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Institutional stickiness of democracy in post-communist states: Can prevailing culture explain it?

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Abstract

Structural explanation of political development offers a finite set of factors that cause democracy to consolidate or not (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006). This approach is, however, insufficient to explain political development of post-communist countries because it ignores a role of social arrangements in democratic consolidation. The field of comparative political economy is becoming more acceptable to the idea that social institutions have significant impact on political development (Boettke et al. Review of Austrian Economics 18(3–4): 281–304, 2005). Using transitional experience of post-communist countries, I demonstrate that institutional stickiness of democracy depends on a combination of causal factors, including underlying political culture (Boettke et al. American Journal of Sociology and Economics 67(2), 2008; Pejovich The Review of Austrian Economics 16(4):347–361, 2003).

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Notes

  1. Huntington (1991) defines three waves of democracy: the first wave after the First World War, the second wave after the Second World War, and the third wave in the end of the Cold War.

  2. According to the “modernization theory”, structural economic changes such as economic growth, rising urbanization, industrialization, higher educational attainment, and overall process of modernization cause transition to democracy and subsequent consolidation (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006; Lipset 1959).

  3. The Heritage Foundation (2012) defines ten types of economic freedoms and groups them into four broad categories or pillars of economic freedom: rule of law (property rights, freedom from corruption); limited government (fiscal freedom, government spending); regulatory efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); and open markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom).

  4. This paper does not focus on religiosity because it is just an expression of religion or condition of religious devotion (Guiso et al. 2003). Expression of religion is associated with frequency of church attendance and adherence to religious ceremonies. These factors are less likely to be important determinants of democratic consolidation. A distinction between beliefs and religious practice is also important. While religious beliefs reflect interpretation of religious texts and teachings, religious practice, including traditions, reflects effects of religious institutions on human interactions. Since individuals choose religious practice subjectively, it can vary across time and people.

  5. Fukuyama (1996) defines culture as a set of ethical habits and reciprocal moral obligations internalized by society. Alexis De Tocqueville (1835) considered religion the first American political institution, while James Madison argued that religion reflected on human nature that in its turn reflected on government (Fukuyama 2011).

  6. Guiso et al. (2003: 228) find that estimates of tolerance are very similar for both Protestants and Catholics, though previous studies indicate less tolerance from Catholics (Landes 1998). Trust in the government is much stronger for Muslims and much weaker for Catholics and Protestants (Guiso et al. 2003). Huntington (1991) and Lipset (1994) argue that religious affiliation is an important determinant of democracy. Controlling for standards of living, Barro (1999:182) finds, however, that relationship between democracy and religious affiliation is generally weak. Similarly, Weber (1905) argued that the Protestant Reformation caused advent of capitalism in Western Europe, though his thesis lacked empirical evidence. Landes (1998) points out that Weber’s thesis is, at best, a statement of correlation.

  7. The Catholic Church’s ability to influence political change in communist states, however, was very limited in the captive nations with dominant Eastern Christian or Islamic traditions (Conquest 1986). Eastern Christianity remained a servant of the state in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Neither the nationalist tradition of Eastern Christianity has changed during the third wave of democratization (Subtelny 2000; Conquest 1986). With a significant support of the Russian Church, the Russian government enacted the law that banned entry of unconventional sects to Russia. The unconventional sects were defined as any religious sect that did not exist in Russia before 1987. Likewise, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church excommunicated the Autocephalous Ukrainian Church when the latter decided to return back to Ukraine from the North America after several decades of immigration (Subtelny 2000).

  8. Catholicism has a much more homogenous organization than Protestantism, Eastern Christianity, and Islam (Stark 2005). Protestantism is highly fractionalized regionally and ethnically (e.g. Anabaptists, the Southern Baptists, the African-American Methodists). Eastern Christianity is also highly fractured across ethnicity and language (e.g. the Serbian Church, the Armenian Church, the Russian Church, etc.). In Ukraine that is dominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian nation the Eastern Orthodox congregation is divided in three main groups: the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Autocephalous Ukrainian Church. Islam is also fractured in various sects such as Shiite, Sunny, Sufis, etc.

