Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies

Introduction

The creation of constitutions is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition of a consolidated democratic polity. As we argued in the first chapter, we consider the successful and complete institutionalization of agency the essential prerequisite of a consolidated and sustainable democratic polity. Obviously the lack of transformative interests which we identified as one of the main characteristics of the breakdowns of 1989 renders the formation of agency a major problem. Since the old regime did not breed a counter-elite standing for a coherent program for the new social order and the path to it, no uncontested actor was available who could claim the unequivocal mandate for political action. Without a clear answer as to who is entitled to shape the new institutions of democracy almost every issue is liable to embittered contestation.

In this chapter we deal with the politico-institutional conditions which enabled, facilitated, discouraged, or disabled the surfacing of agency in the field of political will-formation. In the countries under study democracy started with free elections, shifting political decision making from personal rulers to impersonal rules. In section 2 of the chapter we examine the electoral systems, more particularly the questions of whether the different modes of extrication shaped their character, what consequences they have for the number of parties (two parties or multipartism), for the power relations between them (symmetric or asymmetric), and for the mode of party competition (moderate or polarized competition). Section 3 deals with the properties of political parties which have been pushed into the center of political action.