade later, the picture is much less clear. While the new member states’ compliance with the EU acquis is surprisingly high, their performance regarding the political criteria for membership is less uniformly impressive. Instead, one can observe stagnation and even a partial reversal of democratic consolidation in a growing number of Eastern European member states. 2 Similarly, worrying tendencies are emerging in several of the current accession candidates, most prominently in the areas of elections and media freedom. The 2014 Nations in Transit report issued by Freedom House downgrades six out of ten of the new EU entrants, whereas democracy scores for the Balkans have on average returned to the levels achieved back in 2004. 3 These developments are occurring in the context of a global decline of democracy following the end of the ‘third wave’ of democratisation. 4 Still, the spread and degree of democratic backsliding among both recent EU entrants and candidate countries seem to call into question the EU’s ability to foster sustainable political transformation and highlight the limits of the EU’s model of democracy promotion through enlargement. In the long run, failure to adequately respond to and redress democratic rollback in a growing number of Central and Southeast European countries risks deepening the rift between ‘new’ and ‘old’ member states and further undermining the EU’s credibility both among its citizens and in third countries. The domino effect of unguarded backsliding

The first signs of democratic backsliding within the EU began to emerge in Hungary in 2010, when Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party secured a two-thirds majority in the parliamentary elections, enabling it to embark upon a process of what has been qualified as constitutional capture. This process was characterized by the passing of sweeping constitutional amendments severely curtailing media freedom and the quality of the electoral process,

Orban openly embracing the concept of ‘illiberal democracy’. The following parliamentary elections of 2014, evaluated by the OSCE as “free, but not fair” in light of the overwhelming dominance of the government party, confirmed Fidesz’ two-thirds majority. One year on, Hungary became the first country ever to be downgraded in a Freedom House report from the status of “consolidated democracy” to that of “semi-consolidated democracy”. However, in the tense climate produced by the ongoing refugee crisis and Hungary’s refusal to shoulder the burden of migrants arriving into the country via the Western Balkan route, official reactions from Brussels have remained subdued (cf. RGOW 1/2016, 21–24). In late 2015, Poland followed in Hungary’s footsteps, with the newly elected Law and Justice Party (PiS) government blocking the Constitutional Court as an important guarantor of checks and balances and introducing a controversial new media law (cf. RGOW 3/2016, 9–10). The EU Commission reacted more forcefully in this case, but has so far failed to achieve any improvement of the situation. Instead, a number of prominent PiS figures have lashed out strongly against any suggestion of wrongdoing from Brussels. Moreover, Hungary’s Orban and Poland’s Kaczynski have reportedly assured each other that they would block any attempt to trigger the EU’s article 7 procedure. Since the complex procedure, which can eventually lead to the suspension of a country’s voting rights, requires the unanimous approval of all member states other than the one in question, this mutual reassurance effectively undermines the EU’s institutional safeguards against democratic backsliding. The obvious risk in the case of an insufficient response on the part of the EU to the rise of illiberal tendencies among its member states is that these may trigger a domino effect across the region. Where it appears that efforts by governing parties to cement their position of power through the questionable use of legal and constitutional means will go unpunished, the temptation is great for other young democracies with incompletely internalised democratic norms to follow suit. The previous government in Croatia, ousted by a vote of no-confidence following an internal dispute within the coalition, is a case in point: despite undertaking steps to undermine media freedom and the operation of independent cultural bodies, its conservative authoritarian agenda failed to trigger any reaction from Brussels. Parliamentary elections in mid-September confirmed the main coalition party as the strongest political force, making it the likely leader of the new government. On the whole, the spread of democratic backsliding in CEE undermines the earlier confidence in the EU’s ability to successfully transform and integrate countries with a recent history of

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in their assessment that the EU will turn a blind eye to internal backsliding of democratic standards as long as they uphold their rhetorical commitment to EU integration and continue to simulate compliance with the EU’s political criteria for membership. More importantly, it signals to the citizens of the region that even EU membership is no longer a safeguard against the abuse of power by political elites. The resulting disenchantment with EU membership as a solution to domestic problems and the ensuing broader disaffection of the population with the political process seriously weakens the prospects of successful democratic consolidation in the Balkans. Decoupling of democratisation and Europeanisation

