Introduction

Forty years after the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was drafted, the political climate of the region was transformed. Fledgling democracies in post-communist Eurasia faced many challenges, including the need to earn the political loyalty previously demanded by the so-called Peoples’ democracies. Ensuring this loyalty entailed the reconfiguration of the public sphere and, to varying degrees, the selective restriction of core political rights. In turn, this reconfiguration resulted in new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion – the inclusion of those previously prevented from accessing the political domain, and the exclusion of those who would seek a return to the past or might otherwise undermine democratic consolidation. Restrictions upon political rights included the dissolution of successor communist parties and other political associations, lustration laws designed to ensure discontinuity with the prior regime, and the exclusion of certain categories of individuals from running for or holding political office.