Was Eastern Europe's Successful Transition Inevitable?

kernals12

Banned
With a few exceptions (e.g. Russia, Serbia, and Belarus) the post communist nations of Eastern Europe have become thriving capitalist democracies despite the economic depressions that most experienced in the 1990s. But was this meant to be? Could Poland, Slovakia, Romania etc. have gone the Russian route of strongman rule?
 
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Um...

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With a few exceptions (e.g. Russia, Serbia, and Belarus) the post communist nations of Eastern Europe have become thriving capitalist democracies despite the economic depressions that most experienced in the 1990s. But was this meant to be? Could Poland, Slovakia, Romania etc. have gone the Russian route of strongman rule?

Have they really been successful?

Personally, I think it is much too early to tell. For example, if we were discussing this before the annexation of Crimea, Russia would have been one of the seeming success stories.

For all of these states, the economic, cultural and political shockwaves of the Communist period and its end are still reverberating.

Call me when the rubble stops bouncing. (So about 150 years after we know what the outcome of the French Revolution was.)

But for all of the countries you mention, there are many things that could have gone worse and many things that could have gone better. So ya. All of the apparent successes today could have ended up much worse.

fasquardon
 
With a few exceptions (e.g. Russia, Serbia, and Belarus) the post communist nations of Eastern Europe have become thriving capitalist democracies despite the economic depressions that most experienced in the 1990s. But was this meant to be? Could Poland, Slovakia, Romania etc. have gone the Russian route of strongman rule?
In my opinion, outright dictatorships are unlikely, because the Revolutions of 1989 started in part due to Western cultural influence, which meant that dropping a dictatorship in favor of an another one was not the preferable outcome for anyone involved. The people were too idealistic to go down that path so quickly (of course, there are exceptions, which you detailed, but all three of them have unique factors of their own to take into account.)

In addition, the West, both the governments and private investments, were what helped the Eastern nations to pull up after the economic hardships of the early 1990s. Removing this Western support for the East (very unlikely, as Western Europe, Scandinavia and the US were very interested in expanding their sphere of influence east and tap into the untouched Eastern markets) would certainly help local strongmen to rise up, though I'm not sure if that would be enough to return to semi-dictatorial rule everywhere. Czechia, Slovenia, the Baltics, just to name a few examples, were too influenced by nearby Westerners to tread the same authoritarian path which Russia went.

Orban is certainly worrisome, and what's happening in Poland right now is similarly worrying, but he's not on the same level as Putin or Lukashenko.

Well, at least not yet.
 
It would certainly have been possile, but Western governments were much too invested in promoting as many successful transitions as possible.

In this, perhaps the negative example of Yugoslavia was an inspiration to everyone. No one wanted that dysfunction to repeat.
 
I think it was possible for many.. and could have been for others as well. and still can be. time = effort
define transition to capitalism. many of these places have TOO much capitalism, they took the worst parts and forgot about the experience part. fine if you could steel everything or were from an influential or experienced family. lousy if you are from the village or just a worker bee
 

RousseauX

Donor
illiberalism rising in Hungry and Poland is a thing and has being since refugee crisis of 2013 or so, but you could point out that liberal democracy either never took off in the first place or collapsed around 1996 in Russia

that could have being the route of eastern europe
 

kernals12

Banned
At the risk of inserting current politics into this discussion:
One thing that helped Eastern Europe was people like George Soros funding NGOs that built strong civil society.
 

kernals12

Banned
Eastern Europe is especially miraculous when you look at other revolutions that are coupled with economic collapse such as Egypt and Libya. Even Tunisia has struggled to establish stability with their democracy.
 
With a few exceptions (e.g. Russia, Serbia, and Belarus) the post communist nations of Eastern Europe have become thriving capitalist democracies despite the economic depressions that most experienced in the 1990s. But was this meant to be? Could Poland, Slovakia, Romania etc. have gone the Russian route of strongman rule?

Hm. What is the question, could they "avoided" a thriving capitalist route or the to embrace strongman authoritarianism?

Anyway:

Serbia is special: they had a nasty civil war as Yugoslavia, wich delayed and threw back any progression. But after the delay, without closely following serb politics, they are on the same tracks as the rest of the herd.
Oh, and lets not forget, Croatia had similar issues, with Tudjman and his party i cant remember.
And lets foret Bosnia...

Belarus... standard post-soviet soviet state. Just check out the former soviet stans, the Caucasus, hell, even Ukraine. The latter differ only that they had some kind of "two-party" authoritarianism, at least until the troubles.
And no, the Balts despite the were soviet republics, are anything but post-soviet states. (And yes, neither was half of Ukraine).

But, lets go further, Slovakia had Meciar, the Polish politics were interesting too, we have Viktor, Romanians had.... who was that asshat in the 90's?

Long story short, its a process. And not a linear one. As long as the strongmans are in a general sense elected, and could be voted out, who cares. Just like Helmuth Kohl or Margaret Thatcher.
 
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