central european political science review

CENTRAL EUROPEAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 2008 Spring Quarterly of Central European Political Science Alliance Volume: 9 Number: 31

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CONTENTS Introduction by the Editor........................................................................................5 Main Articles MULTICULTURALISM AND POLITICAL ACTION Ashok Kumar Upadhyay: Multiculturalism as Political Concern . ...........6 Peter Szigeti and Ibolya Vincze: Politics and Political Action – Some Remarks to the Theory of Political Power......................................................... 19 Jesús de Andrés Sanz and Rubén Ruiz Ramas: Institutions and political regime in Putin’s Russia: an analysis ........................................................... 33 György Schöpflin: Minorities, Citizenship and Europe.............................. 61 Csaba Varga: At the Crossroads of Civil Obedience and Disobedience A Case Study of a Moment of Constitutional Impotence in Hungary.... 68 József N. Szabó: The Role of the Hungarian Non-governmental Participants in the Diplomatic Connections with the Western Countries / 1945-1948/................................................................................................................... 78 Jody Jensen: Netizens of the Blogosphere: E-democracy or E-ristocracy? .................................................................................... 85 Leonidas Donskis: Soviet Culture, Russian and Lithuanian Culture ................................................................................................... 91

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Repor ts and Conferences Gipsy – Life: II. Documentary Short Film Festival - May 9, 2009 - Budapest......................................................................................................... 96 Europeanization of National Politics: CEPSA Conf., 2-5, Oct. 2008, Opatija, Croatia........................................................................................................... 99 Armed Forces and Society: IPSA Conference, 26-28 June 2008. Santiago de Chile................................................................................................... 105 Global Shift and the Return of Central Europe: 2 of June, Kőszeg, Hungary ................................................................................107 Book Reviews Péter Tamási: Assessing Intergenerational Equity - An Interdisciplinary Study of Aging and Pension Reform in Hungary . ......................................109 A b s t r a c t s ............................................................................................................115 A b o u t t h e a u t h o r s . ..................................................................................119

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INTRODUCTION We are very happy, that after nine years hard work we can edit the No. 31th of Central European Political Science Review in 2008. We are convinced that during the last years CEPS established its professional reputation not only among the scholars of social sciences but also among the Central European intellectuals. The No. 31th of Central European Political Science Review treats the Multiculturalism and Political Action. The editors included articles among which one may find empirical and theoretical ones or writings analyzing a specific country, while others are comparative.The readers can find important analysis’s about the possibility of collaboration between the countries, nations and minorities. The issue of No. 31th of CEPS contains chapters from Indian, Spanish, British, Hungarian, Lithuanian authors. Through this publication we plan to present Central Europe, a bridge between East and West, in light of contemporary problems of political science, problems that excite theorists and practitioners alike. In addition, on the pages of this journal we also hope to provide the reader with up-to-date information concerning regional events that are related to the profession of political science. In the No. 31th of CEPS we published chapter on the human face of the new democracies, the intercultural relations, identities, about the cultural and historical development of the Central European countries. Our aim is to publish in the Central European Political Science Review those political science articles that analyze Central European events, issues and politics. We also welcome conference reports call for papers and book reviews for publication, which focus on Central Europe of have message for the region. For this way CEPS can contribute to the strengthening of the relationship, understanding and exchange of information between the researchers and intellectuals of our new, democratic Central European region. Manuscripts to be considered for publication in CEPS should be submitted to the Editor of CEPS via e-mail: [email protected] as a word document attachment. The Editor 5

Ashok Kumar Upadhyay Multiculturalism as Political Concern

Introduction Plurality has been the universal feature in any organized society irrespective of time. The co-existence of different communities within the same polity is not a new occurrence(1). Right from the beginning, the concept of organization has included in it the concept like accommodation and adjustability. Perfect similarity or homogeneity would perhaps have not necessitated the efforts towards togetherness; and the society of the time would have not emerged. The social science cannot produce any thing related to human behavior, and thus, their importance and acceptance are function of their providing heed to an aspect of human belief adjusting it with time and space, and desirability and feasibility concerns. As such, the presence of different beliefs in a way of life and uniqueness in it was nothing to be invented, but only to be provided a place in social conversations, an attempt at that hints towards multiculturalism. What brings cultural studies in social discourse? What is multiculturalism all about? What are the different stages of philosophical frame work for its development? How does it see the concepts like identity, social justice and feminism? These and related questions are discussed in this paper. The arguments offered are philosophical, and the case study is generally avoided. Terry Eagleton writes that culture is an activity, which is originally derived from nature, and is perhaps one of the most complicated words in English Dictionary. It is an activity in the sense that it attaches itself with material consciousness of the people, resulting in his though about his faith, surroundings and life opportunities and prospects(2). The argument that Terry Eagleton puts is based on his conviction that culture is the product of nature; but nature can change culture. People have natural occupation to find the suitability of his life conditions, and if at distance, to arrange to make them accessible. When the efforts for organizing and 6

grouping started, culture became one of the criteria. Raymond Williams, one who is supposed to be the first scholar highlighting the importance of culture and cultural considerations, give four meaning of culture at the later stage of his arguments(3): 1. Culture as an individual habit of mind. 2. As a state of intellectual development of whole society. 3. As the arts 4. As a whole way of life of a group of people. The first two meanings appear too narrow and the last two, too broad. As a habit of mind culture puts individual in isolation, disconnecting him from one who cares and accommodates. It also separates individuals from the very core of the society, and thus does not appreciate his effort towards organization and togetherness. It becomes more a personal value not capable of explaining the behavior of a social group. Similarly, if culture is taken as state of intellectual development of whole society, it detaches human life from all other concerns except the intellect. Intellectual development refers to the capacity of considered moral judgment for taking a decision to make a workable choice. However, this is not the complete statement about the life of a free individual. Apart from his intellectual pursuits, he has many other aspects lacking which he will not be able to contribute his share of services and to discharge his responsibilities towards the social order. Intellectual development may form one aspect- may be the important one- but it cannot be the culture in itself. Culture as arts and Culture as a whole way of life of a group of people are too broad elaborations. They show the totalitarian character of culture, which is definitely not helpful to find a cultural base for theorization of human activity and expectations. In fact, the four different meanings of Raymond Williams can be synthesized together to deliver the expected and helpful meaning of culture. Culture, thus is a belief in common way of persuasion of interests by members of a community who are homogeneous and knit together through a bond of uniqueness and defended individuality. Thus, culture refers to a way of life and culturalism to allow pursuing that way of life. In this sense, multiculturalism is a concept in which different cultures, which are existing, are allowed to exist. They are allowed to pursue their own way of life and to manage the 7

affairs regarding ways and means for the attainment of their defined good. In a way, multiculturalism to be operative requires certain conditions. It expects some thing from state as well as society. It demands from the state that there should be no culture of the state. It sounds very similar to the demand of secularism that there should be no religion of the state. In restraining state to own any culture or religion, the two concepts- secularism and multiculturalism- appear following the same path. However, when it comes to positive actions, perhaps the responsibility of a multicultural state is undoubtedly more than that of a secular state. 2. Bhikhu Parekh’s three basic insights of culture-individual relationship The multiculturalism expects state to provide equality to all cultural groups. It should legislate in a way that no cultural group is deprived of the opportunities of its development. Moving positively, the state should pay special attention for the development and existence of the minority cultural groups. It should never try, and oppose all efforts by any group, to bring the minority cultural groups in mainstream in the name of societal culture, work place culture or nationalism. Contrary to it, it should provide special advantages- going to the extent of positive discrimination and affirmative actions- so that the minority cultures could grow and sustain their growth. On the side of society, it is required that the majority will provide space for the survival and development of minority cultures. It is the responsibility of the majority cultural groups to make sure that minority cultures co-exist with them. They should always try to create an environment conducive to the existence and development of minority cultural groups. It will not be out of context to clarify the distinction between multicultural and multiculturalism. Existence of many cultures in a society makes the society plural or multicultural. However, being multicultural is not necessarily being multiculturalist. If all the cultures existing in the multicultural society enjoy equality, and state and society treat all of them as equal, providing equal opportunity to grow, and neither the state nor the society believes in cultural relativism, the society and state are multiculturalists, and are adhering to the conception of multiculturalism. 8

Taking multiculturalism as a positive act of state and society paves the way to connect it to the concept of politics of recognition. The thesis about recognition reveals that our identity is shaped by the recognition or its absence(4). Identity by absence of recognition is generally a false or manipulated identity. Misrecognising one is marginalizing or stigmatizing him. Non recognizing or misrecognising can inflict harm, may be a form of oppression. It can put some one to a reduced mode of being. The stereotype for women, dalits and religious minorities in India can be the best examples of not or misrecognising. It reflects a prejudice to frame a person or a group into a fix image, which is generally unconnected to the actual one. The majority groups, committed states, dominant economic classes and custodians of social practices take on to this politics to maintain their respective positions by projecting the framed images of others. The most alarming registration of misuse of the recognition in framing a false image has come from feminists theorists and activists. The politics of recognition to a corrective end in its very crude form is an organized revolt against the established norms of classical monism (5). Belief in a way of life as the best possible one, and believing that way to be the only moral way and to be the only one that has genuine potential to lead to a good life, is challenged on each front. The very emergence of plural societies can be attributed to this superiority-ridden belief. The plural nature of existing society is not a debate today. It has obtained universal recognition. Even the most fanatic religious societies cannot claim honestly that their notion of one superior culture is not challenged from within. With the development of faculties of individuals, a feeling has crystallized that there are more than one way to attain the good life. What was immoral for monism has turned moral to gays and lesbians. Thus, it is being taken as established fact today that contemporary societies consists of many cultural groups in which one may be dominant but the dominance of the dominant cultural group is no longer tolerated and accepted as model, but is being questioned by other cultural groups. To put it other way, the urge for equality of different minority cultural groups has surfaced up. Thus, multiculturalism refers to negation of cultural relativism by state and society. It consists in the freedom of the cultural groups to take course to their way of faith and conviction. Bhikhu Parekh writing about the importance of cultures and multiculturalism notes three basic insights of culture-individual relationship(6): 9

1. Human beings are culturally embedded. 2. Different cultures represent different system of meaning and vision of good life. 3. All cultures are internally plural. Every individual has certain embedded experiences that he attains from his surroundings and societal practices. It is on the basis of these embedded experiences that he evaluates and justifies individual and collective activities of his community. The impact and bearing of the traditions and customs nourish in individual a deep conviction to make his reflections based on them. Thus, an individual lives in the world created by his culture and understands it through a system of meaning attached to his culture. His requirements and expectations are the functions of his understanding of the culture created world. Parekh second insight opposes any relative ranking among different cultures. There is no culture, which is so perfect as to be imposed on others, nor there is any culture so worthless to be completely abolished. In fact, every culture is the combination of virtues and taboos and these virtues and taboos are subjective. They are peculiarly attached to the time and location. The message that filters front the second insight is that the society and state should keep away from taking a decision or making a statement about the cultural group’s acceptability and nonacceptability, and adoptability and non-adoptability. By the very merit of the culture, no culture can be imposed for wrathfulness and no culture can be eradicated for worthlessness. The third point that he makes refers to internal organization of cultural institutions. Accordingly, all cultures are internally plural and democratic. They allow the discussion among their members and show dynamic character to adopt any change that emerges on the basis of consensus or majority opinion. This insight rates culture very high and suggests that reforms are always welcome in true cultures. Thus, the adherence to the democratic principles is the characteristic of a culture. Parekh argues that for a culture to be comfortable and to co-exist with others, it is necessary for that culture to be comfortable internally. Perhaps, this means that if democratic instruments are not used to settle the internal differences among the members of a cultural community, the survival of that community in a multicultural frame work would not be easy. Parehk sees the three insights interconnected and capable of 10

shaping cultural individual to exist in a plural society with comfortable adjustments among the members of his own community as well as with other cultural communities. Multiculturalism is interplay of these insights(7). Extending this argument to a broader perspective, no ideology can actually represent the totality of human conception of good and good life. Each has some understanding and not all. As such the dialogue and conversation among ideologies can be for mutual enrichment. But a good society does not commit it to a particular doctrine. It analyses desirability factor of members related to cultural diversity and structures its political life accordingly. But again, no society can be stable and long lasting without developing a common sense of belongingness among its members. This belongingness has to be political in nature. However, political community cannot expect its members to develop a sense of belongingness to it, unless the society holds the respect for their diversity, and this respect is reflected in its structures and functions(8). The argument of Parekh that it is impossible for an ideology to represent the concept of good life of individual in totality finds some support in libertarian tradition of thought of contemporary world. Parekh bases his conception on the merit of a doctrine but Hayek attributes it to the very nature of social knowledge. Social knowledge has disintegrated character. It never exists in totality; it always exists in fragments. No one and no institution and no theorization can claim to have complete social knowledge regarding individual, association or institution. But this is not because of the inability or non-desirability of the seeker, but because of the very nature of the social knowledge. No one can take a decision for one fully conducive to his interest. Thus, one should be left to take his own course to define his meaning and conception of good, and also to choose appropriate way to achieve his defined goals. Extending it to cultural aspect, the individual should be uncontrolled to pursue his culturally defined goals. He should be independent in his cultural world. This is clearly a multicultural perspective. Framework of development: The three stages Pluralism is not a new phenomenon. But the existence of plurality was never a testimony to the existence of equality. Multiculturalism asks 11

the question of equality- do the different communities living together peacefully co-exist as equals in the public arena? In fact, it is this emphasis on equality that distinguishes multiculturalism from pluralism. Pluralism indicates the presence of differences and makes a departure from the policy of annihilating others. But it remains silent about the public status of these communities(9). From adding to pluralism the concern of public domain to the stage of making a value statement, multiculturalism passed through many frame works to reach the present status. Will Kymlicka narrates the development of multiculturalism through three basic debates(10). STAGE ONE: Libertarian-Communitarian Debate The first stage of the development of the concept of multiculturalism refers to the frame-work of Libertarian Communitarian debate. This debate raises the question about the freedom and autonomy of individuals. Libertarian argument for the freedom of individual takes the radical shape in discarding all types of sanctions over the actions of individuals. However, Libertarianism and Communitarianism are the forms of the broad concept of liberalism, and hence, both are concerned about the sanction and defense of the liberty of individuals. The difference of argument is on the question of priority.The individual can best protect and further his interest by being an independent self or he can do it better by being a member of a community? What should be the mechanism? Know the question is: from individual to community or from community to individual? The interesting aspect of this debate is that Communitarians as well as Libertarians want the development of both- the singular individuals and collective individuals. But Libertarians argue that singular individuals should not be subjected to community considerations while defining his conception of good, and deciding the ways and means for the attainment of that. The good of the community will be taken care automatically if the good of all individuals constituting it are independently achieved. In fact, Libertarians take individual as independent self and believe in his complete autonomy. On the other hand, Communitarians take individuals as member of the community and believe that individual is made of community in which all his credentials are embedded. He is what community makes him. Thus, if the good of the individual is to 12

