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From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students ofPostcommunism?Author(s): Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. SchmitterSource: Slavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter, 1995), pp. 965-978

Published by: The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501402

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RESPONSE

From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: GroundingTransitologists or Students of Postcommunism?

Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter respond:

Valerie Bunce, in her rejoinder' to an article we published in this re-

view,2 seems to disagree with us in three regards: First,she claims thatwe pit area studies against comparative analyses and negatively ste-reotype the former in the process. Second, she contends that differ-ences between regime transitions in the "South" and the "East" are sogreat that they prevent the making of meaningful comparisons, negat-ing the value of such a cross-area enterprise. In a subsequent article,she writes:". . . the most logical comparison to be made is the compar-ison of the post communist countries with one another." 3 Third, sheargues thatwe misrepresent both the costs and the benefits of addingeastern Europe and the formerSoviet Union to comparative studies of

democratization. We shall concentrate on (re)examining and respond-ing to each of these disagreements.

Comparative Analysis Versus Area Studies: A Red Herring

Before addressing the more serious analytical issues that Bunceraises, we wish to dispense with an imputation of hers that we foundespecially puzzling: that we are hostile to area studies per se.4 Both of

1. Valerie Bunce, "Should Transitologists Be Grounded?", Slavic Review 54, no. 1(Spring 1995): 111-27.

2. Philippe C. Schmitter withTerry Lynn Karl, "The Conceptual Travels of Tran-sitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?"Slavic Review 53, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 173-85.

3. Valerie Bunce, "Comparing East and South," Journal of Democracy , No. 3 (Fall1994): 95.

4. We will refrain from responding to the other misrepresentations of our workin Bunce's reply. Just to keep the record straight,however, we do want to answer hercharge that our "arrogance" is apparent fi-om he fact that we felt it "necessary to takeon the burden of propagating the comparative message to the unconverted readers of

Slavic Reviezv" 116). Philippe Schmitter was approached (unsolicited) by the editor ofthis review, Elliott Mossman, who asked him if he would be willing to contribute aversion of a talk he was invited to give at the 1993 annual convention of the AAASSto the verynext issue of Slavic Review. Such was the proximity of the deadline that wewere even unable to collaborate fully on the final draft-hence, the "with" rather than"and" connecting its two authors. We did nothing to force ourselves onto these pagesand we are responding to that same editor's request to write this reply.

Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995)



966 Slavic Review

us are area specialists s well as comparativists.We have directedareastudies centers, pent an extensive amount of time conducting field

researchon specific ountries nd subsetsof countries, edicatedour-selves to training new generationof area specialistsand defendedarea studies against budgetary hreats temming rom declininggov-ernment nd foundational support.5Bunce's claim that we engage in"negative stereotypes" f area studies (114), attackarea expertise norder "to skirtresponsibility or answering some tough questions"(113), think rea specialistsare "allergic to theory," only know onecase" and "presumeit to be unique" (114), or imply hateasternEuro-pean studies s "a social science backwater" 115) is pure invention nherpart.Our refusal o consider area studies nd comparative nalysisas mutually xclusivedoes not mean that we are reluctant o criticizecertainpracticesoften associated with area studies. What Bunce haswrongly ast as a basic hostility s, in fact, n appeal on our partforimprovementn how area studies are conducted.

First,we observed thatthefield of communist tudies-and espe-cially ts subfieldofSovietology-has long suffered partially elf-im-posed isolation from the major social science disciplines.While thishas also been true, to some extent,for other area studyprograms, thas been especially pronounced among US-based scholars who ex-plicitly rgued thatcommunist ystemswere so distinctive s to pre-clude comparison.6We do notagreewith hosescholars teepedin thisacademic traditionwhorelyheavily ifnotexclusively) n assumptionsabout the allegedly unique legacyof "totalitarianism,"marxism-len-inism-stalinism,"Sovietpoliticalculture," tc.as an excuse for schew-ing all comparisonwith otherworld regions-even thoughwe fullyagree thatall countries and regionshave some propertieswhichareunique.7In our view,thepositionof those such as Bunce and otherswho a priori rejecttheapplicationof theoriesgeneratedelsewhereto"post-communist ransitions"would continue this unfortunate radi-tion of isolation.

5. See, for example, Terry Lynn Karl, "In Defense of Area Studies," Enlace (Stan-ford University, Fall 1992): 2.

6. This is not a new observation. More than 25 years ago, some scholars of Sovietpolitics pointed out that the studyof the Soviet political systemand communist systemsin general had proceeded in isolation from developments in social science concepts,theory and methodology precisely because scholars had thought "their" region to beso unique. See, for example, Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., ed., Communist tudies and the SocialSciences:Essays on Methodologynd Empirical Theory Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969). Foran overview of the historyof the discipline of Soviet studies on this issue, see George

Breslauer, "In Defense of Sovietology," Post-SovietAffairs,1992), 197-238, or FredericJ. Fleron, Jr. and Erik P. Hoffman,Post-Communisttudies and Political Science:Methodologyand Empirical Theoryn SovietologyBoulder: Westview Press, 1993).

