Kieran Williams

Lustration as the securitization of democracy in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic

A recent representation of lustration, the systematic vetting of civil servants for ties to the communist-era secret police, sees this as a process of confession and redemption essential to the restoration of capitalism in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Against this view, lustration can be interpreted as the ‘securitization’ of democracy, an attempt to render the consolidation of the new political system into terms of threat and danger and create a concomitant anxiety. Lustration is a centrist policy, designed to remove the discussion of collaboration from the public domain and make it a discreet, bureaucratic procedure, which a sufficiently large plurality of Czech and Slovak legislators could endorse in 1991.

Proportional representatión in post‐communist Eastern Europe: the first decade

Abstract Using the criteria for evaluating the democratic credentials of an electoral system suggested by Pinto‐Duschinsky, this article assesses the performance of electoral systems in Eastern Europe since 1989. The evidence suggests that there is nothing intrinsic to PR that prevents voters from dismissing incumbent governments or prevents major parties from taking the lead in government formation. However, analysis of levels of turnout and womens representation shows that in Eastern Europe PR has not delivered the higher rates often associated with it.

Romania: Stability without Consensus

In post-communist Romanian politics, electoral legislation was not a major point of contention and stability characterized the electoral system after 1990. The main principles of the provisional electoral law adopted prior to the first post-authoritarian election were maintained in legislation adopted by the first democratically elected parliament in 1991–2, and few changes were introduced thereafter (see Table 5.1). Romania has a bicameral parliament elected by closed-list proportional representation in 42 constituencies with a two-tier seat allocation.1 The most important amendments introduced a 3 per cent legal threshold in 1992 and then raised it to 5 per cent for parties and 8–10 per cent for alliances before the 2000 elections. However, fuelled by dissatisfaction with politics, discussions over a radical change to a majoritarian system surfaced in the press in 1999. A government bill was planned for inclusion on the legislative agenda for 2001, but in early 2002 the focus of the debate shifted to issues of constitutional reform.

Hungary: the Politics of Negotiated Design

The view that the mixed Hungarian electoral system adopted in 1989 would be merely provisional was not borne out in practice.1 The new system remained intact in all its essentials. It was a distinctive system in both its genesis and its nature. First of all, it was adopted almost entirely as a result of elite negotiations outside the existing formal institutional framework. Hungarian developments constituted the purest example of post-communist ‘transition by pact’, in a process of round-table discussions inaugurated by reformist elements within the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (Magyar Szocialista Munkaspart, MSzMP). At the outset their interlocutors, disparate elements of the Opposition Round Table, lacked even the legitimacy of popular recognition. Both internal desiderata and external developments shaped a situation in which the ruling party rapidly ceased to control the reform process. Unlike Poland, where the Communist Party lost control as a result of unanticipated outcomes of its own Round Table agreement, in Hungary the aims of the negotiations were system-transforming by the start of negotiations, and the balance of power shifted to the Opposition in the course of the National Round Table itself. Media coverage was limited,2 while the core of the negotiations, gatherings of party and opposition experts, remained closed throughout the deliberative process.

Russia: the Limits of Electoral Engineering

Two interesting questions surround the process of electoral system change in Russia during the post-communist period: why, when Yeltsin was able to impose the system of his choice in 1993, did he choose a mixed system, and why, given the circumstances under which this system was imposed, was it not subsequently changed by parliament? This chapter will argue that a combination of high levels of uncertainty and multiple aims account for the adoption of a mixed electoral system, and that once in place, it generated interests that served to entrench it.

Conclusion: Embodying Democracy

The transition from communism to market democracy brought about a fundamental reconception of political representation, reflected in the wave of electoral reforms that swept the Central and Eastern European region during the early post-transition years. While the communist understanding of representation focused largely on the proportional inclusion of different sectors of society, this was transmuted in post-communist conceptions of democratic representation into a desire for fair competition among political parties. In electoral system terms, this conceptual shift was reflected in a move in institutional design principles from a commitment to demographic proportionality toward a widespread, if still not universal, belief in partisan proportionality.

Bulgaria: Engineering Legitimacy through Electoral System Design

The experience of electoral system design in Bulgaria during the transition from communism raises a number of interesting issues as regards the motives we attribute to those who propose and support new electoral systems. Three characteristics of this experience stand out. Firstly, Bulgaria was, by regional standards, a late starter in reforming its electoral institutions. Democratizing reforms got underway in Sofia only in November 1989, by which time virtually all the other states of Central Europe had already overthrown their communist regimes. By the time serious consideration of electoral legislation took place in the winter and spring of 1990, Hungary had already held competitive elections, which gave those considering options in Bulgaria a valuable pool of experience on which to draw.

Poland: Experimenting with the Electoral System

The electoral system used in Poland for the lower house of parliament (the Sejm) proved highly susceptible to change in the first decade of the new political system. Unusually, the law changed for three out of four elections (1991, 1993, 2001). Nor can the revisions introduced for the 2001 elections be viewed as final. Indeed, as Olechowski’s view above shows, even basic premises of electoral system design remained contested. Here we provide an overview of the various electoral systems used for the Sejm and the circumstances of change. Then follows an analysis of the key political actors and the processes and issues that emerged.

The Czech and Slovak Republics: the Surprising Resilience of Proportional Representation

The Czechoslovak federation broke up in 1992 because, on some accounts, its two constituent republics were too divergent in their political cultures and policy preferences. While there may be some truth to this, at various times after the split the two independent states experienced very similar developments. One of these was the attempt to escape from the proportional representation system set out hurriedly in early 1990, shortly before the founding free election, which was held partly or largely responsible for the countries’ alleged dependence on government by shaky coalition. In both states, there were attempts to shift toward a less proportional regime that would facilitate one-party or at most two-party government. In both countries, however, such efforts were thwarted or subverted.

Ukraine: the Struggle for Democratic Change

Of all the states studied in this volume, Ukraine was the slowest to reform its electoral institutions following the collapse of communism. There was nevertheless considerable legislative activity in the electoral sphere. Like Poland and Russia, Ukraine adopted new electoral laws for each election after 1989, and each law was preceded by lengthy debates reflecting many basic issues of post-communist change. Principal among them was the proper relationship between economic and political structures, which manifested itself in terms of the right of various types of groups to nominate candidates for election. The main struggle of Ukraine’s pro-reform forces during this period was to establish the legitimacy of political parties in a multi-party context and to seek party monopoly over political mobilization. Groups associated with the former nomenklatura in the first instance, and latterly with the presidential system, fought to maintain the power of administrative structures tied to the executive branch and to state-owned industries. They steadfastly opposed such innovations as the nomination and election of parliamentary deputies from party lists and the inclusion of party representatives on electoral commissions.