be enhanced the routé goes through community. If the community is developed, the development of individual will automatically follow. One more important aspect of this debate is worth noting. This debate emerged after revival of political theory which is attributed to the publication of A Theory of Justice by John Rawls in 1971. In fact, Communitarians are basically the liberal critics of Rawls. They appreciated Rawl’s theory generally but had some objections about certain points. Charles Taylor in Sources of Self, A. MacIynter in After Virtue, Michael Sandel in Liberalism and Its Critics, and Michael Walzer in Sphere of Justice have raised questions - on different grounds- about Rawlsian emphasis of individuality and autonomy of persons in relation to community. Rawls attempt of universalizing the principle, his nonacceptance of community subjection of principle, his adherence to good as moral value in universal frame work, and his understanding of scope and potential of his principles are challenged by these thinkers. They argue that individual is not independent of community, and no principle can have universal applicability. Conception of human good is shaped and defined by community consciousness and they vary community to community. Justice as universal value cannot be accepted. Through their arguments, the critics want to emphasize that it is community and its value that are instrumental in the achievement of good of individuals. Negating community is negating historicity. Hence, negation of community takes individual to absurdity. In the debate of Libertarians and Communitarians one who sided with Communitarians were taken as Multiculturalists following the path of Multiculturalism. Thus, in the first stage of its development, multiculturalism was taken as theory that recognized the justification of political authority in considering the individual in collectivity and not in singularity. The society and state were expected to treat individuals as one of a group, and the interest of the group was to be given more value than the interest of the individual. STAGE TWO: Meaning of Liberalism Among Liberals The second framework of the development of Multiculturalism identified itself with the difference of opinion about the meaning of liberalism among liberals themselves. This is debate between individuals and groups who endorse the basic liberal democratic consensus but who 13

disagree about the interpretation of these principles in multi-cultural societies (11). What is the possible scope of Multiculturalism in liberal theory? Liberal theory is an inquiry about the life of man and society with a liberal conviction. The solution of a crisis provided by the theory is based on protection and enhancement of liberty. When liberal theory has all concerns to take care of the liberty of all communities including minorities of society, what is the justification of a conception like multiculturalism with an assignment of specific job of protection of the rights of minority cultural groups? There may be two possible explanations: 1. The liberal theory is not able to take on to the basic assignment of protection of liberty of all. 2. Liberal theory cannot take care of the rights of minority cultural communities. The first refers to functional inability and second to a lacunae regarding contents and structures. Both these imperatives are not comfortable for liberals. The result that emerged at philosophical level after this debate was the owning of the concept by liberalism and projection of multiculturalism as a specialized programme under liberal framework to take care of the cultural rights of minority communities. One of the most influential participants in this debate is Joseph Raz. He maintains that the importance of multiculturalism does not only lie in protecting the rights of minority cultural communities. Liberalism can well be taken as capable for that. The problem with liberal theory was that it confined itself only with the protection and sanction of the rights and opportunities. Doing so, it got detached from its function of maintaining a conducive environment for the existence of different cultural groups specially the minority. This was taken care by new concept of Multiculturalism. Thus, importance of multiculturalism lies more in maintaining cordial relations among different cultures. STAGE THREE: Debate Regarding Nation Building The third stage of the development of Multiculturalism takes the framework of Nation Building. Nation building is a process to strengthen the bond of togetherness among the citizens. Liberal democracies accept 14

the role of cultural rights in nation building. But the symbolic presence of dominance at different places in public life raises the genuine question of honesty of liberal policy. In liberal democracies in the name of national culture or work place culture, certain directions are issued that generally suit to majority only. This brings the crisis of confidence among the members of minority groups and loosens the bond of togetherness among them. Thus, if Multiculturalism comes in, it will satisfy the members of minority cultural groups and cement their bond with other groups. This will definitely add positively to the process of nation building. Thus, the three stages of the development of Multiculturalism associated with three frameworks clarify that the concept has stood the trial of the time. Right from 1971 up to present, this has been a concern of political theorization and has served as basis of solving a debate to theoretical crystallization. Relation with contemporary concepts It is neither contextual nor required to enter into a detail discussion about the interrelationship between Multiculturalism and concepts like Identity, Feminism, Social Justice, Nation and democracy. But at the same time it is very much required that a brief state of affairs is presented. Identity confesses upon individual a position to which he is actually attached. Identity is a function of recognition which further requires the attachment with value and moral honesty. The discourse about Identity is less about concept and more about different way of creating and using it. One should be recognized in a way he actually is. Imposition of Identity and thereby subordinating one to another to have a required image of a person is an act that hurts people at large. A Person can have multiple identities and he should be recognized that way. Multiculturalism demands that the cultural identity of every cultural group should be recognized. This will provide a psychological strength to the members of minority groups and that in turn will help in better cooperation. Similarly, the concept of social justice and nationalism are conducive to that of Multiculturalism. But there is a problem with feminism. Feminist theorists and activists argue that Multiculturalism produces obstacles in way to providing 15

equality and dignity to women. They argue that all the discriminations to which women are subjected are protected in the name of culture. Social, religious and economic inequalities resulting in marginalizing and even stigmatizing women are based on practices accepted by society in name of culture. Since Multiculturalism stands for providing cultural rights to cultural communities, it recognizes even those practices which are discriminatory and support them. Thus, feminists charge Multiculturalism to be a principle which is gender bias and do not endorse it. The issue of relationship between Multiculturalism and democratic Governance is bit complicated. Gurpreet Mahajan asserts that liberal democracy is the only workable framework for Multiculturalism (12). My submission here is that if the cultural rights of the minority communities are accepted in the democratic system, the political obligation will become easy and the democratic institutions will develop strength. Thus, Multiculturalism and democratic governance can be said to be complementary to one another. Now with all these discussions I reach the concluding part of my paper. Multiculturalism is a concept of contemporary origin having a peculiar orientation towards pluralities and differences. It supports plurality and honours difference. It is against the classical notion of Monism in every sense. Its importance and concerns increased because of the convictions in liberal values including realization of the fact of individual’s intentional and functional potentials. The concept of individual underwent a unique transformation in which he was taken, on one hand, as having capacity to develop him and on the other, as deeply embedded in the system of meaning of his community. It is like arguing that one is capable to have independence but his capacity is only active when he is attached to a particular world created by collective consciousness. This shows the dichotomy in the concept which can be answered only on the logic of obstinacy. Summary However, in the conception of multiculturalism, the members of different cultural communities are provided positive assistance by state and society for their existence, growth and development. No single 16

way of life can be said to be the only capable or moral way. All are free to have their own definitions of good and to decide their own way for the attainment of that good. In a sense, multiculturalism is maintaining plurality and differences in public arena. Mere presence of different cultures does not make a state or society multiculturalist. It becomes multiculturalist and the follower of multiculturalism when it publicly declares through policy and legislations that all cultures are equal in their capacity and substance. Multiculturalism is the interplay between the three basic insights of culture as narrated by Bhikhu Parekh. It was initially taken as concept siding with communitarianism in the initial framework of libertariancommunitarian debate. In second phase, it was sanctioned an independent status when differences among liberals about the meaning of liberalism surfaced. It was accepted among liberals that multiculturalism as a concept is conducive to the broad principles of liberalism and stands for a more specialized task of providing cultural rights to different cultural groups and of maintaining cordial relations among different cultural groups operating in the plural framework of society. In the third stage, it was taken as an aid in the process of nation building. Thus, Multiculturalism as developed from 1971 to present affirms the negation of cultural relativism. It does not consider cultures on the basis of merit. It only allows cultures to develop without discriminations. This non-acceptance of cultural relativism some times brings serious uncomfortable situations. The traditions of Sati Pratha, Child Marriage, Un-touchability and the culture of Head Hunting among Nagas are some of the examples of such uncomfortable situations. The concept of multiculturalism is deeply connected to the concepts like Identity, Democracy and Social Justice. Multiculturalism supports the recognition of Identities of every member of every cultural community as actual. In fact, it supports the communities and defines it as net work of identity constituting beliefs and purposes. There is a significant link between identity of a person and his community. This is tacit and generally not explicit. The concept of multiculturalism empowers the disadvantaged class of the society by providing them a status of equality through cultural rights. It also gains the support of all minority groups by recognizing their uniqueness and by providing them importance in public sphere. This helps in bringing the political obligation towards the democratic Social Order. It proves to be an aid in the process of Democratic Governance. 17

Notes Gurpreet Mahajan, The Multicultural Path: Issues of Diversity and Discrimination in Democracy, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2002, p. 11. 2. Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2003,pp.1 &2 3. Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2003,pp.1 &2 4. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992, pp.8-10 5. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992, p. 14 6. Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory, Macmillan, London, 2000, pp. 236-240 7. Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory, Macmillan, London, 2000, p. 245 8. Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory, Macmillan, London, 2000, p. 261 9. Gurpreet Mahajan, The Multicultural Path: Issues of Diversity and Discrimination in Democracy, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2002, pp.26-27 10. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction , Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, pp. 56-65 11. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction , Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, pp. 63-68 12. Gurpreet Mahajan, The Multicultural Path: Issues of Diversity and Discrimination in Democracy, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 12-13 1.

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Peter Szigeti – I. Vincze The Theory of Power : “Politics” and “Political” Action

Introduction to the problem The dualism of social-economic rule and political power have accompanied all eras of civic society: the ‘honoratior’ setting of free market capitalism, the pluralist democracy of organised capitalism and the democratic deficit of global capitalism. The richness in shape and form of political settings still show some regularity. In order to show this regularity a problem historical approach is needed, namely the introduction of two dualistic and two monistic social- and politicaltheoretical standpoints. From the point of methodology the Marxian political power, social-economic rule and the Weberian dualism of Macht (power) and Herrschaft (rule) is in opposition with the monism of the power aspect of elitist theories and the rule-theory of Hardt-Negri which is based on Marxist and post-modern elements. The dualism of political power and social-economic rule, the separation of the citizen from the bourgeoisie is the results of the historical separation process which took place between the civic society and political state. Significant research results can be found inn theory by Hegel, Marx, Antonio Gramsci, or in history, considering the role absolutistic monarchy played in this context, by Perry Anderson (1979). The world system theory aptly explains the social-economic bases, the rule forms and the geopolitical balance of powers. However, it does not separate in an analytical way the power and the rule, and the subjective and objective elements. Without the use of the dichotomy of power and rule all theoretical approaches, the aim of which is to describe the modern capitalistic societies, and the formations organising in the context of civic society and the separation of political state, are purely misleading. This is not simply the question of terminology, even though the terminology of power and rule can even be interchanged and in certain context can be each other’s synonimes. The difference of their 19

theoretical local value is well shown by the fact that two classics of social sciences namely Karl Marx and Max Weber, both use two theoretician concepts for the description of the two levels (Herrschaft (rule), and Macht (power) and Gewalt (force)). Levels exist only and to such an extent as long as they fulfil different laws and contexts. The common standpoint of elitist theories, by elite meaning the choice of the own way (passive, and mindless crowd are incapable of this), these two levels disappear. History is made by the elites, who are the progressive protagonists and subjective actors. Power is without rule. Their reduction theory can be judged from different aspects. A contradictory standpoint is expressed in the work titled “Empire” by Hardt-Negri (2000), which takes the view that the rise of the Empire as a new sovereign in the process of globalization is a rule, intercepted in a biased way diametrally adverse to the elitist theory, which is an unnameable anonym and lacks subjectivity and the power to decide. In the context of Marx and Weber - without subjecting the question to full theoretical analysis - a polar antagonism can be found in the methodological unity. While Marx, the economistphilosopher found the hidden structures in the context of ruler and servant (Klassenherrschaft) in the historical forms of private property and in the direct acquisition of the surplus products from the producers, and considered the political power as the influencing dimension of active actors; Weber, on the other hand, the sociologist Marx of the bourgeoisie, acted the other way around; the legitimate ways of a setting comes to exist taking the subjective, justificatory and convincing factors of that setting; in the basic types a charismatic, traditional and legal rule, while the objective aspect, the power superiority, the party enjoying monopoly and superiority (Macht) enforces even in case of opposition, was considered as objective context. Putting into common context: what can be considered as an objective talent/aptitude by Marx, that is not changed by the consciousness of individual actors is the rule that according to Weber is the subjective niveau, the conviction, and vica versa what is considered by Weber as the objective situation, the superiority, the power, which enforces obedience is according to Marx a political power, which can be influenced, and which can be changed by voluntary political effort. However, for us not the diversified internal concept-creation context is really important, in which everything has a local value within its own theory, both within the ideal-typical behaviour research of Weber, and in the dialectic law-learning, but the dichotomy 20

of the objective and subjective levels: rule and power, as well as the maintenance of the dichotomy of rule and power modi. Serious social science cannot be envisaged without the dialectics of the object and the subject. Today when, according to some post-modern sociology and scientific standpoint, both are handled as accessories from the past, and as a result of this many things are misunderstood about the nature of modernity and capitalism, it is a good idea to consider the common core of their process. At the same time supporting with the methodology and using the chosen, coherent terminology: by unfolding the social theory of the dichotomy of the objectivistic rule-relations, the structural settings of the production and distribution of values, goods, and stocks; and the subjective competent political power and regulating force. The achetype of the rule theory was created by G. W. F. Hegel in his classic work titled “Phenomenology of Spirit” (original 1806, 1961, 101110). The starting point is that the humans’main aim is to satify their needs, but there are people who satisfy their needs with the work of others. The master commands the servant what to do, therefore rendering the servant among its needs and goods which enable the satisfaction of his needs. The sensless obedient servants serves his master’s pleasure. In this primarily one way, assyemmetric dependance human activity becomes decisive, if the working process is repeated many times and becomes a routine, it becomes unnecessary for the master to issue his order as the servant already knows what he has to do. Meanwhile in this context the lord becomes more and more passive and the servant becomes the active party. The relationship between them turns around because of their positive and negative regard as far as work is concerned. While the lord loses his competences, because they become uunnecessary and he does not enact them, the servant not only transfers natural objects into useful goods, and producsts satisfying his masters needs, but also more and more elaborates his personal competences. Commanding becomes unnecessary, he becomes more and more independent, he develops his competences and it is his master, who has lost his competences, who becomes dependent on him. The primarily senseless pole becomes selfconscious, while the conscious other party degrades. Great problems of work and economy become apparent here, without changing the relationship completely, which were modelled using the circumstances of the societies before capitalism. The partially emancipated servant can only reach the internal freedom of the 21