7. For example, two scholars who otherwise differ quite substantially in their So-vietology agree most emphatically on the intrinsic peculiarity of "its" legacy to eschewcomparison: Martin Malia, "Leninist Endgame," Daedalus (Spring 1992): 57-75 and KenJowitt,New WorldDisorder: The Leninist Extinctions Berkeley: University of Los Angeles:California Press, 1993), esp. 249-83.



From n Iron Curtaintoa Paper Curtain 967

Moreover, this rejection could well cut off U.S. specialistsfrommanyeasternEuropean and Russian scholars who are working n is-

sues ofregime change and democratization.f there s one major les-son that one can glean from rea studies, t is that close contact andextensive xchangesbetween"foreigners" nd "natives" s essential toproducing high quality,creative and comparable work. Preciselybe-cause (for reasons thatare enumeratedby Bunce in her fn. 16), USSovietologistshave generallyhad much less actual field experiencewithin heir egionand much ess close collaborative ontactwith heircounterparts han, say,Latin Americanistsn theUnited States,theretends to be a greater gap in conceptualization and research tech-niques.8 Perhaps for thisreason, many social scientistsn eastern Eu-rope and the former oviet Union have eagerlyseized upon a moregeneric and non-area-specificonceptualization of the processes oftransformationhatare engulfing hem.

Second, exclusive concentrationon intra-regional tudiescan re-strict heabilityof area specialiststo understand theirown regionorparticular ountry. here is no question,for xample,thatLatin Amer-icanistshave increasedunderstanding f "their"region through om-parisonswith ast Asian experiences,whichrevealed a greatdeal aboutsuccessful nd unsuccessful evelopment trategies s well as about thepeculiarly redatory atureofmany tates nLatin America. t ishighlyunlikelythat these same lessons would have emergedfrom ntra-re-gional comparisons alone.9

8. Bunce seems to have had access to an unspecified source that proves that "com-parative analyses were more common in the eastern European field than, say, LatinAmerican studies" (fn. 15). Frankly, we doubt this and suspect that the opportunitiesto do research based on empirical field research, either individually or collaboratively,were limited, especially in the Soviet Union. For example, a comparison of the SlavicReviezvwith its equivalent, the Latin AmericanResearchReviezv,would reveal, we suspect,

many more articles in the latter that are co-authored by "natives" and "foreigners" (aswell as many, many more authored by "natives" trained or resident in the US), andmany more articles that deal with more than one polity or society within its respectiveregion.

Only since the regime changes in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Unionhas the opportunity to conduct comparative research expanded considerably-and itis this opportunity that should not be missed. The issue we have posed is whetherformer Sovietologists and young scholars just entering thissubfield will be better servedby continuing to employ a particularistic, "regionally specific" conceptualization ofthe problems of democratization or a more generic, "interregional" one.

9. See, for example, Gary Gereffiand Donald L. Wyman, eds., ManufacturingMir-acles: Paths of ndustrialization n Latin America and East Asia (Princeton: Princeton Uni-

versity Press, 1990); Fernando Fejnzylber, Unavoidable Industrial Restructuring71 LatinAmerica Durham: Duke University Press, 1990); or Stephen Haggard, Pathways romthePeriphery: he Politics of Growthn theNezvlyndustrializingCountries Ithaca: Cornell Uni-versity Press, 1990). In another example, Terry Karl's work demonstrates that theuniqueness of Venezuela's development patterns, which has always been a puzzle forLatin Americanists because itdoes not follow the same cycles of authoritarian rule anddemocratization as other countries in the southern cone, becomes more explicablethrough comparisons with other oil-exporting countries in Asia and Africa rather than



968 SlavicReview

Such effortsointto thefollowing esson: ust because area studieswere born n theuntestednotion that pecificgeocultural egionswere

somehow unique" does not mean this omfortable ssumption houldremainforever nexamined. PeterSmith'sobservationwithregard toLatin America should hold true for easternEurope and the formerSovietUnion: "The conceDt of 'Latin America' is. in fact.a cultural

construct,not a timelessverity."' 0 His call forquestioning the logicalfoundations of the exist-ing definitions andboundaries of Latin

American studies maybe even more compel-ling for eastern Euro-peanists. Given their rel-

ative isolation in the past, as well as theirmanifestunpreparedness forthe advent of perestroika and regime change, it seems reasonable tosuggest that a greater connection with scholars from other parts of theworld who were studying topics like the decline of empire, the emer-gence of ethnic conflict, the transformation of one-party systems, thetransition fromauthoritarian rule, etc. mighthave served them well inpreparing for what so unexpectedly occurred during the 1980s andearly 1990s.

