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Central and East
European Politics
From Communism to Democracy
Fourth Edition
Edited by
Sharon L. Wolchik
The George Washington University
R OW M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Executive Editor: Susan McEachern
Editorial Assistant: Katelyn Turner
Senior Marketing Manager: Kim Lyons
Credits and acknowledgments for material borrowed from other sources, and reproduced with
permission, appear on the appropriate page within the text.
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Names: Wolchik, Sharon L., editor. | Curry, Jane Leftwich, 1948– editor.
Title: Central and East European Politics: from communism to democracy /
edited by Sharon L. Wolchik, George Washington University, Jane Leftwich Curry,
Santa Clara University.
Description: Fourth edition. | Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017058150 (print) | LCCN 2017059309 (ebook) | ISBN
9781538100899 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538100875 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781538100882 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1989– | Europe,
Central—Politics and government—1989– | Post-communism—Europe, Eastern.
| Post-communism—Europe, Central. | Democracy—Europe, Eastern. |
Democracy—Europe, Central. | North Atlantic Treaty Organization—Europe,
Eastern. | North Atlantic Treaty Organization—Europe, Central. | European
Union—Europe, Eastern. | European Union—Europe, Central.
Classification: LCC DJK51 (ebook) | LCC DJK51.C437 2018 (print) | DDC
947.0009/049—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058150
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1 Democracy, the Market, and the Return to Europe: From Communism to the
European Union and NATO 3
Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane Leftwich Curry
v
vi CONTENTS
Figures
Figure 4.1. Overall Strength of Civil Society over Time (Core Civil
Society Score) 92
Figure 4.2. Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties in Central and
Eastern Europe over Time 102
Figure 4.3. Volatility of Party Systems in Central and Eastern Europe
over Time 103
Figure 7.1. Changes in Central and East European Democracy Scores
since Accession 184
Maps
Map 1.1. Central and Eastern Europe Today 6
Map 1.2. Empires in Central and Eastern Europe, 1800 7
Map 1.3. Central and Eastern Europe, 1914 11
Map 1.4. Axis and Allies, December 1941 19
Map 5.1. Ethnic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, 2014. The map
includes minorities over 0.2 percent of the population in the latest
official census for each state. 117
Map 8.1. Warsaw Pact and NATO States, 1989 201
Map 8.2. European Members of NATO, 2014 206
Map 9.0. Poland 224
Map 10.0. The Czech and Slovak Republics 254
Map 11.0. Hungary 286
Map 12.0. The Baltic States 312
Map 13.0. Bulgaria 336
Map 14.0. Romania 373
vii
viii I L LU S T R AT I O N S
Photos
Photo 1.1. This wood-processing plant was abandoned in eastern Poland
(Ruciana Nida) as a result of the economic transition. 17
Photo 1.2. Deputy Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski meets with the
crew of the Gdańsk shipyard. 23
Photo 2.1. Remembering Václav Havel, Prague, Czech Republic. 35
Photo 2.2. General and former president Wojciech Jaruzelski and former
president Lech Wałęsa at a debate on Poland’s past. 37
Photo 2.3. Berlaymont building with “Welcome Bulgaria Romania to
the EU.” 47
Photo 3.1. Children playing outside a run-down apartment building
in Bulgaria. 71
Photo 3.2. Warsaw’s city center. 79
Photo 3.3. Upscale stores with imported and domestic luxury goods,
like this one in a mall in Warsaw, are now common in
much of Central and Eastern Europe. 82
Photo 4.1. Black Monday Women’s Strikes in 2016 against the legislation
which would criminalize all abortions. 99
Photo 4.2. Law and Justice Party majority voting for their legal reforms. 106
Photo 5.1. Roma refugee camp in Zvecan, north of Kosovo,
November 1999. 121
Photo 5.2. Croatian refugees fleeing from Bosnian forces in June 1993
near Travnik. 126
Photo 5.3. With the expansion of the European Union, West European
tourists have come in large numbers to places like this
Hungarian village in Transylvania. 134
Photo 6.1. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, president of Poland in 1989 and
1990 and former head of the Polish military, was tried for attacks
on demonstrators in Gdańsk during the 1970 demonstrations. 148
Photo 6.2. The Three Crosses Monument, also known as the Solidarity
Monument, was put up in December 1980 after the Solidarity
Trade Union had been legalized. 160
Photo 7.1. EU Enlargement Day in May 2004. 176
Photo 8.1. NATO flag-raising ceremony marks the accession of the
Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to the alliance. 204
Photo 8.2. NATO summit in 1994, where the Partnership for Peace
program was established. 205
Photo 8.3. Polish and American soldiers during NATO training in
Eastern Poland. 209
I L LU S T R AT I O N S ix
Photo 9.1. Solidarity poster that covered the streets of Poland the morning
of the June 1989 elections. 231
Photo 9.2. The leaders of all sides of the Polish Roundtable—
Lech Wałęsa, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and Aleksander
Kwaśniewski—after signing the accords in 1989. 233
Photo 9.3. The late president Lech Kaczyński congratulating his
twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński, on his swearing in as
prime minister in 2006. 235
Photo 9.4. Blocked by the police, opposition protestors protest the
monthly memorial of Lech Kaczyński’s death. 240
Photo 10.1. Citizens of Prague, Czechoslovakia, turn out by the
thousands in November 1989 to protest communist
regime led by Miloš Jakeš. 261
Photo 10.2. Vladimír Mečiar, Václav Havel, and Václav Klaus hold a press
conference about the future of the country. 264
Photo 10.3. Andrej Kiska was elected in 2014 as Slovakia’s fourth president. 265
Photo 10.4. Former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and
current Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. 270