unhappy consciousness (stoicism, skepticism), but cannot act against the rule. Marx takes into consideration this objective dialectics, when he launched the programme of the social emancipation of work. In the reconstruction of the political phylosophy Herbert Marcuse makes this connection obvious when analysing the elderly Hegel in the „Philosophy of law” (1821). According to Hegel the process of production is defined by the civic society separting from the state, in which the individual takes its place not according to its needs and capabilities but according to his/ her capital. “Since the possibility of participation in general economy depends on capital, this system creates greater and greater inequality.” (Jogfilozófia 200.§.) “The relationship between people becomes general because of their needs, and the methods with which they distribute and share the means to satisfy these needs: this results in the increase of richness on one side. On the other side the isolation and limitation of particular work increases and through this the dependence and the poverty of the classes dependent on work, ... and if a mass sinks below a certain level of subsistence, moreover if the feeling that it is a question of rights, rightousness and honour that humans should support themselves by exercising activity fades: then the mob is created, which entails that ill-proportioned richness can concentrate in few hands with relative ease ... beside extreme richness the civic society is not rich enough ... to put an end to poverty and the arisong of the mob.” (Marcuse, 1982, 237, 238). The key to the relations between domination and servility were found by Marx at the historical manners of the acquisition of surplus production. These are the socio-economic formations. The subordination of live (active) work to the dead work (capital) is modern capitalism, which is reproduced in the contradiction between the poles of work and capital. In capitalism rule is the dialectics of class relations for theit own sake, which is taking effect in global capitalism in such a way that the bourgeoise acquired a state of organizedness für sich Sein and an ideological-cultural hegemony, while the workers the Arbeitsgesellschaft only that of the an sich Sein. Its consciousness is only the reflection of a desintegrated awareness, which was created by the culture-industry. The picturesque Wallerstein quotations refer the fundaments of the current situation of rule: “If the bourgeoisie is defined as acquirer of added value not produced by them, who invests a part of this surplus into capital accummulation, then the proletariate is the first class which partly benefits from the goods produced for others. According to this interpretation in 22

capital production there is only bourgeoisie and proletariate. Polarity is structural.“ (1976, 7. ) “Therefore capitalism does not only mean that the proprietor acquires the surplus products from the worker, but also the acquisition of the surplus of world eonomy by cetral territories. This is also valid for agricultural and industrial capitalism.” (1980, 116. Emphasis by Sz. P.) It is obvious that apart from this basic distribution the mass of people show various other divisions in a society according to culture, ideology, religion, electoral behaviour, income or the difference in the place of residence. This, however, does not abolish the basic distribution, namely the significance of the social structure, the proprietary and labour division circumstances and the dominance structure of a society. That is reproduced in the cycle of the full production - production - business distribution - of capitalist production. Since, however, the aim is to analyse the problem under global circumstances, a bestseller of the Western left written by Hardt and Negri in 2000 about the theory of rule has to be mentioned, as this book has acquired international fame and influence. This is a political phylosophical study, the main item of which is worth mentioning1, as this is one of the viewpoints among the possible positions when characterizing the current formations of rule. While elitist theories simplify the rule circumstances of societies and the politics within into questions of power, there is a misrepresentation of balance and function: the significance of the exercise of political power and its actors absorb in the rule relations. In our description the objective mechanisms of rule operate without and independent of the power. The capital situation of world economy absorb the political legal aspects of sovereignity, the subjective playing field of the active protagonits of the political power. We cannot follow the concepts either incorrectly extending the imperialist theory of Lenin to the current situation, or the Empire concepts neglecting the analysis of the actions of active political powers, not saying a word about their protagonists. Our standpoint in the analysis of global capitalism is a third sui generis aspect which takes the view of the already discussed dualism of methods.

Although there is no question of a need for a scientific analysis of an essay, its slipping overgeneralizations should be pointed out.

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The problem of the rule without power Lets recap the first paragraph of Hardt and Negri, which is a short summary of their standpoint: “Empire is materializing before our very eyes. Over the past several decades, as colonial regimes were overthrown and then precipitously after the Soviet barriers to the capitalist world market finally collapsed, we have witnessed an irresistible and irreversible globalization of economic and cultural exchanges. Along with the global market and global circuits of production has emerged a global order, a new logic and structure of rule-in short, a new form of sovereignty. Empire is the political subject that effectively regulates these global exchanges, the sovereign power that governs the world.” (www.angelfire.com/cantina/negri/). In the globalization of capitalist production and exchange the economic relations became independent of the political control which made political sovereignity decline. However, the sovereignity of the nation state remained widely effective, the tendency shown is continuous erosion. The goods, persons, technologies, production factors pass the borders with growing ease, therefore nation states have less and less power to control these streams and to expose their authority on the economy. “The decline in sovereignty of nation-state, however, does not mean that sovereignty as such has declined. Sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire.” The empire is completely different from imperialism where the limited territorial power of the nation state system was extended beyond its borders. This was called colonialism. “The passage to Empire emerges from the twilight of modern sovereignty. In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers.” It can be seen that the new non nation state sovereign exercises political power as well, and does not only control the worlds economy, this is why according to the authors it is an Empire. I do not think that there is a world government, neither that in the context of state, legislative and political theory we could scientifically speak about the Empire as a sovereign power. The description of the authors is, of course, a very 24

successful metaphor, however, they also made it clear that they unfold the empire not in metaphorical terms but with the wish of theoretical discussion. To support their standpoint they use various, strong and less convincing arguments. First the weaker arguments. It is not entirely convincing that the Empire should be a kind of postmodern formation as a contrast to modernity. Even if postmodern has a huge social science literature, and even if the transition from imperialism to the Empire is interpreted as a transition from modernity to postmodern. As it was earlier discussed modernity brought along the rule of material constraints of capital. Therefore the global free competition considered as the latest change should be placed within the context of the history of capitalism, and not within the post-era beyond it. There are many “posts” after classic capitalism. However, neither the increase of the importance of immaterial production (the revolution of information), nor biopolitics, and biorule2, not even the control society replacing the disciplinary society, assigned to modernity with Foucaultian characteristics (which covered the period from the 18th century to the mid 20th century) can have such significance. The disciplinatory power based on oppression, the model of which is the Panoptikum by Bentham3 and this was extended by Foucault to the analysis of the dominance and socialization micro processes independent of the state (classifications like the order of prisons, hospitals, schools, sexuality, namely the power of the acquired knowledge vs. the acquirer), the role of which is to such an extent that the aggression of the public authorities, the physical oppression almost becomes superfluous. The disciplinarity of the power of knowledge, the power which is constantly setting standards and putting the people under continuous surveillance is much more important by Foucault than the functioning of the formal, state-political-legislative machinery of bourgeoise democracy. This tendency is followed by the control society, As far as bio-politics is concerned Hardt and Negri uses the term for the power dominating the full, intellectual biological-physical person, in terms of health, social status, consumption practices, partly through the power of supply systems and partly through the power of the media. From the second part of the 20th century bio-politics became an internal ingredient of the control society. 3 It is a building placed in a circle from the central tower of which the behaviour of the inhabitants of the cells of the building can well be seen and observed. In symbolic meaning, in terms of the medieval concept “God’s eyes see all” (or at least can see) the Panoptikum becomes one of the toposes of the disciplinary power by Foucault. 2

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which has an indefinite potential to integrate every oppository changes and intentions through the control of differences made independent of exploitation and oppression. For the authors the American constitution is the prototype of this “omnivorous” openness. The authors despite the wars serving as forerunners of a new world order do not consider the USA as a unique superpower4, because according to them it does not follow the politics of old imperialist European states. The United States does not, and indeed no nationstate can today, form the center of an imperialist project. Imperialism is over. No nation will be world leader in the same way modern European nations were. The United States does indeed occupy a privileged position in the Empire, but this privilege derives not from its similarities to the old European imperialist powers, but from its differences. These differences In this case this is an evaluation which fully contradicts our analyses. According to Hardt and Negri after the Cold War the exercise of international police power burdened the shoulders of Uncle Sam, and the Gulf-war in 1991 was a clear manifestation of it. In this case the USA did not follow its own interests and targets but condemned and punished Iraq that breached international law. The significance of this war was that the United States remained as the only power able to handle international justice, which stepped in not on behalf of its own national motives but on behalf of world justice. The U.S. world police acts not in imperialist interest but in imperial interest. In this sense the GulfWar did indeed, as George Bush claimed, announce the birth of a new world order. . (2000, 227-28.) On condition, but not allowing, this evaluation to be true, one has to see that the series was followed by the bombardment of Belgrade when the United States agreed with its 19 NATO allies, and acted according to multilateral international law, and EuroAtlantic interests, however without the authorisation of the UN Security Council. In the 2003 Iraq war the USA even backed out from multilateralism. Not even the fact bother America that 6 of her allies turned against her, and the arguments for the war were fictional. (As it was revealed Iraq did neither have weapons of mass destruction, nor Al-Quaida connections), the United States started an aggression of such a scale, which partly implied the expansion of its interests in the middle-east, and partly the hope of acquiring the strategically important oil stocks, risking the falling apart of Iraq, a prolonged war and the possibility of a “Vietnam” in the desert. However, in 2000 Hardt and Negri could not know it. One thing is true, even if the era in which we live now is not imperialist, the Empire which is taking shape before our very eyes means the unipolar world of the American superpower. The power of the single nation state which can force its economic and geopolitical interests on anybody. The new world order is not purely the result of spontanious unconscious world economic processes, but the resultant from the beginning of war aggression, through aggressive threats to the power politics of the use of real and potential aggression. Considering the latest two wars the analysis of Hardt and Negri are characterized by a naive charm.

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can be recognized most clearly by focusing on the properly imperial (not imperialist) foundations of the United States constitution, where by “constitution” we mean both the formal constitution, the written document along with its various amendments and legal apparatuses, and the material constitution, that is, the continuous formation and re-formation of the composition of social forces. ... This imperial idea has survived and matured throughout the history of the United States constitution and has emerged now on a global scale in its fully realized form.” The contemporary conception of the Empire was conceived by the world scale expansion of the internal constitution plan of the United States. The earlier forms of international law, based on agreements and negotiations, which always took place between external parties – under modern circumstances between states with external bi- or multilateral contracts – is replaced by an internal constituent and institutionalizing process. “The networks of agreements and associations, the channels of mediation and conflict resolution, and the coordination of the various dynamics of states are all institutionalized within Empire. We are experiencing a first phase of the transformation of the global frontier into an open space of imperial sovereignty.” They also say that the problem of the Empire is primarily the problem of the world order, which is expressed in certain legal context. In this process foreign policy disappears, as everything becomes an internal problem within the Empire. It is true that the nation state order is in crisis, and from it emanates the crisis of international law which weakens further the legitimacy of individual sovereign states. It is also true that the crisis of the nation states gives the impetus towards the Empire, but it also has to be mentioned that it takes place according to three different formats: on the one hand through the combined format of regional integration beyond the nation states and through the nation states a supranational format (European Union), on the other hand as a real type between non nation state regions under patrimonial conditions (Southeast Asia), and finally through the change of function usually limited to the executive and to the justice of the nation states. In the world system this is complemented with the formations below the nation states (quasi state, city states, regions within the state federations). The false overgeneralizations can rather be found at the description and interpretation of the Empire. There are many strong arguments and reasoning’s expressing these tendencies in this 500 page long post-modern structured flow of text, 27

which according to the authors can be read from the beginning to the end but also vica versa, or just by browsing, since the reader is within a hermeneutic circle and as such part of the integrating interpretation. As a result of this the core of the message, however, softens and becomes relativized. The criticism expressed by one of their German critics Detlef Hartmann is not without foundations when he wrote that their work as a result of the post-modern wobbling can be interpreted as a mid range conservative revolution, and not only as a manifesto of alternative globalist movements. The assymmetric dependencies, dominance of world economy exist by defining the place and possibilities of politics without becoming mechanisms exercising unified political power in this segmented world system. Political is not the same as politics, the structural settings of the rule-dependence circumstances, the political-legal concept of sovereignty, which is never subjectless and never the result of objective mechanisms. From Austin through Jellinek to Schmitt and in our days the political legal meaning of sovereignty cannot be either decentralized or “deterritorized”. Péter Szilágyi points out the contradiction in terms used by the authors when on the one hand they talk about a transnational sovereignty, a power pyramid, with the United States on the top, while on the other hand they deny the existence of a defined power centre of the new world order. “As far as sovereignty is concerned the concentration of the political power into one power centre is indispensable. The decentralized fragmented sovereignty is not sovereign, as well as neither the feudal state was sovereign.” (Szilágyi, 2004, 146.) Those who cannot see who is sovereign within stable social circumstances and a functioning rule of law, the approach of Carl Schmitt should be brought to attention. “Sovereign is who decides about exceptional situations” - he expresses in an enlightening manner in his “Political theology” (1922). It is true, however, what is (possibly) hidden by the normal form is well shown by the atypic, the extraordinary situations, wars, civil wars, revolutions, counter-revolutions. The new sovereign, the Empire of the authors counterposing the multitude is suffering from theoretic weakness by letting the two layes slide into each other. Thereby the active actors of political power and among them the sovereign’s capacity to act, and the significance of the action is lost. This, however, allows the softening of the rule-exploitation circumstances. Their important argument is that immaterial work does not use the 28

circumstances of large scale concentration and hierarchy as basis, but the state of postfordism interpreted as networks. It is true to an extent that the processes of work have changed significantly, the majority of the population works in the services, or in management, communication and consulting. Despite the various sociological, cultural and educational realities of knowledge based economy and information society the following objections (A, B) could be made from the point of political economy: A. Every type of knowledge and information becomes a kind of product in capitalism, and its worth is only defined according to the economic value. (Even when during use the product of knowledge does not run out, moreover with the experience of its use a collective added value can be created, which is acquired in the same manner as private property and is protected by the means of law.) B. In the same manner the value/worth of the producer of knowledge and information are established using the social investments necessary for the creation of the work (no matter how expensive it is), and not by the market value of the intellectual goods. The work-value theory is applied to the working activity, to the abstract capability to work, and the actual activity, and not only to physical work. These problems do not load the concept of the crowd. The crowd are the widest, low level of global power structures; the people. “Even though the definition of the crowd is missing from the book, it can be assumed that it is the more complex and more contradictory post modern descendant of the concept of the people and the proletariat. The crowd is not a subject, but the field of force of singularities, which is not homogeous on its own and is exposed to constant changes. This is why it is impossible to define the interests of the crowd or to motivate the crowd to common activities - and since the crowd is an organic part of the empire the antagonism of the opposition with the power disappears” summarizes one of their critics (Buzogány, 2003, 58.). Classic law-philosophy, expressed with the basic question of the sophist Calicles: it is not obvious, when and why the many weak become capable of forcing the few strong, who rule and dictate the law on the basis of their strength? The slow death of the nation state, the change in the working relations and through them the changes in human relations, the networks personalizing humane desires, among them the affective spread of human relations and the creativity of the mass entail such revolutionary 29

potentials, which could serve as a basis for a future anti-empire. The organisations, NGOs, which represent the humane interests of a global civil society, and which are independent of transnational organisations and nation states seem to express the interests of the crowd. Beyond the particular fight of interests they represent the current conscience of humanity and their global and universal needs. The most realistic element of the anti-empire is the actually existing civic society and its organisations. (There is only one question which remains unanswered, namely what the role, or more precisely why there is no role in the future for the rightist international civic associations. They hardly have the same picture of the future as the leftists associations.) All in all, to the question how we reach the disappearance of the state and the capital, and to the liberation of the crowd the political phylosophical essay has little to say in detail, one thing, however, is certain the tendency of global capitalism is going towards its own liquidation.

