“Models of Political Transitions in Europe”

Dear colleagues, it is a real pleasure and a privilege to be here.

As you were told earlier, in my civilian life, life before politics, I was a professor, academic, social scientist. I was something I´ve always wanted to be. And this was what I have thought I would be whole my life. And in a way, this is exactly what I have done. I always thought of social science, I always thought of sociology, political theory, that they have its applied side. And the applied social science is policy making, and in a broader sense, it is politics. And actually it is taking part, trying to articulate interests, projects of development of your own society trying to define the potential models of institution building, institutional transformation. And it is not given to every generation in every country the opportunity to go through a different combination of historical circumstances. Get into the difficult but from my perspective enormously privileged position to be able to, or given the chance to be able to form the institutions of your own country with your own heads in your own hands. It has been the coincidence of the political changes in Europe that the given not just my generations, but broader range of generations of people, including the ones that are your age now, to get the chance to build the state. Build the institutions of the states ourselves. And I always thought once I get into politics, and being politician, I always thought that once when I finish this career, my second career, I will write a book, with working title “Building a state” and a subtitle “Users manual”. Thinking that social science, political analyses, actually does help. It is a prerequisite to understand what you are doing.

If you inherit stable institutions with long tradition than maybe you can just adapt and run along. But if you actually have to build an institutional infrastructure and a state yourself, I would say it is very hard if not impossible if you don´t have a social science background. It is a funny thing that people think that you need specialized knowledge that you need to know something, if you want to mend shoes, or if you want to make something to dress, if you want to cook, but not if you want to run the country. Supposedly, anyone can run the country without knowing anything on anything. This is not true. This is really not true. If you try to see it from all the different perspectives you actually do need to know political history, sociology of institutions, the way the institutions function, you have to understand the politics culture, you have to understand the identity, including for instance things like electoral models. And you definitely need to understand the logic and the politics of transition.

Not every transition is as dramatic as the eastern European countries have gone through the late 80-ties and early 90-ties. Also, in the mid 70-ties, when countries such as Spain and Portugal went through their transition. But, in a fact, a transition is something that happens most of the time. It cannot be and luckily it is not dramatic as transitions of the twentieth century, but every country is in a fact in a transition in which political and economic changes occurs peacefully and gradually. I will not go into transitions that went through revolutions, but it needs twice as time to recovery after the revolution, as it needs for revolution itself along with preparations for the revolutions.

It is a funny thing that it will be exactly on the day tomorrow November 9th the biggest changes, civil upheaval in Europe, occurred 24 years ago. It was the fall of Berlin wall. Tomorrow will be exactly 24 years of the fall when we saw, all of us, we were looking the people climbing Branderburg gate in Berlin, climbing the wall, getting through the wall from East Berlin, by that time Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks were also ready, but getting from the East Berlin to the lights of Kurfurstdamm in West Berlin.

The fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989 has stayed in peoples mind as a symbol of the big changes of Eastern Europe and Europe in general. And at that time it was obvious, that Europe and Eastern Europe in particular, the countries with one party or dictatorship depending how you have look on them or how you define them, were changing. We thought that it was all the same thing, these regimes were losing and the democracy is taking over.

A very well-known American social scientist at that time wrote a book that was called “The end of history”, I´m sure that you all cross that book, meaning that with the changes of 1989, the democracy or liberal democracy as western countries know it, became the order of the day, that same countries will take some time to get there and to change, but basically liberal democracy has won and in that sense there will be no disputes between different forms of authoritarian regimes or dictatorships and liberal democracies. That was Francis Fukuyama who wrote this book. But even then it was pretty clear that the countries that were coming out of the one party rule were quite different and we were doing it in a different ways, and were not going to go through the same experience, and we were not prepared in the same way.

And if you look at them when you see everything that had happened, you can divide the countries of Europe and countries of Eastern Europe from the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) than trough Poland, what was then Czechoslovakia, what was then Eastern Germany, countries of Former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania. These countries were not the same, although at a glance they looked the same, in the process of changes, in the terms of what kind of regimes they had and how they go through the political transition meaning how they are going to change their political systems. It turned out that they were in very different stages of preparedness for what was ahead of them.

I divide them by geography, although it is not completely accurate, I call them the “Northern” and the “Southern” model. Although some countries or at least one country would roughly be the northern model and that is Slovakia. It was very much part of the southern model. And one country of the southern part, this is Slovenia, went through the transition very much the way of northern model. But roughly the “Northern model” could be represented by Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary. What characterized the Northern model was the fact that these countries were prepared. They were prepared for the transition, primarily because they had developed alternative political elites. They were underground, had the semi legal or illegal positions, nut those countries had an alternative political elites in place.

