NATIONALIST POPULISM AND POST-COMMUNISM

2. Theoretical background

2.1. Notion of political culture

2.1.1. Is political culture a dependent or independent variable?

The political transformation of Central and Eastern European societies has been a complex phenomenon that can be described in terms of several dimensions. According toThomas A. Baylis, one of those dimensions is a change in the composition of the political elite, while a second is a change in their political institutions, and a third dimension involves changes in the popular and elite attitudes towards politics or the “political culture”. 6 It can be argued that in both phases of democratisation – the democratic transition and the consolidation of a new democratic regime – the political culture plays an important role. 7 However, its importance increases in the second, consolidation phase. In comparison to the transition phase, the second phase is usually lengthier, but – as Pridham and Lewis suggest – with wider and possibly deeper effects. 8 Besides of the full rooting of the new democratic regime, it involves the internalisation of its rules and procedures and the dissemination of democratic values .The process of dissemination, however, should sensitively reflect the local conditions. For instance, when the models of an institutional design are borrowed from the Western democracies and implemented without paying closer attention to the local specifics in particular countries, including the local political culture, then problems in the consolidation phase are likely to occur. As 6 See T. A. Baylis, “Elites, Institutions, and Political Change in East Central Europe: Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia”, J. Higley, J. Pakulski, W. Wesołowski (eds.) Postcommunist Elites and Democracy in Eastern Europe. (Macmillan Press 1998), p. 107. 7 To explain my understanding of the term “democratisation”, I have borrowed a definition used by Pridham and Lewis. According to them, “democratisation as a term describes the overall process of a regime change from start to completion, meaning from the end of a previous authoritarian regime to the stabilisation and rooting of a new democracy. It therefore embraces both the broad processes of what are conventionally referred to in the comparative literature as the “transition ” to a liberal or constitutional democracy and its subsequent “consolidation”. The outcome is a system that should meet certain basic procedural requirements, such as a commitment to regular elections and institutional mechanisms that provide checks on the executive power, as well as the guarantee of human rights and the emergence of a political culture that is clearly supportive of political life (emphasised by T. S.). See G. Pridham, P. G. Lewis, “Introduction”, Stabilising Fragile Democracies. (London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 2. 8 Ibid.

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