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Conclusion Global capitalism is the global rule of capital above the nation state, which due to the power of politics draws out certain regulating issues from the nation states’ control which would undoubtedly belong there. The terrain of political activity is defined by politics as a function of the structural givens of the setting , namely the difference between the nation state built on national economy and the superstructure built on world economy.— In the process of globalization between the dominancerelations of the world system the global order dominates above the nation states in such a way that the institutionalization of an edifice organizational (WB, WTO, OECD, IMF, transnational credit institutes), normative-legislative and ideological (Washington Consensus) above the nation states (super structure), and the correlation of nation state actors can both be observed: the latter playing a funtional-complementary role in the “global management of politics, which is taking place without a Global Governance” (J. Stigltz) The change of politics restructures its political and state role and place. By reducing the complexity of the question it can be noted that the rule relations and the structure of world economy defines politics, and politics defines the possible fileds of political activity. The world system divided according to national societies and according to regions, which reproduces the diversity of values, socio-psychical attitudes, cultures, religions, languages and historical experiences cannot directly be matched with the assymmetric rule and dependence relations of world economy. Political activity and the dimension of political power have a relative independence compared to the structure of rule5. For us - with theoretical strictness - the empire is not an empire, but the interactive movement of the world economy and world society in the world system.

Military forces and the potential threat of them is a means which requires subjective decisions by those exercising power. Cornel West, a professor of Princetown University characterized it in the context of the current world situation as follows: “The United States has 650 military bases in 132 countries, ships on every ocean, presence on every continent apart from the Arctic and 1.450 000 soldiers throughout the world.” (Interview with Cornel West by E. Mendieta: „Empire, Pragmatism, and War” Logos 3.3., Sumner 2004, (www.logosjournal.com/ ).

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Literature Anderson, Perry (1979) Lineages of The Absolutist State. Verso Edition Buzogány Áron (2003) A Birodalom nem vág vissza in: Eszmélet 58/ 166-173. Hardt, Michael – Negri, A. (2000) Empire 1018, Exils, Paris www.angelfire.com/cantina/negri Hegel, G. W. F (1961) A szellem fenomenológiája Akadémia, Budapest Marcuse, Herbert (1882) Ész és forradalom Gondolat, Budapest Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2003) A globalizáció visszásságai Napvilág, Budapest Szigeti Péter (2005) Világrendszernézőben Globális „szabad verseny” – a világkapitalizmus jelenlegi stádiuma. Napvilág Kiadó, Budapest Szilágyi Péter (2004) A jogbölcselettel szembeni kihívások a harmadik évezred kezdetén – Magyarországról nézve in: Magyar Közigazgatás 141-147. o. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1976) Class-Conflict in Contemporary World-Economy in: Working Papers of Fernand Braudel Center XI, 7. p. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1980) A világkapitalizmus felemelkedése és jövőbeni összeomlása. Az összehasonlító vizsgálat szempontjai; A világrendszer-szemlélet a társadalomtudományokban in: Fejlődés-Tanulmányok 4. ELTE ÁJK Tud. Szoc. Tanszék, Budapest 93-144 és 145-165.

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Jesús de Andrés Sanz and Rubén Ruiz Ramas Institutions and political regime in Putin’s Russia: an analysis

Introduction Dmitriy Medvedev’s victory in 9th March’s presidential elections, with more than seventy per cent of the votes, opened a new stage in Russian post-soviet politics, the third one after Boris Yeltsin’s and Vladimir Putin’s terms. Beyond any exercise of prognosis, it is the moment to analyze what the presidential period of Putin has signified, examining his government and policies and, as far as possible, to expose possible perspectives of development in Russian politics. Since Putin’s arrival to power in 1999, the analyses on the Russian political regime have been frequently constructed around two concepts that, in his original version, have relied on the approval of President Putin: Managed Democracy and Vertical of power. Nevertheless, both concepts have been interpreted in turn as a third route between authoritarianism and liberal democracy: the Hybrid regime1. If Managed democracy2 shows the tension between the development of Russian politics and a constitutional frame according to the formal requirements of the Constitutional State and the liberal democracy; the Vertical of power3 emphasizes not only the recovery of the traditionally Diamond, L.: “Elections Without Democracy: Thinking About Hybrid Regimes”, Journal of Democracy, nº 13 (2002), pp. 21-35. 2 As Managed democracy has been understood a pluralist and multiparty political regime that would have a Presidential institution with an excessive and informal paternalistic hegemony over the rest of political institutions and actors. Although a managed democracy tolerates the constitutional laws and a political organized opposition, the coercive State apparatus doesn’t hesitate to break the law to assure its control over them. 3 This concept was initially described to explain the return of the regional administration under the chain of Presidential control by Yevgeny Primakov. A first interpretation of this concept in Shlapentokh, V.: “Hobbes and Locke at Odds in Putin’s Russia”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 55, nº 7 (2003), pp. 981-1008. 1

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Russian governance; eminently hierarchical and refractory to external influence, but also its total opposition of competing with political alternatives. Both concepts introduced an incontestable fact at the end of Putin’s period: the hegemony of the executive on the rest of the institutions, political and social actors. Moreover, the regime consolidated in these years has not only depended on the constitutional power that the Presidency possesses to exercise this institutional primacy, but also it has been based on dark and informal political practises. And there are not dissimilarities in that point; neither Boris Yeltsin nor Vladimir Putin with their appeal for the Dictatorship of the Law4 have managed to keep the institutional frame impermeable to informal particularistic practices which are against the impartial principles and universal prerogatives of a Constitutional State. This article suggests as a starting hypothesis that Putin has been able to consolidate a political project that Yeltsin did not manage to materialize, in spite of having been designed in the 1993 Russian Constitution: an institutional suit with a presidentialist cut that unlike Yeltsin, Putin has known how to dress. The weaknesses of the yeltsinian regime, informally imprisoned by the emergent oligarchy, made it difficult to vertebrate a solid plan when defining the relations among the different Russian political institutions, inside and outside of the State. The contrast between Yeltsin’s second term stagnation and the energetic willingness to govern has characterized Putin which have might been a factor to drive many observers to identify a change of course in overall Russian politics and, more specifically, in his democratization. However, regarding democratization’s debate about if Putin’s period has meant a certain change or to the contrary, consolidation has taken place where there already was a political hybrid regime; it appears the latter option will be defended. Throughout the article the following will be examined: firstly, the evolution of the Russian executive, the effects of the Managed democracy’s and Vertical of power projects on legislature, and secondly, the current informal institutional logic among the Russian political elite; The concept of Dictatorship of the Law was used by Putin in his first Presidential electoral campaign discourses. See “Open letter from Vladimir Putin to Russian voters”, 25th February 2000, in http://putin2000.ru/07/05.html. About the concept see: Khan, J.: “Russia’s ‘Dictatorship of Law’ and the European Court of Human Rights”, Review of Central and East European Law, nº 1 (2004), pp. 1-14.

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examining the configuration of the bases and groups of power carried out during Putin’s Presidency. Finally, the perspectives of development of the Russian political system after the establishment of the MedvedevPutin in the peak of the structure of power will be considered. 1.1 Yeltsin’s Russia, base of Putin’s political project There are points in common amongst others that dissociate Yeltsin’s government from Putin’s political regime; primarily, neither the degree of commitment for advancing towards democratic consolidation, nor the legal documents based in each period is dissimilar. Above all, what have distinguished Yeltsin’s and Putin’s government is the decision and the capacity of the latter in using every one of his constitutional powers. Putin has managed to dominate the relations among the different powers and institutions designed by Yeltsin’s team in 1993’s Russian Constitution. All this while Yeltsin failed in his attempt of controlling the above mentioned powers and institutions, losing the political initiative progressively, the aptitude to conclude the decision making process and, finally, the certainty of federal legislation implementation in the regions. However, there are a lot of elements which make it possible to identify the continuity between both projects: • Cult

of personality and marginalization of civil society’s political participation as a pillar of the governance style. Yeltsin recovered the Russian traditional governance style and preferred to surround himself with his Sverdlovsk’s camarilla and to stimulate his role as a charismatic leader who shares and transfers the democratic legitimacy accumulated in a formation, such as Democratic Russia (Demokraticheskaya Rossiya). It is necessary to add to this preference of placing over the parties the marginality in which he sank the Russian associative world and civil society.

• A

presidential government without controls and hegemonic in its relations with both judicial and legislative power. After the events of October 1993, Yeltsin put into practice a Constitution with a formally 35

semi-presidential government system but with a ‘free of controls’ Presidency. First, the domain over the government formation and the power to control it, displacing the Parliament of an effective role in those tasks. Next, the accumulation of wide legislative competences like veto power which have been used in combination with an adamant aptitude to legislate by decree. As well, there are no restrictions on the presidential prerogative to dismiss the government and to dissolve the State Duma. Finally, power accumulation by means of unwritten capacities and competences that the Presidential Administration accumulated during Yeltsin’s governments neutralizing on many occasions the formal Ministerial Cabinet competences. • Legislative’s

secondary role. The first consequence of the presidential power concentration was the creation of a Duma with scanty possibilities of exerting effective control on the executive, limited capacities of legislative initiative and approval so therefore bound to serve principally as a discussion centre.

• Interest

in keeping a weak party system. The Duma’s scarcity of power and the marginalization of the parties in the rest of political institutions (Presidency and Presidential Administration, Government and Ministerial Cabinet, Federation Council of the Federal Assembly) took as a logical consequence the generation of a very weak party system. Yeltsin did not show any willingness to strengthen the parties governed by Presidential Decree without worrying about reaching agreements. Nevertheless, he tried to obtain a favourable State Duma which was able to make their relations less traumatic. The Kremlin’s efforts to create a biparty system of power with United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya) and the birth in 2006 of Fair Russia (Spravedlivaya Rossiya) have not been a secret. Nevertheless, such a project was initially designed by Yeltsin’s team in the 1995 elections in the Duma, when two pro-presidential parties were promoted by the Kremlin, one conservative - ‘Our House is Russia’, led by Viktor Chernomyrdin; and another with a social-democratic profile, ‘Russia´s Choice’, headed by Ivan Rybkin, Duma’s speaker at that time - a failed bi-party system anyway.

• Interference

in electoral processes. The lack of guarantees in electoral processes is not a phenomenon introduced by Vladimir Putin. Exerting

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pressures have been exercised by using the security services, illicit campaigns funding, misusing administrative resources and the State’s support, and finally, electoral manipulation during the election days especially in counting and vote aggregation processes. • Elite

recruitment based on patron - client relationships and disability to strengthen the State against private interests. First of all, Yeltsin used the same political elite recruitment system which Putin developed later: surrounding himself with his right-hand men. Both of them were found in the place where they had spent more professional time: Sverdlovsk and Leningrad - Saint Petersburg respectively. In addition to this, the mass incorporation of Army and security services members to the Russian political elite already began in Yeltsin’s times with a significant increase during the second term. As an example, three of the last four of Yeltsin’s Prime Ministers had this past in common: Primakov, Stepashin and Putin. In the end, Yeltsin left the main state institutions at the mercy of private influences when in the middle of the nineties Boris Berezovsky, Boris Gusinski, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky and another dozen of oligarchs passed to control every decision thought by the Presidential Administration.