When 1989 came, and first elections came, Poland had not only the tradition of the Solidarnost trade union, but they actually had the so called “round tables” they had intellectuals, leaders from different segment of the Polish society. Negotiating with the government on how to go slowly and without conflict through the transition period, how to hand over the government, to such an extent that they have actually agreed after the first elections, after the opposition or Solidarnost had won, to vote for the same old president, from the old regime, for the transitional period. This was so shocking for the new members of the Polish Sejm, or parliament, that they didn´t appear on the first session. Actually they couldn´t sit in the Parliament and vote for this guy, but the majority came and did vote and through that secured a gradual, step by step and successful and bloodless transition.

Czechoslovakia had a different history, they had Vaclav Havel that later became the first president and then the first president of the Czech Republic after the separation or so called the Velvet divorce between Czech Republic and Slovakia. They had something that was called Charter 77. They had a tradition of also a political leadership and dissidents that from 1977 were getting ready to be leaders and to be politicians. I once talked to the former Czech foreign minister Jiri Dinstbier, who said that during the old regime, this was one specialty of the Czechoslovak authorities – they made the professors and intellectuals do manual jobs as a form of punishment. He was in charge of stoking a boiler for heating. And he told me that when they were already discussing the government´s policies he was still running to stoke the boiler because he was responsible for the people who were living in that house. And they were all ready for government or transitioning towards being a government. Czech Republic, and Czechoslovakia in the first place, also had an alternative elite and had a people that could take over.

The Hungarians didn´t have that much of the political elite but they for years had a tradition of much more liberal economy. Sort of market oriented, this was called for years the Goulash socialism. Goulash obviously because it was Hungary, socialism because people could own small plots of land and own small businesses and own small craft shops, there was some kind of liberalization. They have transition based on this economic liberalization and people who became leaders and people who took over were leaders of the economic reforms in Hungary.

The characteristics of these three countries were that they were actually prepared. They had alternative elites were that were capable to go through the transitions in one step. After one party authoritarian regimes or dictatorships they established democracies. Very shaky, insecure, it took them a long time to consolidate them, but those were democracies. And one characteristic that is way more important that is usually credited with is that those transitions went through process without violence. Not only without war, but without street riots, without people being killed in the process, without executing the former leader, without brutalizing the society.

Than you had the southern part, this was former Yugoslavia, Croatia included, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania. Those were the countries where, in some cases completely unexpectedly, for instance in my own country in Croatia, although when people look from outside thought everybody should have expect it that there would be war. They say there were ancient hatreds and if you remember famous Caplan sentence “there was ancient nationalism that had to lead to violence”. Actually, nothing of that sort was visible, nothing was obvious. I´ve been the social scientist all my life, but I have never expect this. Until the last day I have never expected that there would be the war. I expected that there would be dissolution of Yugoslavia because that was pretty obvious because of the differences, power struggle, conflicts among former republics. But nationalism wasn´t the cause of war, it was the instrument with which it was broken. Basic power struggle was a cause of break up. The inability of the institution of the state to hold together and then nationalism or extreme nationalism or chauvinism, whatever you want to call it, was always a very effective instrument. It is emotional, it doesn´t require a logical argument. It´s all inclusive and all exclusive it is very clear who is in and who is out. It is out there and you can steer it within a few months, six months at the most. And then it can be lethal and extremely effective destruction wise.

In that sense the countries of the southern part of Eastern Europe were not prepared for transitions. They didn´t have, and we didn´t have, an alternative political leadership. The funny thing or the absurd thing when you look at the former Yugoslavia, and it could be the part of the reason, was that the dictatorship wasn´t that severe so there wasn´t that much of the resistance or that much of the consolidating an alternative political elite as it was in central European countries. And when the transition came there was nobody to take over. Yugoslavia as a whole, for European standards, was a big country, we´ve been 8th EU country at that time, with nobody in power that was being divided in to different other countries that in itself is value wise, neutral. In Czechoslovakia, county that also fell apart, did pretty well. The Slovaks went to the period of the southern model of transition when they had Meciar government, but basically caught up with the rest of the European countries. In the countries that came of former Yugoslavia you didn’t have an alternative political leadership and therefore there are all kinds of opportunist groups that used the general manichaeism either for controlling the countries, part of the countries and that led to the war to the attempt to occupy Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina because those were the two countries that the war was fought actually and later in Kosovo that still is not recognized by all countries.
In these countries without proper political elites or unprepared countries, characteristic was that the transition went through two steps in other words you had a transition from one party system to authoritarian regime, and only later from authoritarian regime to shaky in need of stabilizing but democracies. So we didn’t gone like the Czechs and Pols we went from one party regime through multiparty elections that established authoritarian regimes, and only in the second phase we went towards something that I´ve said it was shaky it was unstable but existing democracy.

