Two decades after the fall of communism, Central Europeans’ opinions differ on the democratic transition
News Source: PASOS Secretariat, Prague, Czech Republic
A majority of Czechs, Slovaks and Poles consider democracy-building to have been a success; a majority of Hungarians regard it as a failure.
The attitudes of the population of the Visegrad Four countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary – toward the changes since the fall of communism in 1989 are not uniform. While 63% of Czechs, 62% of Poles and 59% of Slovaks consider the building of democracy in their countries to have been a success, only 28% of Hungarians share this view, and for 66% regard it is a failure. In a PASOS Policy Brief, Return to Europe: New freedoms embraced, but weak public support for assisting democracy further afield, Zora Bútorová, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), Slovak Republic, and Olga Gyarfášová, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), Slovak Republic, in association with PASOS (Policy Association for an Open Society), examine the contours of public attitudes to the changes since 1989, and also explore attitudes towards their own government’s democracy assistance policies towards other countries.
The policy brief was presented at a PASOS conference, Return to Europe: Reflections After 20 Years of Democratic Renewal, held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 10 December 2009.
Similarly, a majority of Czechs (68%), Poles (59%) and Slovaks (53%) believe that there are more advantages to life under democratic rule than there were under the dictatorial regime before 1989, but only 28% of Hungarians are of the same opinion. On the other hand, only 18% of Czechs, 24% of Slovaks and 25% of Poles attribute more disadvantages to the current system than to the pre-1989 regime, while as many as 50% of Hungarians believe that there are more disadvantages to the current system than to the regime that fell two decades ago.
Although the extent of satisfaction with the changes during the transition period in individual countries is different, the reasons underlying these feelings are similar. First and foremost, as the focus-group discussion with young people with university education revealed in Hungary, the dissatisfied participants “referred almost exclusively to the economic gains and losses, and they also identified the winners and losers of transition from this standpoint”.
This policy brief was written as part of the project, Return to Europe – Reflections After 20 Years of Democratic Renewal. The research was undertaken by the following project partners, all of which are PASOS members: the Center for Policy Studies at the Central European University, Hungary, the Institute of Public Affairs (ISP), Poland, and the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), Slovak Republic. The project is being carried out with the support of the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union, and of the International Visegrad Fund. The policy brief draws on the summaries of expert interviews in each Visegrad Four country, the authors of which were Gergő Medve-Bálint (Hungary), Věra Řiháčková (Czech Republic), Grigorij Mesežnikov (Slovakia), and Aleksander Fuksiewicz (Poland).
PASOS_IVO_policybrief10dec09s.pdf (791.20 kB)
