Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T00:49:52.322Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Post-Communist Democratization: Democratic Politics as the Art of the Impossible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2009

Robert Bideleux
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Post-Communist democratization continues to generate high levels of interest and scholarly debate. The dominant rubrics for the study of post-Communist transformation since the early 1990s have been provided by “democratic transition” and “democratic consolidation” theories and concepts which were mainly developed in endeavors to analyze and explain very different experiences in the Western hemisphere during the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, “the end of communist rule was unthinkingly (but almost universally) identified with the phase of democratic transition,” and “transition and consolidation have been the main concepts around which the discussion of democratization has revolved.” The books reviewed here offer stimulating changes of approach and challenge widespread “West-centric” assumptions about democracy and democratization.

Type
Review Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , Spring 2009 , pp. 303 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lewis, Paul G., “Central and Eastern Europe,” in Democratization through the Looking-Glass, ed. Burnell, Peter (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2003), 161–63Google Scholar.

2 See Bideleux, Robert and Jeffries, Ian, A History of Eastern Europe (London: Routledge, 1998), 7, 405–17Google Scholar, and the 2nd edition (2007), 7, 321–32.

3 Dworkin, Ronald, Freedom's Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 21–22Google Scholar.

4 See also Ramet, Sabrina, Whose Democracy? Nationalism, Religion and the Doctrine of Collective Rights in Post-1989 Eastern Europe (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997)Google Scholar; Bideleux, and Jeffries, , The Balkans (London: Routledge, 2007), 10–16Google Scholar; and Bideleux, and Jeffries, , A History of Eastern Europe (2007 edition), 19–22Google Scholar, 321–32, 342–43, 372–97, 426–50.

5 See Freedom House, Nations in Transit, 2007: Democratization from Central Europe to Eurasia (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007)Google Scholar.

6 Rose-Ackerman, Susan, From Elections to Democracy: Building Accountable Government in Hungary and Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Dunn, John, Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy (London: Atlantic Books, 2006), 170, 179, 186–87Google Scholar.

8 Hocking, Jenny, Terror Laws: ASIO, Counter-Terrorism and the Threat to Democracy (University of New South Wales Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Huysmans, Jef, The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU (London: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Fisher, Louis, The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America's Freedom (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Gup, Ted, Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life (New York: Doubleday Books, 2007Google Scholar).

9 Chomsky, Noam, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2007)Google Scholar; Lasch, Christopher, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: Norton, 1995)Google Scholar; Hertz, Noreena, The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy (London: Heinemann, 2001)Google Scholar; Pilger, Jon, The New Rulers of the World (London: Verso Books, 2003)Google Scholar; Monbiot, George, Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000)Google Scholar; and Palast, Greg, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (London: Constable and Robinson, 2003)Google Scholar.

10 Dunn, Setting the People Free; Dahl, Robert, “A Democratic Dilemma: System Effectiveness Versus Citizen Participation,” Political Science Quarterly, 109, no. 1 (1994): 23–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Held, David, Models of Democracy, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Castells, Manuel, The Information Age: Volume I, The Rise of the Network Society, Volume II, The Power of Identity; Volume III: End of Millennium (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996–1998; 2nd ed., 2000)Google Scholar.

11 For example, Archibiugi, Daniele, Held, David, and Kohler, Martin, eds., Re-imagining Political Community (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Anderson, James, ed., Transnational Democracy (London: Routledge, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holden, Barry, ed., Global Democracy (London: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar; and Greven, Michael and Pauly, Louis, eds., Democracy Beyond the State? (Lanham, ND: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)Google Scholar.

12 Aké, Claude, “The Democratization of Disempowerment in Africa,” in The Democratisation of Disempowerment: The Problem of Democracy in the Third World, ed. Hippler, Jochen (London: Pluto 1995), 79Google Scholar.

13 Dunn, Setting the People Free, 155.

14 Collier, David and Levitsky, Steven, “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research,” World Politics 49, no. 2 (April 1997): 430–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Rose-Ackerman, From Election to Democracy, 1.

16 Luong, Pauline Jones, Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See Aslund, , How Capitalism Was Built (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 6–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 256–75.