Third, and most important for our purposes, we argue that such anarrow insistence on intra-regional studies and the consequent exclu-sion of cross-regional comparisons could have a deleterious impact onthe development of theory. It discourages area specialists from usingdata from "their" region or country to confirm,refine or reject existinghypotheses in the larger field of comparative politics that have beengenerated by experiences elsewhere in the world. In this respect, wewere most alarmed by the advice of Sarah Meiklejohn Terry forSlavicarea specialists "to take refuge in empirie"for ten years while deliber-ately ignoring,what was being written about transitions elsewhere."'How then can theorizing about transitions fromautocracy or any othermore general theorizing benefit from the experiences of eastern Eu-rope and the formerSoviet Union-even if the effort o include themonly serves to prove such theories wrong?

Bunce seems to have several problems with this argument. Sheclaims that "transitology" is richer in description as well as concepts

. Justbecause area studies were born in the

untested notion that specific geocultural re-

gions were somehow "unique" does not

mean this comfortable assumption shouldremain foreverunexamined.

througlh ntra-regional comparisons alone (see Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty[Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcomiing]).

10. See Peter Smith, "The Changing Agenda forSocial Science Research on LatinAmerica," in Peter H. Smith, ed., Latin America n Comparative erspective:NewApproachestoMethods nd Analysis Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 23.

11. Bunce quite mistakenly implies that we (not Meiklejohn Terry) advocatecd thatall ex-Sovietologists should take "refuge in empirie."



From n IronCurtain to a Paper Curtain 969

and assumptionsthan in testable hypotheses; herefore,he hints, tmaynot be worth he troubleto apply it elsewhere.But this hould not

come as a surpriseto anyone familiarwiththis iterature ince its ap-proach is quite explicitlypossibilistic-not probabilisticor determin-istic-in epistemology nd design. She seems to accept withouthesi-tation an orthodox positivist conception of what political scienceshould be all about-and she is perfectlyntitled to assume that theonlyvalid formof thinking cientificallybout politics s to reduce itto a series of discrete"if, . . then . ." hypotheses.We have arguedthatthis s an excessivelynarrowconceptionoftherole of theory ndan especially nappropriate approach to the ssue ofcontemporary e-mocratization.

Furthermore,he claims that ome of the central onceptsof "tran-sitions" iterature re imprecise (124) and that importantfactorsorvariablesmaybe missing.Bothpoints mayverywellbe truebutnot forthe reasons Bunce suggests.Regardingthe former, orexample, shemisunderstandsnd hence misappliestheconceptof "uncertainty."tdoes not mean that,because we (scholars looking afterthe fact)cannow see thatmost transitions id in fact ead to some formofdemoc-racy,theymust not have been so uncertainin the firstplace. Whatuncertainty oes mean is that, t thetime, normalpolitics"werenolonger possible;actorsno longerknewwhattheirresourceswere,whattheirpreferred trategies ughttobe,who their ppropriateallies wereor even who theirenemies should be. And all thiswas bound to havea major mpactupon their alculationsand behaviors,making he tran-sition a quite differentolitical process.

As forher second critique, here reundoubtedly missing" r "un-dervalued"variables,but they re not the ones thatBunce lists 123)."The interactionbetween economic and political transformations,""thepowerfulnfluence f international actors,"thecentralityf na-tional dentitynd nationalismn theprocessofdemocratization,"theimportance f the Leftas well as theRight n shapingdemocraticpros-pects"and "all thosethornyssueshavingto do with hestate"are not"missingvariables."Theyhave all received some attention n our arti-cle inSlavicReviewand even more nour otherpublications), lthoughthe conclusionswe draw and theweightwe may giveto each specificfactormightnotbe satisfactoryn her view. One missing tem thatwedo acknowledge s "the importanceof the mass media in transitions(as well as consolidations)," lthoughneither fus can understandwhythisshouldbe peculiarto the east.

Bunce also givestheimpressionthat scholars whouse conceptsor

12. In order to illustrate her point about testable hypotheses, Bunce criticizes theworks by Linz and by Stepan and Skach on the superiority of parliamnentarism overpresidentialism (fn. 28). This probabilistic argument, which is not even mentioned inour article in Slavic Review, is quite antithetic to the approach we have adopted and weagree with Bunce's skepticism about applying such seemingly empirical and univer-salistic findings to specific cases.