It is precisely the frequent conflation of Europeanisation and democratisation that has left the EU unprepared for the growHeads of state and government discussed ways out of the crisis at the EU special summit in Bratislava. From left to right: Donald Tusk, president of ing appeal of authoritarianism among its Eastern members and the European Council, Viktor Orbán, Hungarian premier, Robert Fico, Slovak candidate states. Both processes were initially thought to go premier, and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission. hand in hand, culminating in EU accession as the formal con Photo: EU2016 SK firmation of a country’s successful political transformation. 5 political transition. It also flags up the limits of a mainly incen- In direct opposition to this presumption, the simultaneous tive-based enlargement policy that relies upon the prospect of occurrence of democratic backsliding in both the pre- and the EU accession to tilt the cost-benefit calculations of political post-accession contexts suggests instead a progressive decouleaders in candidate countries in favour of reform. Once EU pling of democratisation and Europeanisation. The dissolution leverage subsides following a country’s admission to the club, of this nexus calls into question the very essence of European alternative considerations, and most prominently the desire to integration, namely the idea of peaceful cooperation between a remain in power, can return to the forefront. That democratic group of countries committed to the same principles and values. backsliding has occurred precisely in those countries that were The EU’s failure to develop a consistent approach to counter considered to be the frontrunners in the negotiations leading the degradation in the democratic performance of its current up to the 2004 round of enlargement serves as stark confirma- and aspiring members is symptomatic of a weakened Union tion that processes of democratisation are not linear, much less that is marred by internal disputes and a growing wariness of irreversible. At the same time, partial reversals in democratic its members with regards to the added value of supranational consolidation risk accentuating the division into ‘old’ and ‘new’ cooperation. In this sense, the current democratic disenchantment in member states and adding grist to the mill of those voices that Europe’s East goes beyond a mere questioning of the EU’s considered the Eastern enlargement to be premature. transformative power in its neighbourhood. Instead, it is the legitimacy and viability of the EU as a political project itself that Undermining the credibility of accession conditionality The unexpected embrace of illiberal tendencies in CEE is prob- is being challenged by the rise of illiberal tendencies in its midst. lematic not only with regards to its internal implications for It is therefore urgent that the EU devise and apply targeted and the cohesion and credibility of the EU. It is perhaps even more effective mechanisms to counter democratic backsliding both problematic when it comes to the signal sent out to the current within and beyond the circle of its members. Poland’s eventual group of candidate states. Enlargement policy has already taken response to the more hard-line approach initiated by the Euroa blow due to the lack of political will among the member states pean Commission represents a crucial test of whether the EU to integrate further countries in the near future. The absence of can rise to the challenge. a clear prospect of EU entry even in the medium term undermines the perceived benefits of pursuing reforms to consolidate Notes the rule of law and ensure the respect of fundamental rights. 1) Grabbe, Heather: The EU’s Transformative Power. EuroAdd to this the rise of authoritarian leaders in existing EU mempeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke 2006. ber states, and the credibility of the EU’s accession conditionality as a crucial driver of change is severely diminished. Why 2) Greskovits, Béla: The Hollowing and Backsliding of Democbother pursuing an ambitious democratisation agenda when racy in East Central Europe’. In: Global Policy 6, 1 (2015), member states themselves fail to comply with basic principles 28–37. of the rule of law? 3) Freedom House: Nations in Transit 2014: Eurasia’s Rupture Mirroring the developments in CEE, the Balkan region has with Democracy (2014); https://freedomhouse.org/report/ seen a rise of authoritarian leaders in recent years. Macedonia, nations-transit/nations-transit-2014. Montenegro and Serbia are all ruled by strongmen that face no 4) Diamond, Larry J.; Plattner, Marc F.: Democracy in Decline? serious political opposition and have been able to cement their Baltimore 2015. grip on power by cutting down on media freedom and sabo- 5) Schimmelfennig, Frank; Sedelmeier, Ulrich: The Politics of EU Enlargement: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives. taging the work of independent political bodies. Prioritising In: ibid. (eds.): The Politics of European Union Enlargement. stability over democracy at times when the EU is faced with London 2004, 3. a multitude of internal and external crises, leaders in Brussels have been all too willing to overlook these tendencies to avoid creating a further source of unrest in the EU’s neighbourhood. However, ignoring the rollback of democratic standards in Natasha Wunsch, PhD, Ernst Mach Postdoctoral accession countries means accepting further erosion of the EU’s Fellow at the Centre for Southeast European Studcredibility. For one, it confirms political leaders in the region ies, University of Graz.

