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Central and East
European Politics
From Communism to Democracy

Fourth Edition

Edited by

Sharon L. Wolchik
The George Washington University

Jane Leftwich Curry

Santa Clara University

R OW M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
 Executive Editor: Susan McEachern
Editorial Assistant: Katelyn Turner
Senior Marketing Manager: Kim Lyons

Credits and acknowledgments for material borrowed from other sources, and reproduced with
permission, appear on the appropriate page within the text.

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-​34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2018 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

First Edition 2007. Second Edition 2010. Third Edition 2014.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Wolchik, Sharon L., editor. | Curry, Jane Leftwich, 1948–​editor.

Title: Central and East European Politics: from communism to democracy /​
edited by Sharon L. Wolchik, George Washington University, Jane Leftwich Curry,
Santa Clara University.
Description: Fourth edition. | Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017058150 (print) | LCCN 2017059309 (ebook) | ISBN
9781538100899 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538100875 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781538100882 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Europe, Eastern—​Politics and government—​1989–​| Europe,
Central—​Politics and government—​1989–​ | Post-​communism—​Europe, Eastern.
| Post-​communism—​Europe, Central. | Democracy—​Europe, Eastern. |
Democracy—​Europe, Central. | North Atlantic Treaty Organization—​Europe,
Eastern. | North Atlantic Treaty Organization—​Europe, Central. | European
Union—​Europe, Eastern. | European Union—​Europe, Central.
Classification: LCC DJK51 (ebook) | LCC DJK51.C437 2018 (print) | DDC
947.0009/​049—​dc23
LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2017058150

∞™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—​Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI/​NISO Z39.48-​1992.

Printed in the United States of America

9781538100875_Print.indb 2 02-Mar-18 18:44:00

We dedicate this edition to our families and our colleagues. We are forever grateful for
our families’ love and curiosity about the world. We are also grateful for the important
role they play in our lives. We are grateful for our colleagues’ support over the years and
for all they have shared with us.
Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments xi

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1 Democracy, the Market, and the Return to Europe: From Communism to the
European Union and NATO 3
Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane Leftwich Curry

PART II: POLICIES AND ISSUES

2 The Political Transition 33
Valerie Bunce
3 Re-​Creating the Market 57
Sharon Fisher
4 Civil Society and Political Parties: Growth and Change in the Organizations
Linking People and Power 89
Kevin Deegan-​Krause
5 Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Challenges of Democratic Consolidation 115
Zsuzsa Csergő
6 Transitional Justice and Memory 145
Vello Pettai and Eva-​Clarita Pettai
7 The EU and Its New Members: Forging a New Relationship 171
Ronald H. Linden
8 Security Issues: NATO and Beyond 199
Joshua Spero

v
vi   C O N T E N T S

PART III: CASE STUDIES

9 Poland: The Politics of “God’s Playground” 225
Jane Leftwich Curry
10 The Czech and Slovak Republics: Two Paths to the Same Destination 255
Sharon L. Wolchik
11 Hungary: Pathbreaker of Populist Nationalism 287
Federigo Argentieri
12 The Baltic Countries: Facing New Challenges in Politics, Society,
and Security 313
Daina S. Eglitis
13 Bulgaria: Progress and Development 337
Janusz Bugajski
14 Romania since 1989: Old Dilemmas, Present Challenges,
Future Uncertainties 373
Monica Ciobanu
15 Albania: At a Democratic Crossroad 405
Elez Biberaj
16 Former Yugoslavia and Its Successors 439
Mark Baskin and Paula Pickering
17 Ukraine: The End of Post-​Sovietism and “Brotherly Friendship” 493
Taras Kuzio

PART IV: CONCLUSION

18 Thirty Years after 1989: A Balance Sheet 531
Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane Leftwich Curry
Index 545
About the Contributors 565
Illustrations

Figures
Figure 4.1. Overall Strength of Civil Society over Time (Core Civil
Society Score) 92
Figure 4.2. Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties in Central and
Eastern Europe over Time 102
Figure 4.3. Volatility of Party Systems in Central and Eastern Europe
over Time 103
Figure 7.1. Changes in Central and East European Democracy Scores
since Accession 184