970 Slavic Review

attempt o testhypothesesgeneratedelsewhere mustbe "imperialist"in intent.Advocatesof"designerdemocracy,"we standaccused of fol-

lowing n the steps of neo-liberalpurveyors f "designercapitalism"(116).13Our purpose,she implies,mustbe toimpose an alien approachrather hanto see how itsapplication to a new area mightmodify ndimproveexistingconcepts and arguments.While there has certainlybeen a traditionof this sort n Americanpolitical science, especiallyamong thosewho seek to formulate r influencepolicy,thismisread-ing of our intent hould have been evidentfromour original article,wherewe argued:

Oneshould otdeliberatelygnore ossibleources fvariationcross

world egions. o thecontrary,ensitivityowhat s differentbouteastern urope andtheformerovietUnion)mayprovide usefulcorrectiveo thecontemporaryiterature hich s so centered nsouthern uropeand LatinAmerica.Most mportantly,tmayen-courage omparativistsopay more ttentiono variables hathaveeither een previouslyakenforgranted, .g.the existence frela-tivelystablished ational dentities rofrelativelyellfunctioningmarketmechanisms,rthathavebeenexaminednd rejected s lessimportant,.g.the ntromissionf external owers.178).

Isn't it precisely this sort of juxtaposition of assumptions and hy-

potheses that smost ikely o improvetheory n both theoriginal andsubsequentareas?And ifnot,what s thealternative?

Cross-RegionalComparisons:ComparingApples, Oranges and,Yes, EvenKangaroos

What thearguments bove highlights the central mportanceofengaging n cross-regionalomparisons, .e.,for ncorporating he ex-periences of the "east" withthose of the "south" whichhave gener-atedtheoriginal iterature n transitions. unce claimsthatthe differ-

ences between the two are so substantial that they cannot (andprobably houldnot)be compared.What s at issue,shewrites,s com-parability:Arewe comparing pples with pples, apples withoranges(whichare at least varieties of fruit) r apples with, ay kangaroos?"(112).

The problem s,however, hatwe do notknowenoughabout thesetransitions o be able to assess ust how distinctive hey re. In otherwords,we don't yetknowwhether hey re apples, oranges or kanga-

13. There is some irony in this label. In 1983 Terry Karl wrote the article "De-mocracy by Design," published in Giuseppe DiPalma and Laurence Whitehead, eds.,The CentralAmerican mpasse (London: Croom Helm Publishers, 1985), in which shecriticized US policymakers and international Christian Deemocrats for imposing aninappropriate model of democratization on El Salvador-a critique she has repeatedin several subsequent articles. In the discussion of central America, the phrase "de-signer democracy" originated with this article.



From n IronCurtain to a Paper Curtain 971

roos.14 There may be just as much variation in event and outcomewithin a chosen "region" as between it and any other region. East-

ern Europe and the former Soviet Union may incorporate applesand oranges-and, whoknows, even a kangarooor two Under these con-ditions it is simply pre-mature to dismiss thepossibility of compari-son. If the peculiarity ofone region's cultural,historical or institu-

tional matrix is so essen-tial to understandingthe outcome, this should emerge from systematic comparison ratherthan be used as an excuse for not applying it.

Moreover, the fact that differences may be great is not a reason tojettison cross-regional comparison but could even be a strong argu-ment in favor of carrying it out. There are many diverse forms of com-parative analysis and, just because differences may be greater betweenthe east and the south than within these respective groupings, it is notnecessarily more reasonable or productive to compare "all or some ofthe27 eastern European cases with each other." (121). Maybe yes, maybeno. It all depends on the question being asked or, in Charles Tilly'swords, "on the intellectual task at hand." 15

In our case, we have hypothesized that the basic dynamics and pat-terns of transition fromautocracy, which were first dentified throughboth intra-regional comparative studies of Latin America and southernEurope and subsequently through cross-regional comparisons of thesetwo regions, will also be found in the transitions from authoritarianrule in eastern Europe.16 It is important to note that these argumentswere generated by means of a "most similar systems" research designbecause this strategy s especially suitable to the initial elaboration ofplausible hypotheses. But today the task at hand is different. t involvestesting,verifying,modifying and/or falsifying oncepts and hypothesesthat have been generated elsewhere. For this,the appropriate formofcomparison is a more "universalizing" one, that is, one which tests theargument that "every instance of a phenomenon follows essentially the

If the peculiarity of one region's cultural,

historical or institutional matrix is so essen-

tial to understanding the outcome, this

should emerge from systematic comparison

rather than be used as an excuse fornot ap-

plying it.

14. We are grateful to Nora Bensalhel for this point.15. Charles Tilly, Big Structures, arge Processes,Huge Comparisons New York: Rus-

sell Sage, 1984), 145.16. For the original elaboration of the theorizing about transitions fiom author-itarian rule, see tlhe four-volume study of Guillermo O'Donnell, Phlilippe Schmitterand Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1986). For a more recent "inventory" of what these basicdynamics and patterns miglht e, see Philippe C. Schmitter, "Transitology: The Scienceor the Art of Democratization?" in Joseph Tulclhin, ed., The Consolidationof Democracyin Latin America Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 11-44.



