Old Political Rationalities and New Democracies: Compromise and Confrontation in Hungary and Poland

Abstract

Studies of democratic consolidation tend to highlight the same factors previously used to explain countries' transitional dynamics. Yet one cannot properly understand success or failure in democratic consolidation—much less discern significant qualitative differences among consolidated democracies—by focusing exclusively on formal institutions, modes of transition, incentive structures, or exogenous factors. Close inspection of two newly consolidated democracies—Poland and Hungary—shows that despite radically altered institutional arrangements, legal structures, and political-economic incentives, the most important determinants of the models of democracy emerging today derive from pretransition conceptual frames and informal political settlements. Specifically, the core conflicts between ruling elites and society in communist Poland and Hungary, as well as the patterns of political accommodation that evolved in the management of those conflicts, continue to structure the political agenda and order debate in both countries. In Poland overlapping ethical-ideological cleavages and failures of political accommodation under the ancien regime have resulted in a confrontational-pluralist model of democracy. In contrast, Hungary's compromise-corporatist model stems from early informal accommodation between the party-state and society that recast most conflicts as “economic” in nature. These long-standing conflicts and political patterns explain striking contemporary differences in social mobilization, party competition, and constitutional development. The article concludes with a discussion of how these models are likely to shape each country's prospects for sustained governability and increased democratic legitimacy.

Political space and the space of polities: Doing politics across nations

“…As may be expected from the hypothesized effects of collective memory, Poland indeed exhibits the highest level of disruptive protest actions, especially by unions, against the state among the four post-communist nations studied by Seleny (1999). Polish society is marked by relatively "high levels of political mobilization, contentious party competition around several overlapping, deep ethical-ideological cleavages, relatively low levels of elite consensus, and a moralistic political discourse" (Seleny, 1999: 433).…”

“…The uprising in 1848, the post-1918 revolutions and the 1956 revolt all failed, sometimes in a quite catastrophic manner (Seleny, 1999, 504-05). Contemporary scholarship on Hungary characterizes the society as politically "quiescent," rather disengaged, and pragmatically oriented toward elite consensus and bargaining in spite of high levels of political dissatisfaction (Seleny, 1999;Ekiert & Kubik, 1998, 554-556;Hankiss, 1989). This diagnosis not only agrees with Hungary's location on Factor 1 in our data (the country is very low on every type of action) but also on Factor 2 (Hungary is positioned away from the more episodic/contentious types of political activities).…”

Understanding drivers of illiberal entrenchment at critical junctures: institutional responses to COVID-19 in Hungary and Poland

“…Notwithstanding some noticeable differences, these similarities may be explained to a significant extent by a common communist past, as well as the radical elimination of the old 'party-state' structures and the creation of new ones practically from scratch. Frequently, however, these new structures drew inspiration from pre-war, semi-authoritarian history (Seleny, 1999).…”

Modalities of Democratic Transformation

“…Under such circumstances, citizens learn quickly that it is no longer dangerous to disclose their ideas, and thus no longer necessary to probe others' loyalties in accordance with a modality of permission. In the Hungarian case, this learning process was relatively gradual, since considerable economic reforms had begun as early as the 1960s (particularly in agriculture) whereby small-scale entrepreneurs were given some freedom to innovate (Róna-Tas, 1997;Seleny, 1999). Nonetheless, political changes in 1989 did leave unclear whether within Hungary's newly democratic society disclosure of such innovations would retain some loyalty aspects, no longer within antagonistic factions vying for power, but among fellow countrymen and women whom one may occasionally need to remind of their responsibilities to the welfare of all.…”