The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe

Abstract

More than a decade has passed since the collapse of communism, yet citizens of post-communist countries are still far less likely to join voluntary organizations than people from other countries and regions of the world. Why do post-communist citizens mistrust and avoid public organizations? What explains this distinctive pattern of weak civil society? And what does it mean for the future of democracy in post-communist Europe? In this engaging study, Marc Morjé Howard addresses these questions by developing a provocative argument about the powerful and enduring impact of the communist experience on its countries and citizens. Howard argues that the legacy of the communist experience of mandatory participation in state-controlled organizations, the development and persistence of vibrant private networks, and the tremendous disappointment with developments since the collapse of communism have left most post-communist citizens with a lasting aversion to public activities. In addition to analyzing data from more than 30 democratic and democratizing countries in the World Values Survey, Howard presents extensive and original evidence from his own research in Eastern Germany and Russia, including in-depth interviews with ordinary citizens and an original representative survey.

Post-Soviet informality: towards theory-building

“…The impact of the former regime's legacy on informal institutions has also been discussed in the literature (Rose, 1995;Gibson, 2001;Howard, 2003;Gel'man, 2004;Grødeland, 2007).…”

Social Movement Studies for East Central Europe? The Challenge of a Time-Space Bias on Postwar Western Societies

“…After 1990, the question of movements in ECE fit into the larger literature on post-socialist transition and democratization. Two main conflicts signaled in the literature were that between democratization and economic austerity (Przeworski, 1991;Ekiert and Kubik;1998, Greskovits, 1998, and low popular participation vs. the proliferation of civil society organizations (McMahon, 2001;Howard, 2003;Tarrow and Petrova, 2007). In the conceptualization of both conflicts, researchers worked with the assumption that Eastern European societies will develop in a linear scale defined by earlier Western models -or if do not, differences from core models will be described as a backdrop in normal development.…”

“…The search for movement types similar to Western cases was completed by a focus on movements identified as negative forms of the expected development: nationalist (Beissinger, 1996) or uncivil (Kopecky and Mudde, 2003). One result of the narrow focus on post-socialist, Western-type movements was a narrative according to which ECE traditionally lacks social movements in general, due to the suppression of civil society's political involvement during state socialism (Howard, 2003). That narrative risked a complete historical dismissal of the various nationalist, populist, social democratic, fascist, communist, countercultural, millennial, ethnic, religious, and other movements which shaped the political landscape of the region throughout the modern period.…”

External Statebuilding and Transnational Networks: The Limits of the Civil Society Approach

“…Similarly, its role as a generator of political alternatives, as a monitor of government and state (Linz & Stepan, 1996, p. 18, Brinkerhoff, 2007, and as provider of policies and services enabled by external actors has been compromised in post-conflict contexts. Scholars have attributed civil society's inability to shape governance outcomes variously to: historical legacies of illiberal regimes (Howard, 2003); the sidelining of indigenous social organizations due to the international actors' bias towards engaging with NGOs (Howell andPearce, 2001, p. 114, Pouligny, 2005); and the 'projectization' of civil society, whereby externally-driven policies of civil society building result in the proliferation of NGOs, as driven by donors' priorities (Sampson, 1996).…”