972 SlavicReview

same rule." 17 As a number of comparative methodologists have shown,this calls for a "most different-systems"esign, which purposely utilizes

cases with similar outcomes on the dependent variable, e.g. "a transi-tion fromautocracy," but differentvalues on a wide range of indepen-dent variables. This is the design that is tailor made for cross-regionalcomparisons since location within the different ubsets permits one tointroduce greater variation in a broader range of independent vari-ables.18

Let us offer an example. Bunce and other former Sovietologistsplace a great deal of emphasis on the importance of "identitypolitics"and on rising hostility (not to say, armed conflict) between ethnicgroups as a key distinction between east and south. Presumptively, this

makes processes of regime change in eastern Europe and the formerSoviet Union so completely different hat theyshould be conceptuallyand empirically segregated fromsouthern Europe and Latin America.The kangaroos should be kept away from the fruits,so-to-speak Butthis greatlyunderestimates the role that ethnic differences (and evenviolent struggles based on them) play in several southern transitions,e.g. Spain, Peru, Mexico and Guatemala, while overstating its role insome eastern cases, e.g. Poland, Hungary and Belarus. Instead, we sug-gest that what mightbe interesting is precisely to compare such ethni-cally diverse countries as Russia, Romania and Macedonia with a coun-trysuch as Brazil which is at least as ethnically complex in its socialformation but which has not experienced collective mobilization andconflictalong these lines of cleavage. In other words, one might chooseto compare kangaroos that umped with those that have not

To argue that a comparison of this sort "at best ... would producea limited range of benefits" (121), that it must be inferior to intrare-gional comparisons or perhaps that it should not even be attempted atall is to claim a priori (and without systematic evidence) that the ar-guments put forward about the breakdown of autocracy, the nature oftransitions and their possibly democratic outcome elsewhere in theworld are not applicable to eastern Europe and the former SovietUnion. Yet some specialists of the region have already explored thisquestion withveryinterestingresults.19Our own hunch is that,even ifall of Bunce's points about the extensive differencesbetween east and

17. The words are Tilly's, op. cit., 80.18. See, for example, Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, Thle ogic ofComparative

Social Inquiry New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970); and Charles C. Ragin, ThleCom-parativeMethod:MovingBeyondQualitativeand QuantitativeStrategiesBerkeley: University

of California Press, 1987).19. See, for example, M. Steven Fish, Democracy romScratch:Opposition nd Regimein theNew Russian Revolution Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); David Ost,"Shaping a New Politics in Poland: Interests and Politics in Post-Communist EasternEurope,"; Program on Central and Eastern Europe WorkingPaper Series, no. 8, Minde deGunzburg Center, Harvard University 1993; and Grzegorz Ekiert, "DemocratizationProcesses in East Central Europe: A Theoretical Reconsideration," BritishJournal ofPolitical Science21 (July 1991): 285-313.



From n Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain 973

southwerewell taken,the sum of their mpactwould lead to a modi-ficationratherthan a disgardingof the original "transitology" ara-

digm.

The Lessons ofEast-SouthComparisons: How MuchAreTheyWorth?

One of thebest argumentsforbreakingthe isolation of what hasbeen knownas communist tudies and forcarrying ut cross-regionalcomparisons s evidenced by the work ofValerie Bunce herself.n or-dertodevelopherrationaleforrejecting his ypeofcomparative nal-ysis, he had to engage in making the verycomparisons she findssosuspect And theresultshave been interesting.n both her rejoinderand a subsequent rticle itedearlier, heraisesa numberof mportantsubstantive ssues.While her purpose was to demonstrate hatthesecannot be understood as variations n a commonprocessoftransition,what truck s abouther"catalogueof contrasts" s its close correspon-dence to our "catalogue of similarities." ince we have already madethegeneralargumentfor thespecial utility fcross-regionalompari-sonsand because we are in such substantial greement bout whatcon-stitutes heprincipaleast-south ifferences, e willconcentrate n theremaining pace upon thosesubstantive opicswhere we stilldisagreewithBunce.

