Is There a Necessary Condition for Democracy? The Role of State Capacity in Postcommunist Countries

Abstract

Although postcommunist countries share a common past, the variability of outcomes in both democracy and economic reform is very large in the region. Only a few countries have become Western-type democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic. By contrast, the norm is clearly not democracy for other Soviet successor states. In this article, the author attributes this variation to differences in the infrastructural capacity of the state. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses within 26 postcommunist countries, the author argues that for democracy to flourish, the state must first possess the necessary means to maintain law and order and to protect the rights of citizens, in other words, to ensure the maintenance and delivery of essential public goods. The results show that the links between a strong state that has been able to apply a definitive set of rules and democratic institutions are clear.

Political participation in European countries: The effect of authoritarian rule, corruption, lack of good governance and economic downturn

“…Their argument is that the current functioning of political institutions too, should be taken into account. Most political systems in Central and Eastern Europe continue to be plagued by political instability and endemic levels of corruption (Tavits, 2008;Fortin, 2012). The available evidence suggests quite strongly that corruption and lack of good governance will have an eroding effect on the willingness to take part in political life, and on the level of trust both in institutions and in one's fellow citizens (Rose & McAllister, 1990;Uslaner 2008).…”

“…The experience perspective, on the other hand, argues that citizens of Central and Eastern Europe still are being confronted with the functioning of a less than ideal democratic regime (Lussier, 2011;Tavits, 2008;Uslaner, 2008). While on an institutional level, all features of democratic political regimes are present in these countries, in practice political elites still tend to be characterized by rampant corruption, abuse of power, discriminatory practices and luck of a free press (Fortin, 2012;Tworzecki & Semetko, forthcoming). Furthermore, the economic development of these countries tends to remain rather limited, discouraging full political participation (Evans & Whitefield, 1995;Jahn & Kuitto, 2011).…”

"King of the Mountain," or Why Postcommunist Autocracies Have Bad Institutions

“…A theoretical argument concerning various relationships between levels of stateness and types of political regime has been substantiated, in particular, by Charles Tilly (2007, p. 19) (see Table 1). 2 The theoretical argument advanced by Tilly in fact already contains the aforementioned thesis of the J-curve, which also appears in a whole series of well-known empirical works (Baeck and Hadenius, 2008;Charron and Lapuente, 2010;Fortin, 2011;Moller and Skaaning, 2011). On the basis of the results of the studies by these and other authors, conducted on large samples, it is asserted that the highest levels of state capacity (and of quality of institutions) are achieved in developed and consolidated democracies.…”

“…A very impressive literature devoted to problems of the interrelationship among state capacity, quality of institutions, and political regimes has appeared over the past two decades or so (see, e.g., Baeck and Hadenius, 2008;Bratton, 2004;Carbone and Memoli, 2011/12;Fortin, 2011;Fukuyama, 2007;Grzymala-Busse and Jones Luong, 2002;Hansen, 2008;Linz and Stepan, 1996;Moller and Skaaning, 2011;Rose and Shin, 2001;Tilly, 2007). This literature is highly diverse, but it shares the virtually a priori assumption that the state or "stateness" is a necessary prerequisite of democracy.…”

State Capacity, Incumbent Turnover and Democratic Change in Authoritarian Elections

“…Some scholars have argued that developing strong state institutions is an important pre-condition for successful democratization, both by preventing instability and conflict in transitional regimes as well as by enabling newly democratic governments to gain legitimacy by providing public services to citizens (Carothers, 2007;Fukuyama, 2014;Mansfield and Snyder, 2007;Fortin, 2012;Mazucca and Munck, 2014). Yet, state capacity may serve those same functions in autocratic regimes, and in addition help further sustain authoritarianism by strengthening autocrats' capacity to fabricate support and oppress dissent (Schedler, 2013;Seeberg, 2014;Way, 2005;Slater, 2012), suggesting state capacity might be equally important for both democratic and autocratic stability (Anderson et al, 2014;Slater, 2012;Slater and Fenner, 2011).…”