Maps
Map 1.1. Central and Eastern Europe Today 6
Map 1.2. Empires in Central and Eastern Europe, 1800 7
Map 1.3. Central and Eastern Europe, 1914 11
Map 1.4. Axis and Allies, December 1941 19
Map 5.1. Ethnic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, 2014. The map
includes minorities over 0.2 percent of the population in the latest
official census for each state. 117
Map 8.1. Warsaw Pact and NATO States, 1989 201
Map 8.2. European Members of NATO, 2014 206
Map 9.0. Poland 224
Map 10.0. The Czech and Slovak Republics 254
Map 11.0. Hungary 286
Map 12.0. The Baltic States 312
Map 13.0. Bulgaria 336
Map 14.0. Romania 373

vii
viii   I llustrations

Map 15.0. Albania 404

Map 16.0. Former Yugoslavia and Its Successors 438
Map 17.0. Ukraine 492

Photos
Photo 1.1. This wood-​processing plant was abandoned in eastern Poland
(Ruciana Nida) as a result of the economic transition. 17
Photo 1.2. Deputy Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski meets with the
crew of the Gdańsk shipyard. 23
Photo 2.1. Remembering Václav Havel, Prague, Czech Republic. 35
Photo 2.2. General and former president Wojciech Jaruzelski and former
president Lech Wałęsa at a debate on Poland’s past. 37
Photo 2.3. Berlaymont building with “Welcome Bulgaria Romania to
the EU.” 47
Photo 3.1. Children playing outside a run-​down apartment building
in Bulgaria. 71
Photo 3.2. Warsaw’s city center. 79
Photo 3.3. Upscale stores with imported and domestic luxury goods,
like this one in a mall in Warsaw, are now common in
much of Central and Eastern Europe. 82
Photo 4.1. Black Monday Women’s Strikes in 2016 against the legislation
which would criminalize all abortions. 99
Photo 4.2. Law and Justice Party majority voting for their legal reforms. 106
Photo 5.1. Roma refugee camp in Zvecan, north of Kosovo,
November 1999. 121
Photo 5.2. Croatian refugees fleeing from Bosnian forces in June 1993
near Travnik. 126
Photo 5.3. With the expansion of the European Union, West European
tourists have come in large numbers to places like this
Hungarian village in Transylvania. 134
Photo 6.1. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, president of Poland in 1989 and
1990 and former head of the Polish military, was tried for attacks
on demonstrators in Gdańsk during the 1970 demonstrations. 148
Photo 6.2. The Three Crosses Monument, also known as the Solidarity
Monument, was put up in December 1980 after the Solidarity
Trade Union had been legalized. 160
Photo 7.1. EU Enlargement Day in May 2004. 176
Photo 8.1. NATO flag-​raising ceremony marks the accession of the
Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to the alliance. 204
Photo 8.2. NATO summit in 1994, where the Partnership for Peace
program was established. 205
Photo 8.3. Polish and American soldiers during NATO training in
Eastern Poland. 209
 I llustrations  ix

Photo 9.1.  Solidarity poster that covered the streets of Poland the morning
of the June 1989 elections. 231
Photo 9.2.   The leaders of all sides of the Polish Roundtable—​
Lech Wałęsa, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and Aleksander
Kwaśniewski—​after signing the accords in 1989. 233
Photo 9.3.   The late president Lech Kaczyński congratulating his
twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński, on his swearing in as
prime minister in 2006. 235
Photo 9.4.  Blocked by the police, opposition protestors protest the
monthly memorial of Lech Kaczyński’s death. 240
Photo 10.1. Citizens of Prague, Czechoslovakia, turn out by the
thousands in November 1989 to protest communist
regime led by Miloš Jakeš. 261
Photo 10.2. Vladimír Mečiar, Václav Havel, and Václav Klaus hold a press
conference about the future of the country. 264
Photo 10.3. Andrej Kiska was elected in 2014 as Slovakia’s fourth president. 265
Photo 10.4. Former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and
current Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. 270
Photo 11.1. This statue of Imre Nagy in Budapest was put up in 1996 for
the centennial of his birth. 291
Photo 11.2. Hungarian wall and national border guards prevent the
entrance of Syrian refugees in 2015 from crossing through
Hungarian territory. 297
Photo 11.3. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaking at a national
conference in 2016. 298
Photo 11.4. Riots in Budapest in 2006. 302
Photo 12.1. Kersti Kaljulaid, Estonian president, May 6, 2017. 321
Photo 12.2. Lithuanian strikes. 322
Photo 12.3. Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė with Obama on
February 15, 2016. 324
Photo 12.4. Raimonds Vējonis, Latvian president. 329
Photo 13.1. Ultranationalist party Union Attack members demonstrate
against a loudspeaker at a mosque in Sofia. 347
Photo 13.2. Georgi Parvanov was elected president in 2001. 348
Photo 13.3. Kristalina Georgieva, currently UN Commissioner for
International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid, and Crisis Response. 365
Photo 14.1. Bucharest’s youth celebrate the flight of Nicolae Ceauşescu
in December 1989. 380
Photo 14.2. Poor technology and infrastructure are rendering Romania’s
coal-​mining industry obsolete. 381
Photo 14.3. The street sign reads, “Romania: That’ll do.” 395
Photo 15.1. Current Albanian president Ilir Meta elected in 2017, after
serving as prime minister from 1999 to 2002. 412
Photo 16.1. Funeral procession for Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić,
who was assassinated by Serbian radicals in 2003. 455
x   I llustrations