And the other thing that was the characteristic of all of these countries in the transition was that they occurred combined with some form and degree of violence. In Croatia and BiH it was a war, in Romania it was street riots, people were killed, the former leadership being shot – Ceauscescu. Street conflicts in Albania and Bulgaria that in itself shows one important thing. And this is that wars can be won and lost by government and states, but not by societies. No society has ever war. Societies can only lose. So even if you win in a war, the society has gone through such degree of brutalization that it takes a long time to recover from that.

And that’s why the southern transition looked so different from the northern. This was demonstrated also in a tangible way in 2004 when the first east European countries joined the EU which was sort of the measure of the success of the Eastern Europe. Ten countries have joined, 8 of them were east European, others were Malta and part of Cyprus. And they were the countries that went through one step transition. Slovakia was an exception but sort of piggyback on Czech Republic back and caught up in the last two years with the rest. But that showed, 15 years later that the consequences were there.

Let me just mention the first type of transition that Europe has seen. I called that a negotiated transition. This was the transition that happened about 14 years before the east European transition. This was the fascist dictatorships in Spain and Portugal. They coincided with the death of the dictators in 1974/75 they were negotiated  because everybody participated they were bloodless and they followed something that political scientist Lijphart called consociational democracy meaning that everybody participate in the government or in transition and the government to the extent to which they had the public support. And in that case you don’t have the government and the opposition, the winners and the losers. If you have30% you will have 30% in the government and parliament if you have 5%, so you will have 5% in government, parliament etc. In other words, in order to use all the potentials you have in the country, to avoid conflict, and to avoid the winners and losers. I would say particularly avoid creating the losers. Losers are probably the most dangerous to the transitions at best they will stole, at worse they will undermine.

So, the negotiating transitions or Mediterranean model of transition is different of the east European it uses everybody who is available in terms of political leadership and elite. If you remember the Spain you had the two leaders, Prime Minister Soares and Gonzales. Soares, coming from the Franco´s years being part of the political elite or infrastructure during the old dictator, and coming out of that as a modern politician. And Gonsales, who was a socialist leader, exiled and part of the opposition. Both taking terms and took an office as prime ministers and both becoming part of the same elite. They say they have the reason and the King has helped a lot to go to the transition peacefully. That was a model that some of the east Europeans strive to follow but it was different times, different people and different circumstances and it didn’t work.

For Spain and Portugal it worked to the great extent. They started in 1975 and in early 80-ties they were ready. So after 6-7 years they were actually ready for EU.

These three models are something that is been tried up. It´s not completely a matter of choice because it is to a large extent a matter of circumstances but there are elements that can be imported and that can be draw as lessons from all of these 3 models that coexisted and coexist in Europe because the second part of transition is consolidation. And consolidation means stabilizing the government, stabilizing the state and stabilizing the institutional infrastructure. Without that, the whole point of change, transformation or major transformation and changing political leadership is more danger than profit. The issue of consolidation is less discussed but it is at least important as transition process itself.

I will end with the illustration from my own country. It is connected with something that does exist in Europe and helps. That is the answer to a question “why do you people in this day and age when the EU is in dire straits when it struggles with economic crisis, why do you want to get in, what is the point?” First of all EU has helped in all three transitions because there was structured experience of a number of successful states in institution building that Spain and Portugal and Hungary and Poland, and Czech Republic and Croatia and Romania and Bulgaria and all these states used. They have learned how to organize the institutional structure of the state. There were thousands and thousands pages of legislation and models of institutional building that you can use to establish this faster. But also the EU with all its difficulties provides certain stability, a certain long term durability of institutions that is a prerequisite of consolidation. In other words, that is a prerequisite for transition of making the sense.

And this is my little story from my family, but it is a story of many others that comes from that part of Europe. If you look at five generations of women in my family, including my daughter, we were all born in the same city. And the ones who died, died in the same city. And if two of us die in the same city, we would all be born and die in the same city, but none of us would have been born and died in the same state. Which means that in the last 150 years in that territory where today is Croatia, and some of the other countries, no state has lasted as average as human life.
And that is in the basis and foundations and in explanations of all the problems including economic prosperity. If you don’t have institutions that last, you cannot have economic prosperity because there is no certainty, there is no predictability, nobody in the last 150 could be sure that she or he whatever they earned or bought to her daughter or son because structures and types of ownership has changed. So nobody could be sure that the laws you followed would actually be the same 10-20 years from now. Nobody could be sure, and as a matter of fact they can predict that the values and things that were considered to be good would be considered good in 20-30 year time. Or those that were considered bad would be considered bad in 20-30 year time from now.
So the issue of uncertainty and inability to consolidate, to follow our transitions with consolidations and stabilizing the institutions, without that it was almost irrelevant what type of transition you will go through because it was not going to bring something useful.

In the final instance, the whole purpose and objective of any change is to make people feel better, people feel secure and also to have a feeling that when you leave, things would be tiny little bit better than they were at first when you started.

Thank you very much!