Prospects for Democratic Consolidation in East-Central Europe
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esides its tremendous domestic and international implications, the collapse of the East-Central European (ECE) communist regimes in 1989 generated a very important academic side effect. It brought life back to the lethargic field of modernization theory, helping it recast itself anew in the form of ‘transitology’ and democratic consolidation studies. Ten years after this turning point, pressure has been building up to assess the merits of this ‘new’ theoretical stream, but the criteria on the basis of which this evaluation should be effected have been far from clear. The volume edited by Pridham and A´gh (hereafter referred to as PDC) represents one of the first attempts in the field to bridge this theoretical and empirical gap. The book has three main objectives: to examine the theoretical value of the main approaches to the issue of democratic transition and consolidation put forward in the last decade, to review and compare the factors that proved critical for securing democratic systems, and to identify the key variables unduly omitted from the analysis of ECE transitional democracies. PDC in fact represents the outcome of an academic conference held in Budapest in 1999, focused on the question of democratic consolidation but relating exclusively to the ECE region. Unfortunately, the volume lacks any coherent framework of analysis to coordinate individual sections and also fails to provide clear introductory and concluding chapters needed to clarify the main research directions pursued in the volume, and to pull together into a coherent module the conclusions drawn by each author. PDC’s contributions still cover a wide range of topics featuring key political, social and civic aspects of the ECE democratic transition process, divided into two main sections: comparative models vs case studies. The first group includes studies that comparatively examine the democratization process across the ECE region from the perspective of a particular dimension, such as ‘Europeanization’ (Robert Bideleux), regime change and external factors (Geoffrey Pridham), civil society (Wolfgang Merkel), political culture (Peter A. Ulram and Fritz Plasser), and political parties (Klaus von Beyme). Journal of International Relations and Development, 2004, 7, (94–97) r 2004 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1408-6980/04 $25.00
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Book Review
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The case-study group is centred on the so-called Visegrad states and provides an in-depth analysis of the evolution of democratic institutions in each of these countries: Hungary (Attila A´gh), Poland (Paul Lewis and Frances Millard), the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Karen Henderson). PDC also includes a chapter on theoretical approaches (Geoffrey Pridham) that tries to put the issue of democratic consolidation into the larger comparative context of postcommunist transformation. In methodological terms, contributions to the volume share three features. First, all of them are mostly interested in ‘thick descriptions’ as opposed to substantive theory-testing of the key dimensions of
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