Photo 16.2. July 2006 rally in Macedonia. 463

Photo 17.1. In what would come to be known as the Orange Revolution,
protesters take to the streets in Kyiv to protest fraudulent
presidential election results in 2004. 499
Photo 17.2. Yushchenko and Yanukovych after Yushchenko won the rerun
of the second round of the 2004 Ukrainian election. 500
Photo 17.3. Petro Poroshenko, elected president in 2014 after the
Euromaidan and the defection of Viktor Yanukovich. 503
Photo 17.4. Euromaidan demonstrators after the demonstrations had been
attacked by the police. 512

Tables
Table 2.1. Freedom House Rankings for Central and East European States,
2006–​2017 45
Table 3.1. Unemployment Rates for Central and East European States,
1998–​2016 72
Table 3.2. Current-​Account Balances for Central and East European States
as a Share of GDP, 1995–​2016 77
Table 3.3. GDP per Capita, 2004–​2016 80
Table 3.4. Public Finance Deficit as a Share of GDP, 2009–​2016 85
Table 5.1. Ethnic Composition of the Baltic States 129
Table 5.2. Ethnic Composition of the Czech Republic 132
Table 5.3. Ethnic Composition of Slovakia 132
Table 5.4. Ethnic Composition of Romania 135
Table 7.1. Membership in European Organizations 172
Table 7.2. Reorientation of Trade: Share of Central and Eastern Europe’s
Trade with Western Europe by Year 172
Table 7.3. Gross Domestic Product per Capita of New and Old EU
Members GDP in PPS per Inhabitant, 2001 175
Table 7.4. Democracy Scores for Central and Eastern Europe,
the Balkans, and States of the Former Soviet Union 182
Table 7.5. Support for Democracy 185
Table 10.1. Ratio of the Number of Parties Seating Deputies to the
Number of Parties Fielding Candidates by Election 267
Table 10.2. Number of Parties Fielding Candidates and Number of
New Parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia since
Independence 267
Table 10.3. Real GDP Growth in Czech Republic and Slovakia,
2010–​2016 275
Table 16.1. Levels of Trust in Political and Social Institutions 471
Table 16.2. Increasingly Divergent Economies in 2015 473
Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Institute for European, Russian, and
Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University, the Centre for East European
Studies at the University of Warsaw, and Santa Clara University.
We thank Nancy Meyers, Bret Barrowman, Amber Footman, Isabelle Chiaradia,
Michael Kilbane, Melissa Aten, Christine Cannata, Allison Beresford, Kallie Knutson,
Gabriel Kelly, and Glen Kelley for their research assistance for this and previous editions
of this volume. We also wish to thank Malgorzata Alicja Gudzikowska for her help in
finding and getting permissions when it seemed hopeless.
We also thank Aurora Zahm for her remarkable dedication to this edition and
coming to Warsaw to get it finished. Elwood Mills deserves special thanks for his seem-
ingly unending work and patience in preparing maps and illustrations.
We thank all of our previous contributors for their patience, persistence, and dili-
gence in preparing their contributions for the first three editions of this volume. We are
especially grateful to those whom we asked to update their chapters for the fourth edition
and to the new contributors to this edition.
We also want to acknowledge the intellectual debts we owe not only to Václav Beneš,
to whom the first and second editions of this book were dedicated, but also to others
whose mentoring and teaching have shaped our views of Central and East European
affairs and comparative politics. Our colleagues and friends in Central and Eastern
Europe have challenged and informed us, giving us valuable insights and untold hours
of their time. For that, we owe them much. We are also grateful to the generations of
students whose interactions with us helped us learn what students want and need to know
about the politics of the region.
We are indebted, as always, to our families for their support in this endeavor, as in all
others. This book, as our other work in this region, has been a part of their lives as well as
ours, and they have shared in its creation and revision through dinner-​table conversations
and email and phone updates. We are gratified by their interest in Central and Eastern
Europe, evident in their travel, study, and research in the region.
Finally, the idea for this book grew out of our common difficulty in finding up-​to-​
date, accessible materials about the politics of Central and Eastern Europe after commu-
nism. But its origin actually dates to 1970, when we found ourselves beginning the study
xi
newgenprepdf