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L I T E R AT U R E

Nationalistische Intellektuelle in der Slowakei 1918–1945 Sabine Witt

Nationalistische Intellektuelle in der Slowakei 1918–1945 Kulturelle Praxis zwischen Sakralisierung und Säkularisierung (= Ordnungssysteme. Studien zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, vol. 44) Berlin: De Gruyter 2014, 412 p. ISBN 978-3-11-035930-5. € 59.95; CHF 74.90.

In this doctoral thesis submitted at the University of Berne, Sabine Witt examines Slovak nationalist thought and it forms of expression in the art, culture and political literature of the interwar period – the epoch, then, in which Slovakia first attained statehood (albeit shared) in the context of the Czechoslovak Republic and which was brought

to a close by the authoritarian-fascist topoi of martyrdom, the Crucifixion Slovak state during the Second World and resurrection etc. dominated and War (1939–1945), in which several of discourse on the nation was thus made the intellectuals examined by Witt ‘sacred’. Witt covers several important occupied positions of political influ- aspects in her work – such as the debaence. The author investigates these te on the codification of the Slovak processes of nation-building within language, treatment of multi-ethnicia young binational state by focusing ty and the double function of Czechoon the example of cultural institutions, slovak cultural institutions, which on the press and literature – three fields the one hand reinforced (cultural) in which the same protagonists were Czechoslovakism, but on the other often closely connected. Witt identi- hand sought to promote the culture fies as the central pillars of socialisa- of the smaller and more rural Slovak tion and networks the manifold insti- part of the country. The number of aspects touched on tutions of the Catholic Church and the Slovak cultural associations, some of and the patchwork structure of the which were close to the Church them- study often make it difficult howselves, where the young generation of ever to avoid losing the thread. The Slovak intellectuals, largely from rural book lacks an index, without which it environments, came into contact with is virtually impossible to maintain an the first pioneers of national or nati- overview of the activities of the intelonalist thought and developed their lectuals that keep popping up in the own, more radical visions of the Slovak various chapters, and references are nation and its ‘rebirth’. often used sparingly, which unforThe core of the book, chapters 6 to tunately is an obstacle to further stu8, analyse the political-essayistic and dies on what is without doubt a fasciliterary production of this group. The nating area. chapter on the literature of this milieu in particular makes clear how Christian Eva Maurer, Bern

The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths Paul W. Werth

The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, 288 p. ISBN 978-0-19-959177-0. £ 68,–.

This study examines the “multiconfessional establishment” of the multiethnic Russian state that formed following the reign of Catherine II in the late eighteenth century. It provides an overview of the development of imperial religious policy and confessional institutions, which not only served as conduits between the authorities and the

religious communities, but belonged moreover to the most important institutions via which the Russian population with its great diversity was controlled and ruled over long before it is possible to speak of nationalities policy per se (p. 7). Several case studies based on extensive archival research, impressive in its geographical range, focus on the integration of the so-called religious tolerance of the early modern period into the bureaucratic and legal imperial structures of the nineteenth century. The increased regulation often stood in contradiction to the idea of freedom of faith and conscience which became prevalent in public discourse and was mentioned in the Tsar’s October Manifesto of 1905 without ever being implemented however. The first part of the book consists of five chapters analysing the construction and functioning of Russia’s multiconfessional establishment in the context of state legal practice regarding conversions, separatist movements within established religious communities and

mixed marriages, and also discusses the failed attempts at reform of the 1860s. The second part focuses on the intensification of the dilemma that increasingly eroded the established system: which measure provides greater political stability, privileging the Russian Orthodox state church or extensive freedom of religion and conscience (pp. 255–56)? Here Werth examines the politicisation and nationalisation of “religion”, the passionate discussions on implementing freedom of conscience in the State Duma and the abrupt departure from a policy of integrating “foreign confessions” from 1910 onwards. This most revealing book is recommended reading for anyone interested in current Russian religious policy, since it demonstrates that multiconfessional tensions and a utilitarian and ambivalent attitude towards religion are just as much a part of the country’s “historical heritage” as the “special role of Orthodoxy in Russian history” (p. 266). Regula Zwahlen

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Regula Spalinger in discussion with Lyudmila Len, Valentina Fesechko and Vera Butyrskaya

Helping People to Help Themselves: Social Centres in the Urals The two social centres of the “Island of Good Hope” association support the elderly and people in need in the Ural region. In a region lacking infrastructure they are often the only port of call for people suffering social hardship. Regula Spalinger, project leader at G2W, spoke to the directors of “Island of Good Hope”, Lyudmila Len and Valentina Fesechko, and their colleague Vera Butyrskaya about the challenges facing the social centres. – S. K.