1) The international oliticalcontext.We had already tressed hatthe internationalpolitical/strategicontextwas more significantneasternEurope than in most of southernEurope or Latin America,althoughwe wouldhesitate o place sucha single-minded mphasis ontheroleof theSoviet Union as Bunce does (117-18). In ourview,AdamPrzeworski eems to have gotten t right: The constraint in EasternEurope) was external, but the impetus was internal."220 It is importantto note that thissame argument bout the importanceof the interna-tionalpolitical context s also true for centralAmerica,where US he-gemony thoughqualitatively ifferentn formfrom hatexercisedbytheformer ovietUnion) circumscribed ossibilitiesfordemocratiza-tion ust as thoroughly.21

2) The international conomic context.Bunce's implicationthat"thedestabilizing onsequences oftheglobal debt crisis nd structuraladjustmentpolicies" (118) were uniformor even similarfor all coun-

20. Adam Przeworski, "The 'East' Becomes the 'South'? The 'Autumn of the Peo-

ple' and tlheFuture of Eastern Europe," P.S. Political Science and Politics 24, no. 1 (March1991): 21.21. Despite the fact that the US has not historically seen itself as ain empire and

has seldom chosen to rule another country directly, its actions in the Caribbean Basinhave been those of a superpower. See Richard R. Fagen and Terry Karl, "The Logicsof Hegemony: The United States as a Superpower in Central America," inJan Triska,ed., Dominant Powers nd Subordinate tates:The UnitedStates nLatin America nd the ovietUnion in EasternEurope (Durham: Duke University Press, 1986), 218-38.



974 Slavic Review

triesundergoingtransitions false.Theyvariedgreatlyn timing ndimportance rom ase to case,notonlywithin egionsbut also between

them. n ourview, ny effortouse this rgument oexplain either heoccurrenceornatureofregimetransitions bound to fail empirically.

3) One wave ofdemocratization r several?Bunce correctly ointsout that ven ifthe transitionsn southernEurope, Latin America andeastern Europe mayhave takenplace in one democratic"wave,"theyears that separate different ransitionsmake a significant ifferencein their nternational ontexts.Her point thatprospectivemembershipin theEC playeda role in southernEurope (and that herewas no suchattractive ossibility or SouthAmerica)has already been abundantlystressed.That the situationwithrespect to, say, Hungary s differentfromSpain is no doubt true,but it is not true that post-communistHungaryhas receivedmuch less aid and assurances from ts westernneighborsthandid post-FrancoSpain beforeitsnegotiationsforECentry 118). Most of theSpanish adjustment o the EC (and inflows fforeign apital) came before,ot fterhe transition o democracy-thatis the real difference

4) Differences n the nature of authoritarianrule. That the pre-vious form fautocracywas differentneasternEurope and theformerSoviet Union is not a novel assertion 119) and we discusseditratherextensivelyn our initial rticle.What seemstobe overlookedbyBunceis how much change had occurred in the practices-if not in the aca-demic models-of "state socialism" and "totalitarianism"before hetransitionbegan. These internalchanges in both political and eco-nomicrelationswere well observedbyscholars nPoland and Hungary,but withsome exceptionsmost US area specialistsfailed to concep-tualize or monitorexplicitly hese alterations n the structure f un-derlyingpower and production relations prior to the change in re-gime-much less predictthemagnitudeof their mpact upon regimepersistence.

5) The presenceor absence of a democratictradition.That statesinLatinAmericaand southern urope are "long-established"nd havemore of a "historical traditionof democracy"than statesof easternEurope and theformer oviet Union is an interesting oint 119-20)-and one we also made in the article.But there s tremendous egionalvariationhere between, ay,Chile (whichhas a long tradition) nd ElSalvador(whichdoesn't have one at all).Whatismorecontroversial sto assume thatthemereduration of a previousdemocracy s ofmajorimportance.Paraguayor Bolivia mayhave had a few more yearsof itthan, ay,Romania or Albania,but so what? Porous boundaries" be-

tween uthoritarian astsand liberalizedpresents re not a peculiarityofeasternEurope or the former oviet Union.22

22. As for the assumption that transitologists do not pay attention to history,wecan only assume that Bunce has not read what we and our collaborators have writtenabout specific cases.



Froman Iron Curtain toa Paper Curtain 975

6) Modes of transition. hat therehavebeen significant ifferencesin the modes of transition s somethingthat we have written bout

rather xtensivelynd does not bear repetitionhere.23t is notcorrect,however, o say thatdiffusion rocesses havebeen confined o easternEurope (120). Spaniards were quite aware ofwhathad just happenedto Portugal,and therewas an enormous feedback effectwithin andacrossregions n southernEurope,Latin Americaand, especially, en-tral America. Admittedly,s we mentionedquite explicitly,he issuesofnationalliberation/secessionnd geo-strategicocation in the nter-national system ave had a quite differentalience in the differente-gions-although there is some considerable overlap betweencentralAmerica and easternEurope in these regards.