xii   A cknowledgments

of what was then termed “Eastern Europe” with Václav Beneš at Indiana University. Our
meeting at the reception for new graduate students led to a friendship that has seen us
through graduate school, the births and growth of six children between us, and nearly
fifty years of professional and personal triumphs and tragedies. In addition to all those
we have thanked for their role in producing this book, we are grateful for each other and
for our friendship.
Part I

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1

Democracy, the Market, and

the Return to Europe
FROM COMMUNISM TO THE EUROPEAN UNION
AND NATO

Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane Leftwich Curry

In 1989, the unthinkable happened: communist rule collapsed, virtually like a house of cards,
across what had been the former Soviet bloc. As Timothy Garton Ash said, “In Poland it
took ten years, in Hungary ten months, East Germany ten weeks: perhaps in Czechoslovakia
it will take ten days!”1 This statement, although not entirely accurate, captures several crucial
aspects of the end of communist rule: it was fast, unexpected, and unplanned.
After several decades of communism and the Cold War that most had assumed meant
a Europe irreversibly divided between East and West, the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe were once again free to chart their own courses. However, return to Europe
and transitions from communism have not been easy for these states. Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union came apart, creating, from what had been eight states,
twenty-​nine states, nineteen of which are geographically in Europe. In the process, the
collapse of Yugoslavia brought the first European war since the end of World War II. Even
when their institutions were transformed to look and work like those in the established
democracies of Western Europe, they often did not work in the same ways. Less than
thirty years later, the democratic structures in two of what were two of Central Europe’s
most successful states have turned into “illiberal democracies” with free elections but
political leaderships that have eliminated the independent power of the courts, the press,
and other institutions that are crucial to democracy. Populist candidates and parties have
also appeared elsewhere in the area.
Now, though, this shift away from democracy is happening in a Europe that has
been united for more than a decade. A decade after communism collapsed and the Berlin
Wall came down, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began to take in the
states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined
NATO—​once the military bulwark of the Americans and what we then called the “West
Europeans” against communism. Five years later, in 2004, NATO took in the Baltic
states, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. And, now, Croatia and Montenegro are
also members. In 2004, too, the European Union (EU) took in eight of the new democ-
racies. Romania and Bulgaria became members in 2007. Croatia became a member in
2013. Montenegro, Macedonia, and Albania remain candidate members, and Serbia has
recently begun the process. After the Orange Revolution in 2004, Ukraine pushed to
begin negotiations. Only Bosnia and Kosovo remain far from membership.
3
4   S haron L . Wolchik and J ane L eftwich C urry

When communism collapsed, the new leaders and citizens in the region hoped that
democracy and capitalism would take root and flourish easily and quickly. The initial
realities, though, proved to be more complicated. Almost all of these states had to catch
up from centuries of being the backwaters of Europe, most often as a part of someone
else’s empire. State economies whose failures had helped bring down communist control
had to be unraveled. Political systems in which elites shared power and citizens both had
a voice and took responsibility had to be devised, established, and consolidated. Finally,
both the leaders and the populations had to come to grips with their communist past.
These states became part of European institutions in the decade and a half after
the collapse of communism, but even the earliest and apparently most successful
democratizers in Central Europe were never totally “European” in their politics or their
economics. Politics and politicians in the region, over the years, have ranged back and
forth from the right to the left with little in between. Populism has become more sig-
nificant. Corruption is far more widespread and democracy less stable than elsewhere in
Europe. The much-​heralded economic reform brought private ownership and multina-
tional corporations. At the same time, it has brought deep divisions between rich and
poor, a decline in social welfare that has impacted much of the population, and, for many
reasons, real disappointment in the lives they now have under capitalism.
Accession to the EU was the logical outcome of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it has
complicated the EU’s politics and economics. The postcommunist European countries are
poorer than the original members. Many of their citizens face far higher unemployment­
rates. As a result, their citizens are easily tempted by the possibility of working in the
West, provoking fears in Britain and in many of the countries of continental Europe
that these job seekers might fill the least well-​paid jobs in their societies. Many citizens
in this region proved to be far more skeptical of the EU than those in earlier member
states. The result has been that some of these states, particularly Poland, have complicated
EU debates and almost blocked key changes to EU structures and policies.
As the transition progressed, scholars debated whether these transitions would follow
the models of democracy building in southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, and Greece) and
in Latin America in the 1970s, or whether their precommunist history and the impact of
communism made the Central and East European countries different enough from each
other and from the earlier transformations that they would follow different paths.2 This
book lays out the paths—​the commonalities and the differences—​that have marked the
transitions from communism to democracy, from centrally planned economies to the
market, and from the Soviet bloc and Iron Curtain to NATO and the EU. It also looks
at the causes of the backsliding by many of these countries.
The countries dealt with explicitly in this volume are those from the old European
communist world that had different starts but all initially made substantial progress along
the path to democracy. These include

• Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Baltic states, where there was
an early and decisive break with the past and a clear turn toward building democratic
institutions and politics in 1989 or, in the case of the Baltic states, with the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
• Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, what was then Serbia-​Montenegro, Ukraine,
and Macedonia, where politics took a decisive turn toward democracy more slowly or
16   S haron L . Wolchik and J ane L eftwich C urry

state bureaucracy and economy (nomenklatura), channeled information between the top
and bottom, took ultimate responsibility for all major policy, coordinated the work of
different sectors of the state, and provided ideological guidance.
Although the Communist Party controlled and directed all political life, everyone
was expected to participate in the system. In contrast to the interwar period, when a wide
variety of charitable, professional, political, and interest organizations flourished in most
of the region, the associational life of these countries was brought almost entirely under the
control of the Communist Party. An elaborate system of mass organizations, ranging from
trade unions to children’s organizations, served as “transition belts” to carry the party’s
directives to the population and mobilize ordinary people to carry out the party’s bidding.
Elections were also regularly held for national, regional, and local government bodies.
The candidates for these positions (party and nonparty members), as in the Soviet case, were
selected and assigned by the Communist Party, one for each open seat, even if they were not
party members. Elections were to demonstrate support rather than to select. Opposition
was shown by not voting or by crossing out the candidate. As the 99 percent turnout rates
demonstrated, opposition, however meek, was virtually impossible in this system.
The Soviet model also included a system of economic institutions and policies as well
as a strategy of economic transformation that subordinated economic life to the party’s
direction and control. These economies were centrally planned economies with a large,
party-​directed planning apparatus. Decisions about what would be produced, how much,
where, and for whom, as well as what workers of different ranks were to be paid and what
each product would cost, were made by the state Planning Commission. All parts of the
economy from agriculture and industry to social welfare and the arts were owned and run
by the state. The Planning Commission’s decisions were based on general policy goals set
by the Communist Party leadership rather than the market. Often, these policy goals were
established for political reasons and were not based on economic rationality.
The establishment of state ownership of most, if not all, economic assets began
almost as soon as the communists took power. Communist leaders expanded the process
of nationalizing industry that started in most of these countries immediately after the
end of the war. In line with Soviet practice, they adopted rapid industrialization as a goal.
They also emphasized heavy industry, particularly metallurgy and mining, to the detri-
ment of light industry, agriculture, and the service sector. Collectivization of agriculture
was another component of the model. In many cases, peasants who had only recently
received land confiscated from expelled Germans or collaborators resisted fiercely.
Communist elites also reoriented foreign trade away from traditional patterns with the
rest of Europe to the Soviet Union and other communist countries.
The impact of this model on economic performance varied at first by the initial
level of development of each economy. Stalinist economic policies worked best, at first,
in the least developed countries in the region. There they produced rapid growth rates
and urbanization as well as high rates of social mobility. The inefficiencies of centralized
economies and Stalinist strategies of development eventually plagued and doomed all the
economies of the region. However, in the economies that began with a higher standard
of living and industrialization, these failings became evident more quickly. Shortages of
basic goods and the lack of adequate services resulted in poor worker morale and low rates
of productivity. There was little incentive to innovate. As a result of these failings, these
economies could not compete on the world market. These dismal economic conditions
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