2. Institutions and political regime in Putin´s First term (2000-2004) 2.1. Executive Power,“Dictatorship of Law” and the Re-establishment of order In the terms raised by Putin, the predominance of the law does not refer to a radical version of the Constitutional State, but to the empire of the executive and its principal institution, the Presidency, which following 1993’s Constitution, conforms to the supreme law; it practically has the same power as an elected monarch. In any case, the emphasis on the Dictatorship of law and the re-establishment of order was used by the government to transmit that the times of State’s weakness had passed with this message being translated into two specific aims: the centralization of power and the executive’s liberalization from the yeltsinian oligarch’s particularistic influence. 37

Centralization of power On 13th May of 2000 Putin made his first and most decisive movement towards what he himself named as the vertical chain of control, in other words, towards the centralization of power, with the creation of seven federal districts headed by Plenipotentiary Representatives of the President (RP)5. The territorial limits of the districts correspond with those of the Ministry of Internal Affair’s seven military districts6 which do not reproduce ethnic differences, thus diluting the historical - territorial distinctions. One of the main tasks of the RP was to create a unified legal space across the legal harmonization among the federal and regional legislation. This mission was considered so relevant that once it was concluded the rank of the post diminished significantly7. Other PR activities are the coordination of the federal organs in every region of the new district; the observation of the collection of taxes, as well as the transfers of the State to the regions. The tax question has been particularly important since June of 2000 when Putin approved a tax reform introducing a thirteen per cent Single Unified Income Tax. This law was designed to achieve two aims; the first one: finishing with the flight of capital level, and the second one: encouraging investors. However, what is more important in this chapter is underlining that the law was accompanied by the movement of taxes collected by the local governors on the central budget. Nonetheless, there are doubts about whether a federal centre able to exert in authority in all the regions is allowed to be spoken about or on the contrary, a neutralization of any defiant centrifugal trend has been performed like it was in 19998. That is to say, control is not so focused on what is done in every corner of Russia, but on what is not Decree nº849. These districts are: Central (with its centre in Moscow); North-western (Petersburg); South (Rostov Don), Volga (Nizhni Novgorod); Ural (Yekaterinburg); Siberia (Novosibirsk); and Far East (Jabárosk). Hyde, M.: “Putin’s federal reforms and their implications for Presidential power in Russia”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 53, nº 5 (2001), p. 719. 7 Sergey Kiriyenko doubted in 2003 the usefulness of the PR once the aim of legal and tax harmonization was reached. An aim that was realized really quickly, an example is that of 2001 when eighty per cent of the legislation in conflict had already been uniformed. Taibo, C. (2006). Rusia en la era de Putin, Madrid, Los Libros de la Catarata, pp. 92-97. 8 Shevtsova, L. (2003): Putin’s Russia, Moscow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Stoner-Weiss, K. (2006). “Russia: Authoritarism without Authority”, Journal of Democracy, vol. 17, nº 1; Taibo, op. cit. 5 6

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done. It seems that Putin has sought to assure loyalty to the Federation in this first phase, without trying to reach a full performance of policies, legislation and directives from federal institutions. Federation Council Reform A second element of the federal reform is the review of the law of 19th May 2001 which regulates the Federation Council. According to the new law, regional executive and regional legislative leaders are not per se Council members; but they have the right to delegate their positions to a chosen representative instead, and the rest of the members are chosen by the regional assemblies. This reform deprives the political elites of the regional executives of a political federal institutionalized arena, of agreeing to the federal legislative process, and as a last consequence the reform finishes with the immunity that was enjoyed by senators. Their substitutes in the Federation Council have failed in their aim to represent the interests of the regional communities, on the one hand prey of the influences from the Kremlin, and on the other hand, unable to keep themselves impermeable to regional and Muscovite oligarchies influence. This result is not of surprise if, as Taibo comments: “many are Muscovites who have never been to the republics or regions that it is supposed they represent”. To complete the centralization, the government eliminated the Ministry of Federal Affairs in October 2001, passing its responsibilities to be performed by the powerful Ministry of Internal Affairs. As a counterpart, Putin has created the State Council which serves as a consultation organ for the Presidency. The State Council brings together the chiefs of every regional executive. Other members are directly chosen by the Presidency9. Although the matters dealt with are relevant, it becomes apparent that the condition of the consultation organ subordinated to the Presidency does not allow power of manoeuvre in an eventual conflict between both institutions. In conclusion, in this phase of territorial administration reforms Putin has tended to create a centralization of power, but at the same time the change from what might be named as an ‘asymmetric federalism’ has been favoured – with forty two bilateral agreements sustaining it in Yeltsin’s second term- by a more symmetrical one by means of the legal, political and economic unification. The balance between the Federation Council, Presidential administration Article 3.8. Decree nº 602.

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and the Government and Ministerial cabinet During Putin’s first term two institutions eclipsed the power of the government and the decision making capacities of the Ministerial cabinet and Prime Minister: the Presidential Administration and the Security Council. The first years of the administration, up to its reform in March 2004, did not overcome the transparency and responsibility it inherited. The duplication of responsibilities with a number of bureaucracy destined in every secretary similar to that of a Ministry undermined government authority, leaving the most important part of the political decision making free of any control10. Yeltsin’s executive had been characterized by a deliberate factionalism that allowed the President to play the role of a referee, anticipating any challenge to him. A strategy, nonetheless, that allowed the ruling elites to block executive decisions11. On the contrary, Putin trusted more his own aptitude to dictate abilities and responsibilities. Security Council The Security Council looks like the former Politburo of the Soviet Union in number and composition as the Politburo brings together those who supervised the State’s key institutions to form a second level of government led by the President. In recent years the political figures with a more assiduous presence in the Security Council have been: chiefs of the departments of the Presidential Administration, the spin doctors in economic and ideological matters, the Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Ministers, the Defence Ministry, the Secretary of According to the Russian Constitution, the President as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and President of the Security Council directs across decrees and instructs the activities of the federal departments and other organs responsible for the executive power of defence, security, internal affairs, foreign affairs, and emergency situations prevention. In May 2003 twenty of sixty one federal organs of the executive power had been subordinated to the President. The government, limited to the Prime Minister, was diminishing to the economic management, leaving the heaviest State structures, those that form the core of the Security Council, under the only control of the President. 11 Mangott, G.: “Russia – The Emergence of a (mis-) Managed Democracy”. In Heinteregger, G. y Heinrich, H. (eds.) (2004): Russia: Continuity and Change, New York, Springer Wien., p. 63. 10

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State, the speakers of both legislative chambers, the State Duma, and some regional governors. However, the Federation Council has two kinds of members: five permanent members and nineteen selectively summoned members. According to the Presidential Decree of April 2001 the permanent members are: the Prime Minister, the Secretary of the Security Council, the Secretary of State, the Defence Ministry, and the Head of the FSB (formerly known as the KGB). The above mentioned selection exposes what opinions occupied first place in Putin’s first term; for example, the speakers of both legislative chambers, with a major constitutional rank, had a lower position than the Defence and Foreign Affairs Ministries. Executive and Judicial Power Although Putin in his first term tackled one more than necessary reform of the judicial power, neither the situation of subordination to the executive nor the bad reputation hanging over Russian legal nihilism has been solved. At least, by means of the reform, justice has sped up, and among other administrative achievements it has given a major recognition to the judges thanks to a raise of their emoluments, a measure that was expected to reduce the index of bribes12. Also, selective application of the law used to prosecute the above mentioned oligarchs -and not others with a similar past- spreads beyond the media cases. Dmitriy Kozak, a person close to the President and one of the architects of the judicial reform, admitted the reform’s failure at the beginning of 2005: “The public is sure that the system is corrupt up to the top of the nails (…). The courts nowadays look like branches of the companies. The principal companies always manage to infiltrate the system and to install on it their representatives”13. Nevertheless, the President of the Supreme Court V. Zorkin declared that “the results of the reforms means that the judges are now more corruptible and more dependent on the Government”.Gryaznevich, V.: “Subjugated Court System Stifles Battle With Corruption”, St. Petersburg Times, on 28th December 2004. The Ministry of Internal Affairs affirmed that in the five previous years (2001-2006) the collection of bribes had grown forty per cent, with thirty five thousand crimes of corruption being assessed. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, on November 16, 2006. 13 Nikitina, L. and Kolesov, Y.: “Yuridicheskaya ugroza”, Vremya Novostei, 28th January 2005. 12

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2.2. Legislative in Putin’s first term Apart from the wide legislative power of the Presidency, the main institutions that take part in the legislative process are the State Duma (Lower Chamber of the Parliament), and the Federation Council (High Chamber of the Parliament). The State Duma can influence the political process by means of approval of legislation, opening of commissions of investigation, legislative resolutions, and non-budget funding. Nevertheless, the control that both chambers exercise on the approval of legislation is neutralized by the executive legislative power14. As for the internal procedure, the last authority on the parliamentary agenda rests on the legislators in the plenary assembly. It has facilitated the presence of numerous veto actors (or veto players)15, who progressively gained weight in the assembly during the whole of the nineties. On the other hand, the Federation Council is formed by two representatives of every territorial entity of the Russian Federation, it has the exclusive right to approve the presidential use of emergency power, to summon presidential elections and to decide on the impeachment charges against the President initiated by the State Duma. The High Chamber also possesses power not only to designate judges to the Constitutional Court, Court of Arbitration and Supreme Court, but also to designate and to dismiss the Prosecutor General and the Deputy of the Audit Chamber. Likewise, the Federation Council must authorize and confirm the territorial components of the federal structure. In relation to the establishment of the Federation Council agenda, the speaker, the deputies of the Presidency of the chamber and the committees of the assembly determine it, keeping the agenda totally separate from the political parties. Regarding the functioning of the institutions before Putin’s period, what first stands out is the difficulty to construct stable coalitions as a consequence of the fragmented and floating nature of the Russian party system up to 2003. Moreover, the combination of a legislative system that The President can initiate the legislative process, enjoys legislative veto, and possesses the power to initiate the process of legislative decree unilaterally. 15 Actors, individuals or groups, which can influence the chamber decisively to change the composition of majorities to introduce reforms and to approve laws of significant impact. Chaisty, P. (2006). Legislative Politics and Economic Power in Russia, Basingstoke, Palgrave, p. 8. Originally defined as veto players in: Tsebelis, G. (2002): Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work, Princeton, Princeton University Press. 14

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produces a great number of veto points with a weak party system unable to organize majority coalitions has made the Russian legislative process vulnerable to the influences of extra-parliamentary interests. As can be seen, the kind of pressure suffered by the legislative that emerged in the nineties had the typical political effects of the presidential systems. 2.3. The functioning of the institutions during Putin’s first term In his first term, Putin put forward a strategy to exert an executive control on the legislative sphere based on the construction of a favourable majority in the State Duma that would have allowed him to guarantee, on the one hand, his particular aegis against regional interests, and on the other hand, to overcome the permanent conflictive relation that characterized Yeltsin’s relationship with the Lower Chamber. As for the challenge of building a stronger State, opposition to the particularistic lobbying which existed in the Duma, Putin, directly or indirectly, reflected from the Duma all the interests of those who closed the door of the Presidential Administration. As a consequence, scarcely had Putin’s first term started when the State Duma ‘transformed from being a club of discussion into a supermarket of lobbying’16. A central element to obtain a favourable majority that would reduce the number of veto actors were the legislative reforms and the initiatives of building a stable and more coherent party system but directed to produce pro-presidencialists majorities. Nonetheless, until this strategy began to get results, in the first part of the legislature, from 2000 to 2002, Putin rested on a coalition of big parties seemingly ideologically clashing: PCFR, Unity and the People´s Deputies17. With this strategy, Putin depended no longer on decrees, making the deputies of the Duma co-responsible for controversial policies18. There were two years of frenetic legislative activity. The reforms covered a wide range of subjects: they continued the liberalization of the Russian economy without varying the neo-liberal profile of them in Ekspert, on 17th April 2000. Political formation created ex-novo in the Duma later to Day Elections for independent deputies. 18 Rose, R. y Munro, N. (2002): Elections without order: Russia’s challenge to Vladimir Putin, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 198. 16 17

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Yeltsin´s period19; pending administrative reforms like the Army reform or the reform of the judicial system were also concluded. In spite of the consultations, the legislative governance system remained weak due to the party’s inconsistency and the survival of the particularistic forms. The unique actors who prevented Putin from not enjoying absolute control were oligarchs who were refusing to accept the new conditions. So, the pressure of corporations was more prominent than in any other previous period, at least up to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s arrest. As a result of it and of the lack of a real presidential coalition in the Duma, the Kremlin had to invest considerable resources in the construction of majority coalitions. The frustration of the Kremlin for having to negotiate agreements with groups with regional interests motivated the amendment of the constitution of the State Duma which lead them to the decision to reform the electoral system towards a totally proportional one for 2007. The second half of the term was truly different, after the creation of United Russia by means of the merger of Unity and Mother-All-Russia in 2002. The majoritarism20 strategy has definitively been successful, though the beginnings of the formation were not easy with the new party of power imposing its law before parliamentary elections in December 2003. Some effects of the majoritarism in the Duma were immediate. Firstly, the stable majority reduced the necessity of building coalitions with a multiplicity of veto actors. Secondly, a decline took place in vetoed laws by the Federation Council and the President, from ten per cent in the third Duma to three per cent in the fourth one; after 2002, only one bill was vetoed by both President and the Federation Council, while in Yeltsin’s second mandate this figure went over a hundred cases. Finally, a centralization legislative agenda was produced, relieving a previous problem of overcharge of the legislative, so that if in the second Duma there was an average of two hundred and fifty bills with priority in a parliamentary session, in 2002, it fell to a hundred and thirty21. Like the laws on the private ownership, the budgetary balance, Single Unified Tax, pensions, Land Code, or the Labour Code. 20 Arend Lijphart distinguishes between the political system centres of consensus and majority: “the majority model concentrates political power in the hands of a majority, whereas the model of consensus tries to share, to disperse, and to limit the power in a variety of forms”. Lijphart, A. (1999): Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven, Yale University Press. 21 Chaisty, P.: “Majority Control and Executive Dominance: Parliament-President Relations in Putin’s Russia”, in Pravda, Alex (ed.) (2005): Leading Russia: Putin in Perspective, 19

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In another of the Duma’s great problems from the nineties, the perverse influence of particularistic lobbying, Putin did not obtain significant incomes. Although according to many analysts the Presidency tried to strengthen the State capacity22, the facts say that in the Duma there was a notable increase of big businessmen implication in the legislative process, with companies’ experts taking part in the preparation of legislation in a scale before not witnessed23. In addition, the number of Committees created to put pressure on the names of specific interests increased faster than ever24, transforming the Committees into one of the main accesses of lobbying. As for the situation in the Federation Council, Putin’s reform attracted a huge number of representatives from the business world25. In both chambers the strongest settled sectors as lobbyers were energy, metal extractors, alcohol producers and the tobacco industry, precisely the sectors who raised their level of productivity most in this particular period. Nevertheless, the internal division of the branch’s interests persisted. 2.4. Elites and actors: oligarchs and the siloviki It is necessary to distinguish two dimensions when explaining the access of certain elite or interest groups to influence positions on the decisions taken from the State’s institutions. One is connected to the situation of institutionalization by means of which members or groups of members exert decisive influence on main officials inside the State. The second dimension is the State elite recruitment, either in relation to the main official positions in central institutions (Presidential Administration, Security Council, Parliament, Federation Council, Governors, Prosecutor General’s office, Constitutional Court, Government and Ministerial Cabinet, Army Forces), or attending to a wider core of political bureaucracy. The formal institutionalization insufficiently developed in the Russian political system allows the groups which have managed to control a significant Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 130-138. 22 Sakwa, R. (2002): Russian Politics and Society, 3ª ed., London, Routledge. Pravda, op. cit. 23 Ekspert, on 17th April 2000. 24 According to estimation, there were more than thirty inter-party groups in June 2001, which were incorporating to more than half of the assembly members. Nezavisimaya gazeta, on 13th September, 2001, p. 11. 25 Profil, on 4th February 2002, p. 16.