7) The transitional genda.That the"moststrikingontrast" s thesimultaneitynd asynchronyftransformation rocesses 120) is pre-ciselywhat we said in our originalarticle.But we caution againstas-sumingthat change in southernEurope and Latin America and cen-tralAmerica, n particular)has been "circumscribed"to the merelypolitical.Although he timing asgenerally een more sequential, omeof thesecountrieshave also grappledwithmajor reformsn their n-dustrial tructuresnd exportportfolios, ole ofthestate, ectoralbal-ances ofinterest,nd evenproperty ights nd class structures.n cen-tralAmerica,manyof these issues have arisen simultaneously,ust asin easternEurope. Nicaragua, for example,has probably had to facealmostthe same rangeofproblemsas, say,Romania-with just as littlesuccess. n short, s in so manyother spects, he eastern nd the south-ern cases,while obviouslyverydifferent,re not so distinct s Bunceassumes. They overlap and that s preciselywhatprovidessuch an in-teresting otential for interregional onceptualizationand compari-son.

8) The role of elites versus masses.Bunce claims: "Centralto theapproach ofSchmitter, arl,O'Donnell and their associatesis theas-

sertion hat lites are central nd publics peripheral.Thus,transitionstodemocracy re understoodto be eliteaffairs nd themore elite thebetter." 123). But this s an oversimplificationf theoriginalO'Don-nell/Schmitterrgument;t does nottake nto account thework fother"transitologists" ho have a differentiew;and it falsely onfuses anobservationbout therole of elites with preferenceorthisrole.

O'Donnell and Schmitter rgued thatmass publics were essentialat the start f a transitionwhen "the resurrection fcivilsociety"wasso oftenthemajor factor n forcing litesto go beyond their imited

23. "Modes of Transition in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe," Inter-national Social ScienceJournal,no. 128 (May 1991): 269-84. Bunce claims on unspecifiedgrounds tlhatwe have miscoded Bulgaria (fn. 9). Fine, since we did indicate in the abovearticle that all our codings of tlheeastern cases were tentative and subject to improve-ment by country specialists. Th-e only reason that we are puzzled is because Sclhmittergave a series of lectures in Sofia last year and all his respondents were fully agreed thatthe transition there unequivocally fit nto the "imposed" category.



976 Slavic Review

intentions f iberalization, ut such publics tended to getdemobilizedas democratization roceeded-an observationborn out in a numberof case studies.24 arl subsequently laimed thattherole of masses wasgreater n certain ypes ftransitionstransition hrough reform" ndtransition hrough revolution") but thatsuch transitionswere bothrare and generallyunsuccessful n Latin America-largely due to therole of the US in circumscribing hemduringthe cold war.25 nce theexternal onstraint f a hegemonic power is removed, t is reasonableto hypothesizethat reformist ransitions, haracterizedby a greatermassinvolvement,ould become morelikely.

Where we simplydisagree is with Bunce'sassertion (buttressedby a citation to DanielFriedheim and SidneyTarrow, footnote 30)concerning the alleg-edly key role of mass

publics in the entire transition process. This is not a resolved issue; infact, there is still a great deal of on-going controversy about it amongscholars working on southern Europe and Latin America. Moreover,adding eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the sample doesnot establish that masses were "really" more important than elites.26Our impression is to the contrary: the more distance one gains fromthe eastern transitions, the more apparent it is becoming that key ele-ments of the dominant elite within the ancien regime have not onlysurvived the change in regime but may even have anticipated and con-tributed to it. If true (and Bunce hints in footnote 9 that it is so), thiswould bring at least some of these cases much more into line withthoseof the south-no matter how normatively distasteful this may be 27

... adding eastern Europe and the former

Soviet Union to the sample does not estab-

lish that masses were "really" more impor-

tant than elites.

24. Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, op. cit.25. See Terry Lynn Karl, "Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America," Com-

parative Politics 23, no. 1 (October 1990): 1-23.26. It is impossible to resist a comment on Bunce's assertion that in eastern Eu-

rope there has been no demobilization during the transition (126). If there is onetheme that has repeatedly been merntioned to Schmitter during his trips to easternEurope it is precisely this-not just the demobilization of var-ious mass publics (womenin particular) but, even more, of intellectuals Whether this has been a good or a badthing as far as the overall democratization process is concerned is another matter,although pace Bunce we have never argued that this contributes positively. We havesimply pointed to the almost universal fact of demobilization and the ways in which

this affects the choice of institutions, the outcome of elections and the advent of wide-spread desencantowith democracy. For a discussion of this point in Hungary, see LaszloBruszt and David Stark, "Remaking the Political Field in Hungary," Journal of nterna-tionalAffairs 5, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 201-45.