  9. There are significant similarities between the Islamic and Eastern Roman (i.e. Eastern Christian) inheritance systems because both systems followed the Mediterranean pattern (Kuran 2004, 2003). The patrilineal and endogamous path of development resulted in the segmentized organization of society with strong preference for kin-based governance (Fukuyama 2011). Islamic countries have a weak tradition of individualized ownership where property remains in hands of patrlilineal kinship-based groups. For instance, Kazakhstan that is autocracy remains a kinship-based society where power is in the hands of a former communist leader President Nazarbaev and his two clans: the Alievs and the Kulibaevs. In the Russian Empire the pattern of kin-based community survived well in the modern era. Until the Stolypin Reform of 1905 kin-based communal property rights in land and gender inequality remained in the Russian Empire (Krasnozhon 2005).

  10. Ragin (1987) also considers a cause sufficient if it can produce a certain outcome by itself. Based on the previous discussion in Section 2, no single determinant can be sufficient for post-communist democratic consolidation.

  11. The Polity score captures regime authority spectrum on a 21-point scale ranging from −10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy) for a period of 1989–2011. The Freedom House also measures regime authority on a seven-point scale ranging from consolidated democracy (1–2.99) to consolidated authoritarian regime (6–7) for a period of 1995–2011.

  12. The State Fragility index that covers a period of 1995–2010 scores each country on both effectiveness and legitimacy of a state in four performance dimensions: security, political, economic, and social The index measures state’s capacity to manage conflicts, implement policies, provide essential services, maintain system coherence, promote quality of life, and overall development. The index measures state’s fragility on a 25-point scale ranging from extreme fragility (20–25) to little or no fragility (0–3).

  13. The traditional measure of ethnic fractionalization that is computed as one minus the Herfindahl index of ethnolinguistic group shares reflects the probability that two randomly drawn individuals from the population belong to different groups. When each person belongs to a different group, the probability is 1 and vice versa. I consider a country having a low level of inter-group inequality if at least two measures of fractionalization score less than 0.5.

  14. This index that covers a period of 1995–2011 scores each country on ten components of economic freedom, assigning a grade in each using a 100-point scale (Freedom House 2011). The scale has five main benchmarks ranging from free (100-80) to repressed (49.9-0).

  15. As shown in Table 2, all five cases of democratic consolidation have a common combinatorial causation. These cases represent Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia. There is a single instance of consolidated democracy in Table 1: S = AbCDeF.

  16. The Mathematica code is available for the above-described analysis.

  17. The Boolean method shows that economic freedom is necessary cause of democratic consolidation in post-communist state with low inter-group inequality and state stability (AbC) or low inter-group inequality and non-socialist legal origin (ACe) or high inter-group inequality and socialist legal origin (AcE) or no neighboring democracies (Ad) or all co-factors combined. Absence of economic freedom is necessary co-factor of post-communist democratic consolidation if a country has state stability, high inter-group inequality, and non-socialist legal origin (abce). Next, state stability is necessary for democratic consolidation in post-communist country with no economic freedom, high inter-group inequality, and non-socialist legal origin (abce) or both low inter-group inequality and socialist legal origin (bCE) or both low inter-group inequality and absent Catholic traditions (bCf) or no neighboring democracy (bd) or combination of co-factors.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Peter Boettke, Peter Leeson, Frederic Sautet, Scott Wentland, and anonymous referee for their comments.

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  1. Loyola University New Orleans, 6363 St. Charles Ave., Box 15, New Orleans, LA, 70118, USA

    Leonid A. Krasnozhon

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Krasnozhon, L.A. Institutional stickiness of democracy in post-communist states: Can prevailing culture explain it?. Rev Austrian Econ 26, 221–237 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-012-0192-6

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