Conceptions of Democracy in the Draft Constitutions of Post-Communist Countries
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Description
The process of democratization in Eastern Europe is made more difficult by the painful legacies of the past, including, in random order, ethnic tensions, personal habits of dependency, low tolerance for economic inequality, the absence of a middle class, lack of experience with the rule of law and electoral politics, poorly trained judicial personnel, a willingness to accept rumor as a basis for political discourse, and a tendency to defeatism born of a regional inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West. These cultural and structural residua of communist and pre-communist periods, however, are not the only obstacles to reform. The weight of the past is matched by the weight of the present. For instance, the huge economic shock resulting from the overnight collapse of existing trade relations has produced the East European equivalent of the Great Depression. This is a new problem, not an old one. Although economic underdevelopment is partly a result of cultural and structural legacies of Leninism, the present economic catastrophe is the product of sudden decolonization—a regional breakup with which former members of the now-disbanded Soviet Empire were wholly unprepared to cope. Similarly, the past alone cannot be blamed for tensions resulting from the historically unprecedented combination of political and economic transitions. As Beverly Crawford points out in Chapter 1, there is an inherent paradox in using democratic means to create a government that will reform the economy, since democracy gives ultimate authority to an electoral majority that, in turn, will be most harmed in the short term by the pain and dislocation of economic reform. China suffers from most of the cultural and structural legacies that beset Eastern Europe but does not face the same economic problems confronting Eastern Europe because China has not attempted a simultaneous reform of both the polity and the economy. But the obstacle to reform that is perhaps most obviously not a legacy of the past is current-day Western advice. It may seem odd to describe the importation of political and economic models, patented in the West, as an obstacle to reform. We are certainly more accustomed to hearing complaints, perfectly justified I believe, about the absence of timely Western aid. For a sincere desire to become part of the West is admittedly one of the most promising features of post-communist societies, and one that may help these societies to overcome their tragic sense that endowment is fate-that the legacies of the past doom them to enduring penury and a never-ending seesaw between chaos and autocracy. Yet it remains reasonable to ask, in the field of constitutional law, which Western models are likely to be helpful and which are not, given the actual conditions in Eastern Europe today. Technology transfer is promising; however, it must be selective. Of the Western experiments with institutional design, which ones are most relevant for post-communist societies? What lessons can be carefully extrapolated from what cases and then usefully applied?
Source Publication
Markets, States, and Democracy: The Political Economy Of Post-Communist Transformation
Source Editors/Authors
Beverly Crawford
Publication Date
1995
Recommended Citation
Holmes, Stephen, "Conceptions of Democracy in the Draft Constitutions of Post-Communist Countries" (1995). Faculty Chapters. 813.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/813
