Élites after State Socialism. Theory and Analysis by John s> Higley György Lengyel (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 569 Higley, John and Lengyel, Gyorgy (eds). ElitesafterStateSocialism. Theory and Analysis. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MA, 2000. ix + 252 pp. Notes. Tables. Figures. Bibliographical references. Index. ?48.oo; CI9.95. ELITES AFTER STATE SOCIALISM is concerned with the relationship between elites and types of political regimes and, the editors claim in the Preface, it represents'a substantialadvance in the literatureon postsocialistpolitics and societies and in the comparativestudyof elites' (p. ix).Theoretically,the book builds a frameworkfor analysis by combining elite theory and transitology. The theoretical work is mostly done in the introductory chapter on elite configurationsafter state socialism by the editors,John Higley and Gyorgy Lengyel, although the focus on elites is furtherjustified in a brief epilogue by Higley andJan Pakulskion the superiorityof elite theoryto Marxism.In their introduction, Higley and Lengyel correlate elite configurations and regime types, arguingthat the extent of elite unity (is an elite normativelydivided or not, is access to decision-making inclusive or not?) and differentiation(is an elite functionallydifferentiatedand sociallydistinct?)correspondto fourbasic forms of political regime: consolidated democracy, unconsolidated democracy , totalitarianor post-totalitarianism,authoritarianismor sultanism.For Higley and Lengyel, an elite with exclusive access to decision-makingthat is normatively united by a shared ideology is an 'ideocratic elite' typical of the ruling stratum of a totalitarian/post-totalitarian regime; take away the normative unity imposed by ideology and you have 'divided elite' typical of an authoritarian/sultanistic regime. A functionally divided elite that is not isolated from society, but is normatively united by a shared understanding about the conduct of political life is typical of a consolidated democracy; where the &liteis not united by a common set of understandingsabout the conduct ofpoliticallife, democracyisunconsolidated.These argumentsmarry elite theory and transitologyat two levels. First,the ideas about regime types deployed here are taken straightfromJuan Linz and Alfred Stepan'sProblems ofDemocratic Transition andConsolidation (Baltimore, I996). Second, the idea of what makes a consolidated democratic regime is an &lite-centredversion of Adam Przeworski's contention that democracy is consolidated when the powerfulagree to 'subjecttheirintereststo uncertainty'by agreeingto respect democratic political rules. Moving on from this union of elite theory and transitology,Higley and Lengyel arguethathow eliteschange impactson elite configuration and the development of political regimes. Gradual, peaceful and extensive elite circulationproduces democracy, but gradualand shallow circulationleads to limitedcirculationand unconsolidateddemocracy;violent and sudden elite change will produce authoritarianismsince it will exchange one entrenched elite for another. Higley and Lengyel then argue that these patternsof elite circulationcorrelateto political outcomes in EasternEurope: where there was wide and peaceful circulation of elites, as in the Czech Republic, there was a more democratic outcome to regime change in comparisonto cases such as Serbia,where 'de facto palace coups [. . .1slowed the dismantlingof ideocraticelites' (p. I 2). These observations are largely confirmed in the rest of the book. Six chaptersdeal with political &litechange in cases of the Czech Republic (Pavel 570 SEER, 79, 3, 200I Machonic and Milan Tucek), Slovakia (John A. Gould and Sofia Szomolanyi), Hungary (Rudolf Tokes), Poland (Bogdan Mach and Wlodzimierz Weslowski), East Germany (Christian Wezel), and Serbia (Mladen Lazic); five chapters deal with economic elite change in Croatia (Dusko Sekulic and Zeljka Sporer), Hungary (Lengyel and Attila Bartha), amongst the Russian oil elite (David Lane), Bulgaria (Dobrinka Kostova) and comparatively in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (Akos R6na-Tas and J6sef Borocz). However, although the case study chapters generally confirm that the nature of elite configurations and elite circulation matter and are very worthwhile studies in their own right, they do not fully validate the theoretical framework of the first chapter. Higley and Lengyel's framework is used sparingly in the case study chapters. Only one chapter, the contribution by Gould and Szomolanyi on Slovakia comes close to using the Higley and Lengyel framework. The chapter on Serbia uses terms that are broadly comparable, but most of the other chapters simply, and not unreasonably, take circulation of elites to equate with progress away from state socialism. The uneven coverage also does not help to demonstrate the utility of the framework since complementary analysis of economic and political elites is provided for too few cases. Moreover, even where both a country's political and economic elite is covered, the terms of analysis...