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portion of these positions to influence in a way that their factionalist interests remain better defended that those of citizenship. Between 1995 and 1998 a group of approximately fifteen oligarchs not only controlled the financial flows, but dominated the decision making process. They were taking part in the formation of the governments and were receiving favours from them as well. The oligarchy was based on the interaction of two groups of the elite, the political establishment, which was financed by the principal magnates of the economy, and the real magnates or big businessmen. According to Krishtanovskaya and White, “inside the government itself they managed to have their own departments, civil servants and personnel”26. Their influence grew too excessively after helping Yeltsin in the 1996 electoral presidential campaign27, even so, the economic crisis and Kiriyenko’s government’s fall in August 1998 marked the end of their particular golden age28. The general keynote was a withdrawal towards economic activity, to go into exile abroad, or to try to influence politically on more modest spaces such as the regional administrations. Nevertheless, there were people who tried to resist this change. The most famous cases carried out by the Prosecutor General’s office against oligarchy members, those of which are Boris Gusinski, Boris Berezovsky y Mikhail Khordorkovsky,29 are well-known. It is necessary to emphasize that when Putin acted against oligarchs for particular motives, the oligarchy was not attacked as a class yet integrated into the system once the limits were identified clearly. According to Krishtanovskaya and White in Putin’s period there has been more of a ‘renegotiation’ than a ‘dissolution’ of the way that ‘big’ Russian businessmen intervene in politics. The oligarchy’s direct influence on the political process has diminished Kryshtanovskaya, O. and White, S.: “The rise of the Russian business elite”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 38, nº 3 (September 2005), p. 294. 27 Boris Berezovsky made sure that Yeltsin’s re-election would have been impossible without his media support. Financial Times, on 1st November 1996, p. 17. 28 Krishtanovskaya, O.: “Kremlin Regulars”, Vremya MN, on 13th February 2002. 29 The Khodorkovsky case is probably the best known in the West, firstly because he became in a kind of new leader of Russian liberalism, and secondly because he has been the only oligarch put in prison. In July 2003 Khodorkovsky’s company Yukos, at that moment the most important Russian petroleum company turned into the main aim of Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov . The efforts to influence the Duma’s decisions by means of bribes and Khodorkovsky’s last pretension to aspire to Russia’s Presidency would have forced his processing. Sakwa, R. ¿El enigma ruso?, La Vanguardia, on 3rd March 2006. 26

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with the strengthening of the official State elite’s autonomy of the elites, which in turn doesn’t mean the actual State’s strengthening. On the other hand, the elite recruitment system under both Yeltsin and Putin has not suffered substantial differences: they have surrounded themselves with people of confidence who they had met in institutions and communities where they were developing their previous occupations. Personal links and loyalties were predominant factors in political designations carried out by Yeltsin, which led us to discover the nucleus of the regime as the Family. When Putin turned into Acting President he inherited the same system, with elite institutionalized recruitment channels not existing in a highly personalistic environment. This kind of system has served them to distribute positions and to compose combinations in which they were always the centre of the structure. Putin initiated the serial of appointments of who are better known as his old KGB companions from Saint Petersburg and other officials from the current Federal Security Service. Although a good number of positions continued the same friendship logic, they belonged to the civil sphere, lawyers, liberal economists, and other officials from the times when Putin was employed in the Saint Petersburg Local Administration under Mayor Anatoly Sobchak30. In spite of which, Putin kept, for a while, former Family members like Alexander Voloshin as Head of the Presidential Administration, and Mijaíl Kasyanov as Prime Minister. Others even still continue among the elite, such as Anatoly Chubais or Vladislav Surkov31. Meanwhile, the civil wing of the peterburgian clan, liberal economists, lawyers and other technocrats, have been in key positions dealing with macroeconomic politics32, Putin has compiled the staff of the Presidential Administration, government and Parliament with allies and clients who come from military organizations and, especially, from the security services. It is necessary to clarify several points on the possible silovikization of the State institutions that would have been carried out in Putin’s years. First of all, the security service member’s presence among the According to an interview with Olga Krishtanovskaya, twenty-four per cent of the federal personnel have been replaced in Putin’s period. Twenty-five per cent of the current ruling elite are peterburgians, a figure that overcomes the cohorts that Brezhnev moved from Dnepropetrovsk and Moldavia, Gorbachov from Stavropol and Yeltsin from Sverdlovsk. Nezavisimaya gazeta,, 19th August 2003. 31 Chubais presides the partially privatized electricity monopoly. He has enjoyed Putin’s favour and had a big influence on the sector reform. 32 Makarkin, A.; “Drugiye pitertsy”, Sovershenno sekretno, nº 2 (2003). 30

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bureaucracy and the Russian political elite already had an ascending tendency prior to Putin’s arrival. Soon, the security services had an important role supporting Yeltsin in his conflict with the Parliament in 1993, and gradually collaborating with the Presidential Administration to cover certain cases of corruption33. Meanwhile Yeltsin looked for the exKGB institution’s support and designated a long series of old KGB officials to serve in his government, though during the first years they remained isolated from public positions. Also Yeltsin gained the security services favour co-opting officials and placing them in administration positions and increasing security agency powers. At the end of the nineties the security services elements presence was already a feature of Yeltsin’s administration. In fact Yeltsin’s last three Prime Ministers had worked for the KGB or for one of its successor institutions: Yevgeny Primakov, Sergey Stepashin and Vladimir Putin. Secondly, the siloviki have not been the only collective in forwardmoving positions, and as the recent succession context has shown, they would not occupy first place in the political influence group’s roster. Thirdly, among the political elite it is necessary to emphasize the permanent growth of Russian business men. It is debated whether it is the siloviki or the businessmen which the main group that has seen its influence are developing in Putin’s years. The initial and widespread Krishtanovskaya and White34 version on the risk of a militocracy in the Russian Federation would have obtained answers from authors such as Renz35 or Rivera and Rivera,36 according to whom a FSBitization power would not be taking place, and rather, a tendency for bigger businessmen presence as representatives inside the government and into the political society in general would exist. Nonetheless, Krishtanovaskaya and White37 point to an important difference between these groups and the fact is that the members who Knight, A.: “The Enduring Legacy of the KGB in Russian Politics”, Problems of PostCommunism, vol. 47, nº 4, pp. 3-15. 34 Kryshtanovskaya and White, “Putin’s Militocracy”, op. cit., pp. 289-306. 35 Renz, B.: “The Siloviki in Russian Politics: Political Strategy or a Product of the System?”, Russian Analitycal Diggest, nº 17 (2007); Renz, B.: “‘Putin’s Militocracy’? An Alternative Interpretation of the Role of Siloviki in Contemporary Russian Politics”, EuropeAsia Studies, vol. 18, nº 6 (2006), pp. 903-924. 36 Rivera, S. W. and Rivera, D. W.: “The Russian Elite Under Putin: Militocratic or Bourgeois?”, Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 22, nº 2 (2006), pp. 125-144. 37 Kryshtanovskaya and White, “The rise of the Russian business elite”, op. cit., pp. 293-307. 33

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originated from the business world are not actively enlisted, as they begin their hierarchy promotion from below. On the contrary, many siloviki have been moved straight to maximum responsibility positions. In conclusion, if no Russian political system analysis must leave aside that the Russian State today has a clear security profile, denominations as those of militocracy can be excessive and give a distorted image of Russian reality.

3. Institutions and Russian political regimecion in Putin´s second term (2004-2008) 3.1. Executive Power: Changes in the Government and the Presidential Administration reform In 2005, forecasts envisaged the formula that would enable Putin to continue in power. Two main alternatives incorporated a constitutional reform: to abolish the inability to carry out more than two presidential consecutive terms, and to reform the system of government displacing presidential powers towards the Ministerial Cabinet where Putin was Prime Minister. In the end none would be implemented in spite of the fact that the beginning of Putin’s second term was especially energetic with the awaited Presidential Administration reform coinciding with significant changes inside the government. Anyway, the restructuring of institutions was incapable of establishing a Prime Minister and Ministerial Cabinet domain over the Presidency. The first great change in the government took place one month before winning the presidential elections with Mijaíl Kasyanov’s dismissal as Prime Minister, one of the last members of the yeltsinian Family in the ruling elite. The substitute was Mikhail Fradkov, technocrat also tied tangentially to the yeltsinian circles and whose first task was to reorganize the government, a task in which according to Putin, Kasyanov had failed during the previous year38. Putin desired a Presidential Administration reform which would make this current one a more compact and effective institution, and at the same time the Security Council would have to have more influence on the design of the big strategies of the State. It is public knowledge that Kasyanov’s complaints in relation to Mijaíl Khodorkovsky’s arrest did not help him keep the position. “Putin Praises New Government”, Moscow Times, on 29th March 2004, p. 4.

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The Presidential Administration reform consisted mainly of a personnel cut, with the reduction of the Head of the Presidential Administration’s team from eight to two members, the Vice-Presidents being the more prominent changes, and the total retreat of the department of economy where six retired members were re-assigned as presidential assistants39. Igor Sechin and Vladislav Surkov became Vice-Presidents of the Presidential Administration headed by Dmitriy Medvedev, three visible heads of two of the main groups under Putin’s patronage, but they themselves faced: the liberal and Peterburgesian attorneys, the siloviki, and a group of oligarchs and yeltsinian elite members led by Roman Abramovich. For this reason, many analysts were commenting that Putin was using the reforms to adapt the correspondence of the contemporary weight of every group to its presence in the institutions. Later, the transfer of the Head of the Presidential Administration, Medvedev, to the government happened along with Sergey Ivanov appointment, seeing both Medvedev and Ivanov as Vice-Prime Ministers. This departure was interpreted as the first movement towards the strengthening of the government40. In the end a Presidency-government definite relations reform did not take place in the course of Putin’s second term. A change in the structure of the executive meant re-defining the government’s functions, extending its competences and independence from the Presidency. This reform was on several occasions raised by Prime Minister Fradkov, but Putin did not only accede but immediately after the last occasion on which Fradkov insisted he was replaced by Putin’s friend Viktor Zubkov41. Zubkov would replace Fradkov in September resulting in bets on the possibilities of this bureaucrat not known as Putin’s possible successor. Thus, it is possible to assure that Putin has dismissed and designated the government’s representatives in order to continue feeding the doubts on who will be his successor to avoid taking the position of a ‘Lame duck’ in the final part of the term. Although Putin had said several times that he would not modify the Constitution (this just made clear in the summer of 2006), he did not neutralize the doubts on what really he had in mind. This was likely due to two reasons: the first one, the new insistent nomenclature requests about Vladimir Ivanov, Alexander Abramov, Sergey Prijodko, Dzhakhan Pollyyeva, Igor Shuvalov and Larisa Brycheva. In reference to Alexey Gromov continued as presidential speaker, while Igor Shuvalov followed as Head of the Protocol Department. 40 Kommersant, on 15th November 2005 41 Vremya novostei, on 6th February 2007. 39

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Putin’s permanency as President; the second aspect that added suspense was the obscurity of Putin’s attitude, who, up to two months before the presidential elections did not confirm what would be his future once out of the post, thus opening all kind of speculation about institutional reforms and strategies to deceive legality without violating it in order to continue leading the country, though not presiding it. 3.2. National Security and State Empowerment Reforms after Beslan After Beslan’s school tragedy in September 2004 President Putin initiated an energetic series of reforms which according to Putin’s mind were necessary to increase national security. Among them stood out from the rest: the creation of a unique executive authority system with the modification of the governor election process from an electoral process to their appointment by the republican and regional parliaments’ previous presidential recommendations42 . Secondly, Putin took advantage to introduce a previous project to implant the so-called ‘Public Chamber’ that assembled independent citizens and different Russian civil society elements. Thirdly, the Duma’s elections passed to be under an entirely proportional system and only destined for political parties: civic associations no longer would take part in elections and coalitions would no longer be shaped in order to participate in elections. Next, a commission was established for the observation of the North Caucasus. Finallt, the installation of an unified security system for the whole of the Russian Federation went ahead. Immediately after the announcement of the reforms there were figures who showed worry about their influence on political rights and freedoms, there were even groups who labelled that context as Russian democracy’s definitive death43. In this direction, undoubtedly the most important of the reforms was the law that abolished elections as a way of selection of the governors of eighty nine Russian regions. But If the Parliament of a republic or region delays three times, the President can dissolve it and designate a governor in functions. Joined to the Presidential power of resignation to governors and dissolution of parliaments in case of severe violation of the law acquired in the first term, these institutions will hardly be able to support a conflict with the Presidency. It is true that the Constitutional Court has established severe requisites in order to carry out such power. Taibo, op. cit., p. 95. 43 Stoner-Weiss, op. cit., p. 104. 42

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according to Stoner-Weiss, these reforms have helped neither to improve the Russian people’s safety, nor to favour Russia’s governance; similarly regional administrations continue being ineffective as corruption has not been broken. On the contrary, instead of separating those who were supposedly ineffective and corrupt agents, Putin confirmed more than eighty per cent of the governors; on the basis that now they owed the security of their positions to Putin and not to the voters44. Between the start of the reform and the present time a process has been completed that would come to conclude Putin’s adherences wave of the year 2000: a staggered but firm and sure incorporation of most of the governors in United Russia. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on the authority and power that Putin and the centre of the Russian State have managed to accumulate in the provinces. Although there are specialists who support the increase of certainty with which Putin has finished his term with regard to the orders and the federal laws fulfilment in the regions, there are those who think that a return to certain authoritarism has not been accompanied by major authority, in other words, an authoritarianism without authority45 has occurred. According to the latter opinion, the federal government authority has stood by as its laws were evaded and ignored. So, since 2005, the governors have continued with similar corruption and nepotism levels, having now being added the absence of accountability from elections. It is necessary to add the lack of results that the labour of the Plenipotenciary Representatives have produced which was introduced in 2000 once the legal unification finished. The Plenipotentiary Representatives experience the consequences of the ambiguity of their economic and financial competences that either are translated in a relapse in clientele circles with arbitrary procedures, or in an open carelessness with local elites’ actions. 3.3. Legislative in Putin’s second term Since 2002, institutional effects of the Duma majority’s construction were visible so that, after the United Russia’s bulky victory in 2003, the agreements in the legislative confirmed a fully majority model. In the fourth Duma, the power and influence of the minority parties has been Ibid., p. 105. Shevtsova, op. cit.; Stoner-Weiss, op. cit., p. 112; Taibo, op. cit.

