Abstract
Most elites and mass publics in the postcommunist countries of Central and Eastern Europe came to take democratic elections for granted during the 1990s. Reasonably fair and free elections produced one or more government alternations in the Baltic republics, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia. In these important respects, the countries were on the road to democratic consolidation, and three of them — the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland — nearly completed their journeys. Even in the region’s more strife-torn countries — Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Macedonia, Russia, Ukraine, and what remained of Yugoslavia — elections reshuffled parliaments and local governments in ways that limited what dominant parties and leaders could get away with, although no clear government alternation occurred electorally.
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Higley, J., Pakulski, J. (2000). Elite Power Games and Democratic Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. In: Dobry, M. (eds) Democratic and Capitalist Transitions in Eastern Europe. The GeoJournal Library, vol 55. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4162-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4162-8_6
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