THE END OF POSTCOMMUNISM AND THE TRENDS OF THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF EX-POSTCOMMUNIST COUNTRIES
Abstract
The article is devoted to clarifying the problem of the end of postcommunist transformations and the essence of the further development of the ex-postcommunist countries. The avalanche collapse of the communist regimes at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s led to the beginning of postcommunist transformations. Today it can be stated that this process is over. The author argues this conclusion with the following considerations: 1) any transformational process, the essence of which is to replace one quality of society or its political system with another, cannot go on indefinitely, it must end someday; 2) the end of the transformation process is due to the establishment of a new quality; 3) the totalitarian nature of the previous communist regimes presupposes the multivariate end of postcommunist transformations.
Various postcommunist countries have achieved different results during transformations. In Central-Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and a number of countries in South-Eastern Europe, postcommunist transformations have culminated in the establishment of democracy. The transformations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan was over the establishment of authoritarian regimes. Neo-totalitarian regimes have emerged in Belarus, Russia, and Turkmenistan. In Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armenia, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova and Ukraine, political development fluctuates between democracy and authoritarianism for a long time. The author concludes that the period of postcommunism in all these countries finally over in the middle of 2010s.
The end of postcommunism marked the beginning of a new stage in the socio-political development of the ex-communist countries. Its main tendencies are revealed in this paper. The author includes in such: 1) a fall the level of democracy in Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe; 2) a strengthening differentiation of political development of single regions and the countries; 3) a growth of nationalism; 4) a changes in relations with the EU; 4) a strengthening Russia's interference.
Downloads
References
REFERENCES
King, Ch. 2000. “Post-Postcommunism: Transition, Comparison, and the End of “Eastern Europe,” World Politics 53 (1): 143-172.
Bozoki, А. 2004. “The end of Postcommunism”, Wilson Center Meeting Report. 306. URL: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/306-the-end-postcommunism
Gross, P. and Tismaneanu, V. 2005. “The End of Post-communism in Romania,” Journal of Democracy 16 (2): 146-162.
Havrylyshyn, O. 2006. Divergent Parts in Post-Communist Transformation. Capitalism for All or Capitalism for the Few? London: Palgrave Macmillan, XIV, 314 р.
Kubicek, P. 2009. “Problems of Post-post-communism: Ukraine after the Orange Revolution”, Democratization 16: 323-343.
Peng Lü. 2012. “The End of Postcommunism? The Beginning of a Supercommunism? China's New Perspective”, Polish Sociological Review 3 (179): 349-367.
Romanyuk, O. I. 2017. “When is the Postcommunism Over?”, The Journal of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Series: Issues of Political Science 32: 5-9.
Huntington, S. P. 1993. The Third Wave. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press: XVII, 366 p.
Freedom in the World 1991-1992. Political Rights and Civil Libertis. URL: https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/Freedom_in_the_World_1991-1992_complete_ book.pdf
Nations in Transit 2011: The Authoritarian Dead End in the Former Soviet Union. URL: https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/NIT-2011-Release_Booklet.pdf
Nations in Transit 2020: Dropping the Democratic Façade. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/05062020_FH_NIT2020_vfinal.pdf
Nations in Transit 2015: Democracy on the Defensive in Europe and Eurasia. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/FH_NIT2015_06.06.15_FINAL.pdf
Nations in Transit 2014: Eurasia’s Rupture with Democracy. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/NIT2014%20booklet_WEBSITE.pdf
Nation in Transit 2019. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-05/NIT_2019_FINAL_score_change_explanations.pdf
Nations in Transit 2017: The False Promise of Populism. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/ 2017/false-promise-populism
Nations in Transit 2018: Confronting Liberalism. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2018/confronting-illiberalism
Author’s copyright and licensing.
License Terms: Authors retain copyright and also grant the Journal the right to publish original scientific articles that contain research results and are not under consideration for publication in other issues. All material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License International CC-BY, which allows others to distribute their work with the copyright of this work and recognition of the first publication in this Journal.
If the article is taken for publishing in The Journal of V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University. “Political Science Issues”, the author must sign a copyright transfer agreement. The agreement is sent by post (original document) or by e-mail (scanned copy of the document) to the Editorial Board of the Journal.
By this agreement the author certifies that the submitted material:
- does not violate the copyrights of other people or organizations;
- has not been previously published in other issues and has not been given for publishing to other issues.
The author gives the editorial board the rights to:
- publish the article in Ukrainian (English and Russian) and distribute its printed version;
- translate the article into English (for articles in Ukrainian and Russian) and distribute the printed version of the translation;
- distribute the electronic version of the article, as well as the electronic version of the English-language translation of the article (for articles in Ukrainian and Russian), through any electronic means (placing on the official journal web site, in electronic databases, repositories, etc.).
The author reserves the right without the consent of the editorial board and the founders to:
- Completely or partly use the materials of the article for educational purposes.
- Completely or partly use the materials of the article for writing own theses.
- Use the materials of the article to prepare abstracts, conference reports, and oral presentations.
- Post electronic copies of the article (including the final electronic version downloaded from the journal's official website) to:
- personal web-resources of all authors (web sites, web pages, blogs, etc.);
- web-resources of institutions where authors work (including electronic institutional repositories);
- non-profit, open-source web resources (such as arXiv.org).