G2W: Why are the social centres in Revda and Pervouralsk such an important point of contact for the elderly?

Vera Butyrskaya: At our social centre in Revda too groups meet regularly to find out about healthcare. Doctors, mostly retired themselves, take people’s blood pressure and give Lyudmila Len: Here in the Ural region elderly people seldom medical advice in private sessions. We have weekly or monthly have the opportunity to talk to other people. Their relatives talks by medics, usually attended by 20 or more people. Since usually have to work to support their families, or they have medicine is mostly very expensive, there is a lot of interest in migrated to other regions in Russia in search of work. The natural remedies such as traditional, medically effective herbs, doctors here, and I have experienced this myself, can spare wraps and teas. We also offer physiotherapy and gentle sports no longer than 15 minutes per patient due to the high demand activities such as hiking or cross-country skiing so that our and the regulations concerning patient documentation. But visitors can maintain their fitness into old age. They often the elderly need half an hour or more to describe their prob- get to meet children, since our choirs and musicians play in lems, recall associations and ask questions. Here at the social all sorts of places, for instance in kindergartens or children’s centre in Pervouralsk we thus have an expert specifically for homes. healthcare who can deal with elderly people’s problems without being pressed for time. She listens to the visitors and gives Your centres don’t just offer help to elderly people. Which them advice on looking after their health or on how to take other sections of the population turn to the social centres? certain medication. We are particularly lucky to have in Father Vassili (Zudilov) a warm-hearted priest and an excellent psy- Vera Butyrskaya: We are often visited by families with lots chologist who regularly calls by the centre. The visitors to of children or single mothers. In individual cases, assistance the “Island of Good Hope” always look forward to talking can also consist of groceries, medicines or hygiene products. and celebrating with him. Recently Lidia Titova, 100 years Particularly in the remote villages there are many impoverold, asked before her birthday if Father Vassili could come ished families and invalids whom we support in conjunction round and bless her flat. Her eyesight is not what it was, so with the local experts (local leaders, etc.). This year we were it has become difficult for her to leave home, especially when able to offer an interim solution to a family whose house had it is dark. Father Vassili agreed at once. It is never too far for burned down. But we also receive visits from people released him to visit someone who is ill. from prisons, whom we assist with applications for new docOur service is rounded off with social and cultural occa- uments such as domestic passports. On release, former prisonsions that welcome senior citizens – there are regular meetings ers receive only 800 roubles, but a passport costs 5,000 roubles at our handcraft studio “Skilled Hands”. We currently have a (75 CHF). This passport is required for every job application wonderful exhibition of self-made dolls created by an elderly and by various bureaucratic channels. visitor. Every Friday there are discussion evenings with the staff of the city library on the renowned writer of Ural fairy Valentina Fesechko: On some days up to 15 people turn to tales and legends, Pavel Bashov, on Pushkin and on other well- us for some sort of advice, for example in connection with known personalities of Russian culture. Sometimes local poets their children going to school or their pension. Often they also tell us about their work. turn to us first because they remain anonymous here, we Group photo after a gymnastics class in Revda’s town park. The social centre offers regular sports courses.

Photos: ODN

One of the volunteer doctors in the Revda social centre, which provides health advice for the elderly. Photos a and b: Regula Spalinger

Many older people in the Ural region are entirely on their own because their relations have left.