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marginal. Logically, the Duma Council composition took the logic of the majorities, and since then United Russia enjoys a crushing majority, with the speaker of the Duma and President of United Russia, Boris Gryzlov, heading the body. The assignment of these legislative key positions has paved the way for those of the legislative committees of the assembly, equally very favourable for United Russia46. The establishment of a pro-presidential proportional majority empowered the executive to influence the Lower Chamber agenda, who has continued being responsible for a great number of laws, especially for economic policy. Continuing with the spring 2002´s coalition, the percentage of laws with economic priority initiated by the executive increased from fifty per cent to ninety per cent, staying at this level since then, a period in which the executive initiated controversial legislation – such as the Monetization of the Social Benefits Law- and kept its control over the legislative agenda. In favour, it could firstly be argued that as it already happened during the final part of the third Duma –as is often the case with other majority systems- the executive control allowed to limit the quantity of private interest in the legislation process. Secondly, the legislative work and the government joined better: the conflicts on legislation were harmonized before the official readings in the assembly by means of informal agreements (zero readings system). This meant that the opportunities of pressure to distribute amendments with private interest were diminished. Thirdly, the legislative committees, as it has been said controlled by the legislators of United Russia, gained power to eliminate bills that would hardly have overcome the first phase. The centralization of political control has definitely eliminated points of access for corporations, regional and bureaucratic interest groups but, in their place, United Russia becomes the main receptor of pressure activity with its regional and corporate subgroups’ canalized interests47. There are arguments against the Russian majoritarian system’s consequences as well. First, it is possible to argue that the traditional problem of Russian politics with the interested entry of individuals has not been solved with United Russia majoritarism. Majoritarism has not solved Chaisty, P. “Majority Control and Executive Dominance: Parliament-President Relations in Putin’s Russia”, op. cit., p. 125.

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Chaisty, P. “Majority Control and Executive Dominance: Parliament-President Relations in Putin’s Russia”, op. cit., p. 126.

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the problems of lobbying completely and nonetheless it has created other new ones. On the other hand, the ability of the Parliament to act more decisively has been at the expense of debate and discussion; without the need to construct inclusive coalitions - the danger of producing mentally ill policies of significant sectors of society has been extended and any reforms such as that of the Housing Code and the Monetization of the Social Benefit are good examples. Finally, the lack of accountability that accompanies the domain of the executive has not helped to solve the problem of the departamentalism of the political economy48. As for the activity of the Federation Council, its fragility during recent years has to be outlined. Among the main consequences of it is the aptitude loss to practise as an umpire in the conflicts between the Presidency and the Duma, though these have not been great due to the majority of United Russia49. 3.4. Interest Groups and the presidential succession context Previously, two main phenomena have been referred to in relation to interest groups’ influence on the Russian political system: the oligarchy50 and siloviki’s rise51. In the second term, the question of interest groups had Chaisty, P. “Majority Control and Executive Dominance: Parliament-President Relations in Putin’s Russia”, op. cit., pp. 124-129. 49 Taibo, C. op. cit., p. 94. 50 It does not mean that yeltsinian oligarch members have lost their capacity of influence. Many of them continue at the top of the richest and most influential men (Roman Abravomich, Shvidler, V. Surkov, A. Frolov, A. Abramov, A. Mammoth., M. Fridman, P. Agree, G. Jan, To. Kuzmichev, V, Vekselberg, L. Blavatnik. V. Alekperov, Or. Deripaska, V. Potanin, M. Projorov, A. Chubais). On the other hand, among those who were purged by Putin, Berezovsky is the most active. He continues leading the more intricate conspirative theories as everything related to the murder of the KGB ex-spy Litvinenko in London, the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow, or more recently, paving the way to Putin assuring in an interview for The Guardian that he was preparing a new orange revolution in Russia. Khodorkovsky remains in a Siberian jail, in spite of which he has wide presence in Russian and international mass media; unlike Boris Gusinski who, withdrawn in Israel, has remained isolated from the current Russian importance. 51 The presence of siloviki members in positions of responsibility inside the Russian political system continued being a discharge but it became stable, that is to say, a full occupation of the above mentioned structure has not been reached that allows to speak about anything similar to a militocracy. Even, apart from the victory of the peterburguesian liberals over the siloviki in the succession race, after the reform of the 48

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special importance itself being a context surrounded by the horizon of transfer of power and succession. Goldstone observed how the revolutions which occurred in the middle of the 20th century corresponded with the type of States defined by Eisenstadt52 such as neopatrimonialist. Inside the institutions of these States were governed networks by means of personalistic links, based on the patronage with a ferrous hierarchic structure in which the leader was the core that was keeping the balance among the different groups. The succession was their critical moment. The regimes are based on the indispensability of the Head of the State; the new leader has difficultly being attractive to the rest of elite sectors who seek to establish their own autonomy53. The model of patrimonialist communism54 inherited by most of the post-soviet regimes is characterized by a patrimonial administration as well as based on personal networks of loyalty and mutual exchange, combined with patronage, corruption and nepotism, which marked the guidelines of elite recruitment and mobility over impersonal procedure. A political power concentrated in a small lobby or a leader who enjoys worship of their personality, with this being easier to avoid formal mechanisms that restrict the capacity of the politicians to transfer his power or official positions. These features made succession the most critical moment for the communist regime stability due to the predictable clash among elite coalitions55. The persistence of this difficulty among elites to accept the competitive route in the transfer of power has been checked in the recent post-electoral revolutions in Georgia (November, 2003), Ukraine (November and December, 2004) and Kyrgyzstan (March, 2005). Presidential Administration only eight of forty-six official positions were siloviki, with their occupations being directly related to security aspects. On the other hand, five of twenty-one Federal Ministers had a security services past but they also belonged to the departments traditionally tied to security tasks such as the Ministry of the Interior, Defence or that of Emergency Situations. 52 Eisenstadt, S. N. (1978): Revolution and the transformation of societies: A comparative study of civilizations, New York, Free Press. 53 Goldstone, J. A.: “Revolutions In Modern Dictatorships”, en Goldstone, J. A. (ed.) (1994, 1ª ed. 1984): Revolutions, Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company. 54 Kitschelt, H. (ed.) (1999): Post-Communist Party Systems, Competition, representation and Inter-Party Cooperation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 55 Ibid.; Ra’anan, U. (2006): Flawed Succession: Russia’s Power Transfer Crises, Lanham, Lexington Books; Voslensky, M. (1984): Nomenklatura: Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class, London, The Bodley Head; Willerton, J. P. (1992): Patronage and Politics in the USSR, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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Surely, the possibility of fracture in the Russian Federation was remote, but the succession context has been characterized by a hard internal fight among the different clans that had Putin as last patron. Now it is possible to confirm –at least in relation to the nominal succession- a siloviki defeat already announced years ago by some analysts56. Though it is difficult to extract forceful conclusions, it would not be very risky to venture that Putin has waited so much time to solve the doubt of his succession not only for not staying in the position of a Lame duck, but for keeping the balance among the different clans. The succession movements began on 14th November in 2005 when Putin promoted the Head of the Presidential Administration, Dmitriy Medvedev to the Vice Prime Minister’s position, and he did the same thing with Sergey Ivanov, who preserved the post of Ministry of Defence. Medvedev’s exit from the Presidential Administration left an imbalance among the influential groups favourably to the headline for Igor Sechin linked to the siloviki’s core and the Prosecutor General of Russia Vladimir Ustinov57. Such an imbalance was corrected by Putin forcing the cessation of the Prosecutor General Ustinov in June 2006 after a few declarations by Ustinov criticizing the State’s weakness against organized crime. Ustinov’s dismissal, a key man in the structure of power, was interpreted widely as a strategy to debilitate the Sechin siloviki group. The combination of Sechin’s circle’s bureaucratic power with Ustinov’s capacity of procedural initiative was threatening Putin’s power of control that he was wishing for the 2008 succession context58. The Sechin-Ustinov tandem faced the group of petersburgian liberals led by Dmitriy Medvedev, German Gref y Aleksey Kudrin59. Ustinov’s substitute was the Minister of Justice Yuri Chaika. Chaika initially did not belong to any clan and it was said that Putin wanted to liberate the position of influences60. This situation changed and when the succession context came into climax Chaika had already incorporated the siloviki group led by Viktor Cherkesov and faced that of Sechin. In the middle of the intrigues of the succession there was also the launch of Fair Russia. Apparently, in the Fair Russia formation one of the principal groups siloviki, that of Sechin was involved, up to the point that Shetsova, L.: “El autoritarismo blando de Putin”, The Project Syndicate (April 2004). Moskovskiye nosvosti, nº 44, on 18-24 November 2005. 58 According to Aleksandr Kontekov, the representative of Putin in the High Chamber, the President sent to the Federation Council a letter to senators with the recommendation of approval of Ustinov’s resignation. Rossiiskaya gazeta, on 3rd June 2006, p. 1. 59 Vremya Novostei, on 5th June 2006, pp. 1-2. 60 Kommersant,on 20th June 2006. 56 57

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there was a joke about presenting the slogan “for the Mother land! For Sechin!”61. This movement faced Sechin off against Surkov, Medvedev, Kudrin, etc, those who preferred strengthening United Russia without any competition, an organization controlled by Surkov and Grizlov. Surkov, ideologist of the Kremlin, and one of few men from the yeltsinian Family that resisted among the ruling elite, managed to assess on ‘Just Russia’ that it was a “dangerous project”62. In the last part of the succession context the fights worsened, and some of them spoke even about a “repression inside the elite”63. The dispute among the siloviki clans, that of Cherkesov and Sechin (the former closer to Mevdeved), reached its climax on 1st October with the arrest of a group of anti-narcotics officials led by the General Lieutenant Aleksandr Bulbov. One week later, Cherkesov signed a paper where he recognized the existence of a “war among the special services”, especially between the Federal Service of Security (FSB) and the Federal Service of Control of Drugs (FNCS), in which the latter mentioned officials had been victims. In a short interview, the President showed his favour for the FSB and criticized Cherkesov for speaking about the topic publicly. So that, as a good boss, Putin would have balanced his favour to the FSB with the creation of the new agency, providing Cherkesov with additional power. Anyway, the “anti-corruption campaign is out of control” in Cherkesov’s words, with the security services in an “all against all”64war. A little later there was a dispute about corruption charges where the accused was Sergey Storchak,Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin’s assistant (member of Medvedev’s clan). Storchak’s case was taken on by newly named Head of the Committee of Investigation (a semi-autonomous agency that works under the patronages of the Prosecutor General Office), Alexander Bastrykin, Igor Sechin’s ally against the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, who belongs to the rival siloviki clan led by Viktor Cherkesov, as well as to Kudrin who went out in public defence of his subordinate. The succession race concluded with Medvedev’s victory, though it remains to be seen how Sechin’s clan (Sechin, Patrushev, Bastrykin and Viktor Ivanov) accepts the defeat. In any case, Putin’s decision of taking the Prime Minister’s post shows his desire to remain as umpire of the different clans. Moskovskiye novosti, nº 4, on 2-8 February 2007. Vremya novostei, on 15th March 2007. 63 Vremya novostei, on 20th November 2007, p. 4. 64 Vremya novostei, on 22th October 2007, pp. 1-2. 61 62

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4. Who is ruling XXI Century Russia? After finishing the transfer of power on 2nd March to Dmitriy Medvedev, three possibilities of political system existed: the first one was passed by keeping the political system - that is to say, to continue with the same structure of relations among the Presidency, government and Duma State- in which Medvedev´s executive was hegemonic. Nevertheless, this hegemonic Presidency would be ornamented by Medvedev´s profile that he has wanted to be transmitted, especially with an ideal view to the West: one who is liberally aware and assures the advance of reforms; out of the siloviki circle, a major nearness to the democratic principles and freedoms is predicted65; and more open than his predecessor to the influence of westerns cultural and values, so today rarefied relations with the West could be seen reversed. They aren’t many who think the succession campaign is nothing more than a spectacle and that Medvedev’s great approval of liberalism and democracy –in case of not being shammed- does not allow him to disassociate himself from Putin´s preferences. In any case, Medvedev’s difficulty in neoliberal reforms can advance to a greaterpace than Putin’s, because the latter did it intensively and under Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and German Gref criterion. On Medvedev’s major support to democracy´s principles, up to the moment it is a pure rhetoric, the political repression has continued, as shows the Yabloko activist Mksim Reznik’s arrest. The second option for the future of the political system came in 2006 from Vladislav Surkov’s mind, and it concentrated on the concept of Sovereign Democracy. Surkov’s Sovereign Democracy raise - among other aims with a modernization character- the reform of the government system by means of the strengthening the Duma; a re-balance of the executive in favour of the government (Prime Minister and the rest of the cabinet); and that the latter will pass to be accountable for the Duma and not for the Presidency. Changes that would require, without a doubt, a constitutional reform. As a main consequence, the political regime hegemony would go on to the dominant political party in the Duma, even though great part of last two years polemic has been provoked by the context of succession in process, especially now that Putin has become the visible top of United Russia and at the new Ministerial cabinet, because most of the lead roles yielded to Medvedev would return to Putin. Gernot Erler, German Vice-Primer Minister, commentated on TV: “Medvedev comes neither from secret services nor of military structures. Already this fact makes him interesting, in contrast with the current situation”. Ria Novosti, on 11th December 2007.