27. Consider this conclusion from a recent article (admittedly, not written by east-ern European-Russian area specialists): "Despite mass political action at the momentthese regimes crumbled, the revolutions (sic) in Eastern Europe and the former SovietUnion were largely characterized by revolutions from above.' They were facilitated by



Froman Iron Curtainto a Paper Curtain 977

9) Predicting the future. Finally, we have been accused of beingexcessively pessimistic and of exaggerating the difficulties hat neo-de-

mocracies in eastern Europe have to face-which is an "artifact pro-duced by measuring the east against the southern standard" (126-27).Since we doubt that this conclusion could be drawn exclusively fromour article in Slavic Review,we assume that it must be based on Bunce'sreading of some other literature on transitology.28We find this puz-zling. On the one hand, our observation that some countries in the eastare likely to survive the transition (that is, not revertback to the pre-vious form of autocracy) but not be able to produce more than a "hy-brid" regime is not derived from applying southern standards of de-mocracy to eastern Europe; indeed, the very notion of persistently

"unconsolidated democracies" was generated from observations con-cerning the southern countries.

On the other hand, the "possibilistic" approach originating withO'Donnell and Schmitter,and Karl's subsequent claim that there maybe no preconditions for democracy, has much more often been criti-cized as excessively "voluntaristic" and hence optimistic. This is espe-cially true because many of the countries of the south and the east lackone or more or all of the so-called "structuralrequisites fordemocracy"that dominated the previous literature. It is, however, one thing to as-sert that most of these countries are "condemned" to democracy forthe foreseeable future because no other regime type seems to be cred-ible and because so many international forces seem to be prepared tocome to its aid. It is quite another to point out that veryfew of themwill succeed in the short-run in consolidating a type of democracywhose benefits theywill be able to enjoy. Whether this is being opti-mistic or pessimistic, or merely realistic is a judgement that we leaveto the reader.

In sum, we have argued the following: first,the tactic of pittingcomparative analysis against area studies was deployed by Bunce andnot by us. It is a red herring. In principle there need not be any con-tradiction between area studies and the larger field of comparative pol-itics, provided that both are firmlyanchored in a common effortattheory-building,operationalization of concepts and solid empirical re-search. Second, both intra-regional and cross-regional comparisons areessential to the process of theory building, but cross-regional compar-isons which incorporate the experiences of eastern Europe have some

festering splits within the political elite, its ultimate decision to relinquish power, and,

with the exception of Poland, the emergence of only a small counterelite" (BeverlyCrawford and Arend Lijphart, "Old Legacies, New Institutions, Hegemonic Norms,and International Pressures: Explaining Political and Economic Changes in Post-Com-munist Eastern Europe," forthcoming in ComparativePolitical Studies).

28. Bunce does cite Schmitter's "Dangers and Dilemmas of Democracy,"JournalofDemocracy , no. 2 (April 1994): 57-75, where it is specifically observed that very fewneo-democracies have reverted to autocracy and that the real issue is not the survivalbut the consolidation of democracy.



978 SlavicReview

distinct dvantagesforaddressing many of the theoretical ssues pre-dominantin the studyof democratizationtoday.Such comparisons

shouldbe encouraged,notdiscouraged.Third, that nteresting nd, attimes, ovel essonswillemerge from hiswork eemsalready pparentthrough heeffortsf so manyeasternEuropean and Russian special-ists to apply the concepts, assumptions and hypotheses of "transi-tology."

The generic ssue whichremains-once theunnecessarypolemicsare over-is an important ne. Which s thebetter trategy:hould thescholarsof post-communist ransitions ely primarily n the uniquecultural, tructural r behavioralfeaturesnheritedfrom he "marxist-leninist-stalinist"ast in theirefforto understandwhat the outcomesofthese momentous ransformations illbe? Or, shouldtheyfocus ona moregeneric et of issues and utilizeprimarily on-area-specificon-ceptsthatpresumea less historically onstrainedrangeof choices andhence a greater utonomyfor actors?29When and where the studyofcontemporary emocratization s concerned,we stillmost emphati-callyfavor he second strategy.

29. Or, if we may be permitted to cite and then paraphrase an ex-Sovietologistnot known for his social scientific sympathies, Martin Malia (from his "Leninist End-

game," Daedalus [Spring 1992]), the question is whether it will be more productive topresume that: "Postcommunism will yield a very mixed result because its basic prob-lems are created by the previous structures of the communist order. Postcommunismwill be unique in human history, because communism itself was unique.... To graspthe nature of the present transition, therefore, we (should) first ook at what it is ne-gating, and then examine, step by step, the consequences this negation has producedso far" (58-9). Or should one begin with the assumption that: Postcommunism willyield a verymixed result because itsbasic problems overlap with those of other politiesin transition and are created by generic changes in the structures of social, economic,cultural and political domination. This mix of outcomes will not be unique, becausethe process of transition imposes similar constraints and choices upon those who en-gage in it. To grasp the nature of the present transition, therefore,we should first ook

at what it is attempting to create and then examine, step by step, the consequences(intended and unintended) that this efforthas produced so far.

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