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don’t keep documentation of discussions and they can thus discuss their problems freely. The people know that we pay attention to what they say. And they are glad that because of our knowledge of urban and non-state institutions we can point them in the right direction. Disabled people especially require support. What are the specific problems facing disabled people? Valentina Fesechko: Disabled people in wheelchairs often have difficulties accessing buildings, since a lot of places don’t have ramps. At the entrance to our organisation we have an extra bell that disabled people can use. We then come and help them enter. The municipal government has also assisted us in building a new metal door that automatically opens for wheelchair users. Many organisations in our city and throughout the entire region lack disabled access. Fortunately however improvements have recently been made in this regard. Another obstacle particularly for people who have difficulty walking was the long queues at the city’s clinics: people without a PC and an internet connection had to queue just to make an appointment. Since this year it has also been possible to make an appointment by phone, with the effect that the queues have disappeared from the hospitals. Another challenge for disabled people is finding employment. We employ three people with physical disabilities at our organisation. Could you give us a specific example of the assistance you offer to disabled people? Vera Butyrskaya: Together with a company from the town of Revda we were able to purchase a lighter wheelchair that is easier to steer by hand and has thus given back 32-year-old Andrei Khramov his mobility. A bad motorcycle accident rendered Andrei paraplegic. He can no longer work in his old job as an electrical fitter, but since 2008 he has been a successful web designer. He has regained his enjoyment of life through a lot of rehab and work on himself. Andrei Khramov was presented with his wheelchair in the presence of Juri Myakhin, a member of parliament from our town, and Valentina Fesechko, the director of our centre in Revda. Andrei’s grandmother had asked Juri Myakhin for support, who in turn got us involved, since of the local NGOs we have the broadest experience with emergency help. How has the economic and social situation changed over the past year? Vera Butyrskaya: Fortunately there have been no drastic changes to the local industries’ contracts, so there have been no mass redundancies. On the other hand, the prices for imported goods have risen sharply, as is the case throughout The social centres’ choirs are renowned throughout the region and often sing in children’s and old-age homes.

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Russia. Since our region has a larger number of poorer people, we are always confronted with many families and individuals in need. In the summer the requests we receive decrease slightly, as people grow fruit and vegetables at their dachas and can collect berries and mushrooms in the forest. But as soon as school starts in the autumn, many families are glad to have basic support with things such as stationary, second-hand clothes and shoes for the children. Lyudmila Len: We have long-standing ties with the society for the blind in our city. Every year we put together 15 sets of stationary for blind children starting school. On the first day of school, 1 September, the society for the blind hosts a small party and presents these practical gifts to the children on our behalf. In the first half of the year the social centre in Pervouralsk was informed that its tenancy agreement at its current site could not be extended. What is the current situation? Lyudmila Len: Fortunately we were eventually able to extend the agreement. Two months ago I spoke to the new mayor of Pervouralsk, a most capable man who cares about social issues. Also, the unannounced audit by the Ministry of Justice for the Sverdlovsk region in May registered no complaints. Due to the positive outcome the newly elected municipal government was satisfied that we are doing solid work that is very important for the city. The local media have also been only positive in their reports on our work. Perhaps the municipal government was wary of us initially, since our financial support comes from abroad. The extension of our tenancy is extremely good news and we once again have a “roof over our heads”. Now we can also take on the urgent renovation of our sanitary system. It is impressive that many sprightly senior citizens work in your social centres. Lyudmila Len: The people who work for us do not arrive here by chance. Both our employees and volunteer helpers are repeatedly put to the test by difficult situations. For instance, when we had to prepare masses of documents within 24 hours in early May in order to present them to the Justice authorities, nobody complained. Because you can take us at our word. Because we do not allow any irregularities in our organisation and always work conscientiously, we could approach the situation with courage and without any worries.

You can support the work of the association “Island of Good Hope” with a donation to the account of the G2W institute G2W (IBAN CH22 0900 0000 8001 51780). Please list the transaction as “Sozialzentren Ural”.

Andrei Khramov with his grandmother, Yuri Myakhin and Valentina Fesechko, director of the centre in Revda.

Social events such as dances offer senior citizens the chance to overcome their isolation.

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New Publication Hornidge, Anna-Katharina; Shtaltovna, Anastasiya; Schetter, Conrad (eds.)

Agricultural Knowledge and Knowledge Systems in Post-Soviet Societies Series: Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe – Vol. 15 Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2016. 396 p. ISBN 978-3-0343-2006-1. € 88.30; CHF 99.–. This volume addresses the crucial role of knowledge and innovation in coping with and adapting to socioeconomic and political transformation processes in post-Soviet societies. Unique are the bottom up or micro-sociological and ethnographic perspectives offered by the book on the processes of post-Soviet transformations in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. Three thematic fields form the structuring frame: cultures of knowledge production and sharing in agriculture; local governance arrangements and knowledge production; and finally, the present situation of agricultural advisory services development.

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