Postcommunist Civil Society

Howard's discussion of the apparent weakness of postcommunist civil society, its causes, and its implications for the efficacy of young democracies in the postcommunist sphere is interesting, though somewhat noncommittal. Howard does a good job tying together the commonalities shared by old democracies, post authoritarian regimes, and post communist regimes and providing concrete data and historical reasons to back this up, but his conclusion is that basically, despite these proven differences, their role in determining the legacy of new democratic regimes will likely be minimal:

"I do not view postcommunist democracy as doomed to collapse or fail, nor do I believe that the weakness of civil society is a good sign for a healthy democracy. Instead, the weakness of civil society constitutes a distinctive element of post-communist democracy, a pattern that points to a qualitatively different relationship between citizens and the state..."

So what is this qualitatively different relationship and what does it mean? As mentioned in the articles, it is possible that weak civil society may result in unenthusiastic democracy, but at least it will be stable, because without the use of organizations to aggregate and pursue people's interests, the system should remain static. This does not mean that change cannot occur, however, and I believe the recent "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine is a good example of this.

The Orange Revolution occurred two years after this article was printed, and I believe demonstrates that, though citizens in postcommunist democracies may be actively involved in less social organizations, they still have the ability to band together when their interests are sufficiently threatened. This shows that, despite the fears that Putnam has about societies with little social capital not instilling the "skills" of democracy and participation in their people, that democracy can still be a vibrant and important part of people's lives. In some ways, the higher activity in labor unions in postcommunist regimes may have an important role to play in civil society, especially because labor unions are very effective at mobilizing interests and have effective tools at their disposal to do so (strikes, walk-offs, picketing, etc.). Compared to the role of a Church group or membership in Mensa or a bird-watching society, labor unions tend to be more active in the political and economic spheres of their members lives. So though I believe Howard's methodology is useful in looking at the types of civil society within different regime types, I think it may be lacking when applied directly to the health of democratic institutions.