The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe by S. s> Berglund J. Ekman , F. H. Aarebrot (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS I79 own right, Igor Timofeyev's chapter on the development of Russian liberal thought after I985 is an impressive and interesting paper on the interplay between the political changes that Gorbachev introduced and the emergence of liberal voices in Russian politics. One could query what the substance of Russianliberalismwas (oris)since its core valuesmoved about and in the end seemed to be little more than anti-ideologism (except perhaps in economics). However, a more serious issue is why liberalism is privileged with a chapter over other strandsof political thought, most notably nationalism. Liberalism arguably defeated Marxism-Leninismin the short run amongst a section of the elite but, as T. H. Rigby points out in his concluding comments, MarxismLeninism 'sdemise was not complete and any vitality it has had since the end of the USSR has come from its interaction with other intellectual traditions such as nationalism. The story of the 'rise' of liberalismis only one aspect of the demise of Marxism-Leninism. All in all then, there is some good materialin this updated edition, but it is a book of partsratherthan a workthat demands to be read cover to cover. Department ofPoliticsandPublic Administration NEILROBINSON University ofLimerick Berglund, S., Ekman, J. and Aarebrot, F. H. (eds). TheHandbook of Political Change inEastern Europe. Second edition. EdwardElgar, Cheltenham and Northampton, MA, 2004. xvii + 626 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. References . Indexes. ?95.??. THIs volume is a celebration of the degree to which the study of postCommunist countries has become integrated into comparative political science. All the chaptersofferextensive and in-depth analysesof partysystem development and cleavage structuresin thirteen of these countries:the three Baltic states, the four Visegrad states together with Slovenia and Croatia as well as Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Moldova. Most of them include considerablesurveymaterialfor trackingparty supportand structuralfactors over time. And, all chapters offer useful and rich information in tables on election results,government composition, the electoral systems, the constitutional frameworksin outline plus, in some cases, regressionsor specifications of the data analysis. It is these appendices in the countrychapters,runningin total to I41 pages, that bring this volume closest to the descriptionof a conventional handbook, although it has to be said as no adversereflectionon the qualityof the work here that the title is misleading. It is much more like an edited volume about party development and evolving cleavage structures than it is a handbook for reference on 'political change', although such change indeed forms the main backgroundleitmotif of the discussion.As such, it is excellent in that most of the chaptershave analyticalflairand versatilitywithjust a few offering mainly descriptive chronological summaries of party development. The volume showswell-organized editorialdirection although the comparative chaptersby the editors themselves (theintroduction, the conclusion and a i8o SEER, 84, I, 2006 chapter on 'the challenge of history') are disappointingly mundane with no new insightsfor the specialistin post-Communist studies. This is the second edition issuedsixyears since the firstedition publishedin I998. Three countries(Croatia, Serbia and Moldova) have been added to the original ten but, most of all, this second edition isjustified by the time lapse since the first one. Within the period of a decade and a half since postCommunist regime change began, this is a significant slice of time with presumablygreaterevidence of progresstowardsdemocratic consolidation at least in most of these countries. As the editors note, there has been a 'normalization'of the new democraticpolitical life 'in many places in Central and Eastern Europe'. Most of all, more than half of these countries have joined the EU and NATO as an external recognition of their political progress by 2004 with the othersmoving albeitslowlyin the samedirection. Yet, remaining systemic problems are also identified, such as uncertain economic prospects in some of the countries, populist tendencies and the common problem of lack of trust in political elites and institutions. Furthermore , centralto thisvolume's argument,cleavagesareweaklycrystallizedand rooted in social structures.This lastproblem should be takenas evidence of a long processof democraticconsolidation in CEE -one undoubtedlyaffected by the simultaneous economic transformation and, in several of these countries, remaining difficultieswith nation-building,as demonstratedby the salience of the ethnic cleavage. Comparative students of cleavages will find interest in the conceptual discussion of cleavages in some of the chapters which altogether vary somewhat in...