Post-Communist Regime Support in Space and Time Context

Abstract

In the early 1990s Central and East European countries began their twin transformations from planning to the market and from authoritarianism to democracy from very different starting-points. Some countries, such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia, had favourable institutional contexts. Others, such as Belarus and Ukraine, presented unfavourable conditions. These initial conditions are a good predictor of the level of support for the new economic systems in different countries. Support for new economic systems, in turn, is the strongest predictor of support for the new political systems. Subsequent divergence in economic performance across the region tends to reinforce cross-national differences in levels of regime support. Regime support as a feedback mechanism may constitute a crucial link in path-dependent processes of economic and political development.