Photo 11.1. This statue of Imre Nagy in Budapest was put up in 1996 for
the centennial of his birth. 291
Photo 11.2. Hungarian wall and national border guards prevent the
entrance of Syrian refugees in 2015 from crossing through
Hungarian territory. 297
Photo 11.3. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaking at a national
conference in 2016. 298
Photo 11.4. Riots in Budapest in 2006. 302
Photo 12.1. Kersti Kaljulaid, Estonian president, May 6, 2017. 321
Photo 12.2. Lithuanian strikes. 322
Photo 12.3. Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė with Obama on
February 15, 2016. 324
Photo 12.4. Raimonds Vējonis, Latvian president. 329
Photo 13.1. Ultranationalist party Union Attack members demonstrate
against a loudspeaker at a mosque in Sofia. 347
Photo 13.2. Georgi Parvanov was elected president in 2001. 348
Photo 13.3. Kristalina Georgieva, currently UN Commissioner for
International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid, and Crisis Response. 365
Photo 14.1. Bucharest’s youth celebrate the flight of Nicolae Ceauşescu
in December 1989. 380
Photo 14.2. Poor technology and infrastructure are rendering Romania’s
coal-mining industry obsolete. 381
Photo 14.3. The street sign reads, “Romania: That’ll do.” 395
Photo 15.1. Current Albanian president Ilir Meta elected in 2017, after
serving as prime minister from 1999 to 2002. 412
Photo 16.1. Funeral procession for Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić,
who was assassinated by Serbian radicals in 2003. 455
x I L LU S T R AT I O N S
Tables
Table 2.1. Freedom House Rankings for Central and East European States,
2006–2017 45
Table 3.1. Unemployment Rates for Central and East European States,
1998–2016 72
Table 3.2. Current-Account Balances for Central and East European States
as a Share of GDP, 1995–2016 77
Table 3.3. GDP per Capita, 2004–2016 80
Table 3.4. Public Finance Deficit as a Share of GDP, 2009–2016 85
Table 5.1. Ethnic Composition of the Baltic States 129
Table 5.2. Ethnic Composition of the Czech Republic 132
Table 5.3. Ethnic Composition of Slovakia 132
Table 5.4. Ethnic Composition of Romania 135
Table 7.1. Membership in European Organizations 172
Table 7.2. Reorientation of Trade: Share of Central and Eastern Europe’s
Trade with Western Europe by Year 172
Table 7.3. Gross Domestic Product per Capita of New and Old EU
Members GDP in PPS per Inhabitant, 2001 175
Table 7.4. Democracy Scores for Central and Eastern Europe,
the Balkans, and States of the Former Soviet Union 182
Table 7.5. Support for Democracy 185
Table 10.1. Ratio of the Number of Parties Seating Deputies to the
Number of Parties Fielding Candidates by Election 267
Table 10.2. Number of Parties Fielding Candidates and Number of
New Parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia since
Independence 267
Table 10.3. Real GDP Growth in Czech Republic and Slovakia,
2010–2016 275
Table 16.1. Levels of Trust in Political and Social Institutions 471
Table 16.2. Increasingly Divergent Economies in 2015 473
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the support of the Institute for European, Russian, and
Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University, the Centre for East European
Studies at the University of Warsaw, and Santa Clara University.
We thank Nancy Meyers, Bret Barrowman, Amber Footman, Isabelle Chiaradia,
Michael Kilbane, Melissa Aten, Christine Cannata, Allison Beresford, Kallie Knutson,
Gabriel Kelly, and Glen Kelley for their research assistance for this and previous editions
of this volume. We also wish to thank Malgorzata Alicja Gudzikowska for her help in
finding and getting permissions when it seemed hopeless.
We also thank Aurora Zahm for her remarkable dedication to this edition and
coming to Warsaw to get it finished. Elwood Mills deserves special thanks for his seem-
ingly unending work and patience in preparing maps and illustrations.
We thank all of our previous contributors for their patience, persistence, and dili-
gence in preparing their contributions for the first three editions of this volume. We are
especially grateful to those whom we asked to update their chapters for the fourth edition
and to the new contributors to this edition.
We also want to acknowledge the intellectual debts we owe not only to Václav Beneš,
to whom the first and second editions of this book were dedicated, but also to others
whose mentoring and teaching have shaped our views of Central and East European
affairs and comparative politics. Our colleagues and friends in Central and Eastern
Europe have challenged and informed us, giving us valuable insights and untold hours
of their time. For that, we owe them much. We are also grateful to the generations of
students whose interactions with us helped us learn what students want and need to know
about the politics of the region.
We are indebted, as always, to our families for their support in this endeavor, as in all
others. This book, as our other work in this region, has been a part of their lives as well as
ours, and they have shared in its creation and revision through dinner-table conversations
and email and phone updates. We are gratified by their interest in Central and Eastern
Europe, evident in their travel, study, and research in the region.
Finally, the idea for this book grew out of our common difficulty in finding up-to-
date, accessible materials about the politics of Central and Eastern Europe after commu-
nism. But its origin actually dates to 1970, when we found ourselves beginning the study
xi
newgenprepdf
xii A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S
of what was then termed “Eastern Europe” with Václav Beneš at Indiana University. Our
meeting at the reception for new graduate students led to a friendship that has seen us
through graduate school, the births and growth of six children between us, and nearly
fifty years of professional and personal triumphs and tragedies. In addition to all those
we have thanked for their role in producing this book, we are grateful for each other and
for our friendship.
Part I
INTRODUCTION
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