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Finally, the third option is an intermediate way of the two previous ones. Therefore, to carry out a renovation of the executive government’s system: a distribution task displacing functions and competences that the Presidency and the Presidency Administration have, up to this moment, flaunted to the Ministerial Cabinet headed by Putin as Prime Minister. These are transfers that would be accompanied by a major overlap between United Russia and the Ministries at both Ministry and ministerial bureaucracy levels. In conclusion, these variations would create a control system on the activity of the successor, which in turn would move onto the government (Prime Minister and cabinet), though in unknown time a situation might take place in which the party will exercise such a control. Anyway, these substantial changes would not need a constitutional reform. Conclusion As has been demonstrated by some changes in the cabinet cadre’s composition and structure, the last alternative could be feasible. First, the departments are going to have more importance in the elaboration and decision of policies in every field. Although the number of agencies and services remains, the functions developed by every department increase. In addition, a peculiar organ appears close to the government like a kind of presidium or maliy sovnarkom. According to Mikhail Delaguin this organ will consist of around six and eight Vice-Primer Ministries and, probably, the Ministers of the strongest blocks66. Alexei Kudrin and Sergey Ivanov will preserve their positions as Vice Prime Ministers, while other candidates to occupy the remaining positions are: in the Ministry of the Regions, Dmitriy Kozak; Social Matters, Tatyana Golikova; Economy, Arkadi Dvorkovich. In principle, the government apparatus will be led by Igor Sechin, nowadays Head of the Presidential Administration. In any case it is necessary to indicate that groups orientated towards Medvedev continue to grow - the former Family members, petersburgian attorneys and liberal economists, and other oligarchs from the business world. Above all, it remains to be seen how the Medvedev-Putin tandem is going to affect the new system of power and what is going to change in the main groups of economic and political influence. Finally, as for United Russia, there are two processes that are worth highlighting. The first one alludes to the opening of an internal discussion period that apparently would be given inside the organization in order In Sigal, Y. (2008) “Nakanune Inauguratsii”. In RBK nº5 2008,pp 18-23.

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to approve programmatical and ideological objectives to be followed on by the formation. Independent of the result of the debate process, the main innovation is the authorization of internal discussion. Three previously existing factions now take an official position in order to not get accommodated as a civil servants’ party (Partii chinovnikom): the Liberal Conservative Group 4th of November led by Vladimir Plugin; the Social Conservative Centre headed by Andrei Isaev (in turn leader of the Duma’s leftist faction of United Russia and one of the main ideologists of the FNPR union);and the State-Patriotic Club led by Irina Yarovaya. Every faction has as existential worry to solve different activities in which Putin’s regime has found a more debatable success. According to Vladimir Plugin, leader of the Liberal - Conservative faction, the principal task is to improve the quality of the Russian State, which has to be more permeable to society’s interests: “a State where it is possible to live, where every citizen feels like a complete political participant”. Therefore, State-civil society relations tend to be a more liberal profile. The leader of the State Patriotic faction centres their interests on the fight against corruption and the bureaucracy. While Andrei Isaev, visible head of the self-named leftist wing of United Russia, emphasizes the development of social policies which “ the pensioners and workers who voted for United Russia” are waiting for. Everything seems to indicate that Medvedev is not going to change the economic policy of Putin´s period, tending towards neo-liberalism, and so it has been expressed by the leadership of the party in an internal way. Although it could be a mere rhetoric, Isaev’s answer gives a clear picture of the current Russian party system: if the social policies are left to the side and the opposition parties do not have a strong and forceful response, inside the Duma it will be obliged to lead the defence of any social interests. On the other hand, the second process in United Russia we referred to is the increase of the party’s presence in the structures of the power. Apparently, besides being the Kremlin’s party, it is going to turn into the party of the government, that is to say, that with the arrival of Putin to the position of Prime Minister, the members of the Ministerial cabinet on the whole are passing to join United Russia. Beginning with himself, Putin, who up to this date has not been a member of the formation, several potential Ministers, as it has been recently reported, would already be preparing the step: Aleksey Kudrin, Leonid Reyman and others have all demonstrated their desire to enter the party of the “government”67. Vedomosti, on 16th April 2008.

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György Schöpflin Minorities, Citizenship and Europe   Introduction At the heart of the problem of minorities is the failure of democratic theory and forms of citizenship to develop an adequate response to collectivities which have a different ethnic identity to that of the ethnic majority. Nominally, in a democratic polity each individual citizen enjoys exactly the same rights of citizenship as any other, regardless ethnicity. In reality, because citizenship is automatically, implicitly structured by the ethnocultural norms of the majority - there are a few exceptions - minorities are left in an unequal position. Furthermore, because some minorities are tacitly thought to have “undesirable” ethnicity, as opposed to others who have “desirable” forms of it (more below), attempts to validate the rights of ethnic minorities run repeatedly into this wall of silent disapproval. European democracy begins from powerful universalist assumptions that are seldom, if ever, deconstructed. Universalism proceeds from assumptions at what might be called the machine code level that one form of identity is morally superior to all others and that the entire world is inexorably moving towards that identity. Europe has inherited these tacit assumptions from the Enlightenment and ever since the 18th century has sought steadily to spread them in the form of a superior, rationally cogent proposition. The original Enlightenment postulate was that humanity was moving (and should be moved) towards a single overarching ideal of emancipation or freedom; that there existed a speculative unity of all knowledge; and that the unification of all into a single, transcendental, universal identity of reason was the meaning of history. Identity, ethnicity and minority These assumptions have not disappeared, but have merely assumed a different form. In our day, the central universalist assumption is the superiority of democracy and human rights as defined by Europe and/ 61

or the United States. The possibility that other, non-sanctioned forms of democracy and human rights may exist in non-Europe is dismissed as silly or irrelevant or reactionary or as just incomprehensible. It is worth adding that as Europe’s power has begun to wane, we had better start reassessing these assumptions, but that’s another story. Note here that both liberalism and Marxism were both legatees of Enlightenment universalism and that their protagonists believe in their own moral superiority. And it should be stressed that neither shrank from imposing their universalism - their supposed universalism - on weaker parties. It is effectively impossible to make sense of the extraordinary obstinacy with which the devotees of a universalist concept citizenship reject anything that, to them, smacks of particularism without first recognising their tacit universalist assumptions. All sorts of strategies are employed to delegitimate the challenges to universalism that particularism raises, from charges of irrationality to sabotage of the unity of the state; in even fairly decentralised states, ethnically based differentiation is taboo. There is an ambiguity in what exactly ethnicity is. It can mean the socio-cultural identity of a group that is a minority in a state population, in which case it is defined as ethnic in contrast to the majority which is not so defined – this is generally a negative reference. Or ethnic can refer to a minority immigrant population, but conventionally only if they have migrated from a former colonial territory, so that Gujeratis in Britain or Arabs in France are ethnic; Poles or Lithuanians in Britain are not. In this case, it would appear that their status is defined by their inherited colonial origins and, hence, the positive assessment of their ethnic identity is to do with colonial guilt. In US usage, any immigrant group counts as ethnic as long as it can hyphenate itself (e.g. PolishAmerican, African-American), but the original settlers – British or Dutch – are not. Thus here ethnic refers to late settlement. A distinct group that is perceived as suffering social exclusion may also be termed ethnic, like the Roma. The elephant in the room, however, is the identity of collectivities deemed to be state-constitutive state majorities. These groups are not regarded as ethnic, even although their identity construction differs in no way from those of ethnic minorities. All systems of power have a propensity to homogenise those affected by the exercise of power, the ruled, to make them “legible” by the state and to allow the state to regulate their affairs. This homogenisation is particularly difficult to attain when a group speaks another language and 62

demands rights that go with that language, like recognition of cultural difference as having if not equality, certainly equivalence with regard to the majority. States deeply dislike such demands and the system of power on which the state rests seldom makes the allowances needed for ethnic minorities. Institutions function much better when they are monolingual, as well as being cheaper, and a territorial arrangement is simpler when only one language is used there. Ethnic and linguistic minorities find this monistic dynamic of power particularly difficult to deal with, as in the eyes of the linguistic majority monoculturalism is the naturalised norm. What the current concept of citizenship demonstrates, therefore, is a conscious determination to ignore the sociological reality that a section of the population of the state may reproduce an identity that differs from that of the majority, thereby making the group’s access to the real and symbolic goods of the state unequal. This denial of full civic status to minorities is partly explained by the proposition that the existence of a culturally and/or linguistically different group within the boundaries of the state shows up the ethnic quality of the majority, something that is regarded as unacceptable when the ethnic majority portrays itself as the guarantor of civic norms as a post-national collectivity. This process is firmly ideological, of course, can be traced back to a universalist axiology, meaning that the covert ethnic quality of majorities cannot be acknowledged in the current climate of opinion in Europe. There are, for what it is worth, explanations for this state of denial. After 1945, when the process of European integration was launched, it was vital to downplay the role of nationhood. National states had been seen, accurately, as the source of conflict in Europe and for many, nationalism led automatically to fascism and Nazism, although this claim fails to explain why these phenomena were to be found only in some states and not all. In order to ensure the success of the European project, a tacit distinction was made between “good” and “bad” national identities, with the states of Western Europe falling into the first category, while ethnic minorities and the national identities of the Central and SouthEast Europeans fell into the latter. The West Europeans were in the first category by reason of their readiness to cooperate at the international level. The collapse of communism brought the states of Central and South-East Europe into the wider European orbit and it emerged that communism, having destroyed what civic organisation and values had 63

existed, was being replaced by a nationalism that could be defined as ethnically-driven and, worse, it was reacting back on the supposedly post-national states of the West. The collapse of Yugoslavia and the subsequent wars of Yugoslav succession raised the spectra of state collapse under ethnic pressure, which led ethnic majorities in Western Europe to deny their own ethnic quality even more determinedly than before. This produced the added advantage that the site of persisting ethnicity could be safely displaced to the remote outer European periphery, thereby securing the denial of it in the West. At more or less the same time, as unease with the extension of European integration began to manifest itself, there was a slow revival of the legitimacy of the nation-state concept, which was supposedly a civic nation-state, thus making the invisibility of the majority ethnicity more important than ever. The overall process, therefore, made the prospect of enjoying full citizenship rights for historic minorities ever more difficult to attain. In these circumstances, it is understandable why the European Union has been slow and, indeed, inexperienced in the protection of minorities, although some standards were established by the Council of Europe; however, these were voluntary and could not be enforced. There is some discussion of a “European standard” of minority protection, but at most this is an ideal that majorities can ignore. Nevertheless, as the need for identifying a European demos gains force, it becomes evident that ethnic minorities, as equal citizens of Europe, are part of that demos, but are in a worse position with respect to EU rights than ethnic majorities. This is a problem that the EU will have to confront seeing that around ten percent of EU citizens speak a minority language. Basically, by virtue of their minority status, minorities suffer a series of disabilities in terms of language rights, the capacity to secure cultural reproduction and access to both the goods of the state and the power that is vested in the state and in the EU. It is worth noting that almost without exception minorities are losing ground as far as their overall numbers are concerned; in other words, majority policies leave them subject to erosion and assimilation. The cultural prestige of the majority’s language and culture reduce their life chances as members of minorities and some of those members conclude that they would be better off by assimilating to the majority, which is necessarily also an ethnic community. This cannot be called civic equality. 64

There is a further disability in the case of ethnic minorities they are in competition with what might be called “universalist” or “pseudo-universalist” minorities, for whom the nation-state, in its current configuration, is ready to make space. These include minorities structured around gender-orientation, race, immigrant groups, those suffering physical disability and various other groups claiming recognition. Although the way in which these groups organise and identify themselves is structurally the same as ethnic minorities, they do not challenge the machine-code assumptions of the state, that its civic norms are universal, even when the actual evidence is wholly at variance with this proposition. Thus Anglo-Saxon feminists are completely different from their French counterparts, but this troubles no one, it is simply ignored, together with the entire package which results in the ethnic colouring of civic norms in supposedly post-national states. Strategies of integration In the foregoing, references to ethnic minorities have been to those defined by their language, culture, history, religion, above all their own individual discursive capital. These groups are further defined by being generally territorial, by their having been in existence since before the coming of modernity - 1789 is the symbolic date - and by the involuntary change of state frontiers. But this is only one of the various categories of minorities in Europe today. Rather more numerous are the Third World immigrants and their descendants, who may be differentiated by skin colour and/or religion and, though this is seldom identified as a factor, by their inherited and transplanted sociological status, being mostly ex-peasants; further, they will generally come with a different family structure - the extended family or the matrifocal family. For these groups, strategies of integration are based on the project of multi-culturalism, which basically says that they may retain - sometimes, must retain - their original cultures or those features of their original cultures that are compatible with majority regulation. But there is no question of their being permitted to reproduce their language or ethnic discourses. In the case of France, this ban on the reproduction of language is quite explicit - as it is for historic minorities in France - while elsewhere 65

it implicit. Certainly, demands from immigrant minority groups for state recognition of and support for their languages are dismissed as “divisive”; in other words, there are clear limits to multi-culturalism and these are set by the majority, without the minority being given a real voice in the matter. Furthermore, minority groups are largely assumed to be identical among themselves, so that all Muslims, say, are alike, ditto all South Asians, Africans, Chinese etc. Conflict among them, which is real, is ignored. To all these problems should be added the tacit issue of race and racial differentiation, which is firmly assumed to be a white majority practice, although reverse racism and exclusion are not unknown, together with friction between different immigrant and eximmigrant groups. The third category of minorities need not detain us for long - this is that of indigenous people, a UN defined status, which affects only the Sami as far as Europe is concerned. Fourth, a special category of its own, are the Roma, who are differentiated in part by physiognomical difference, by their social organisation on the basis of the extended family, by their non-territoriality, by their seeming reluctance to integrate into majority norms and their frequent low status. The fifth category is a hybrid, the Russian-speakers of the Baltic states, who are partly a historic minority, having lived in the region since well before 1914, but partly - the greater part - an immigrant minority, having arrived in the 1960s and 1970s, i.e. at the same time as the Turks in Germany and the South Asians in Britain; partly they are different by reason of having been colonial settlers during the period of the illegal Soviet occupation of the Baltic region. The Russophones, who are internally differentiated because they include a large variety of former Soviet peoples, from Tatars to Ukrainians, enjoy the privilege of schooling in their mother tongue and state support for their cultural institutions, something which is not accorded to the Arabs in France. The last category is relatively new, meaning that its implications are only now being explored. These are the intra-European migrants, both high and low status. In the past, it was assumed that these migrants would remain permanently in their new country of settlement and that over time they would assimilate to the majority - an example being that of the Poles who migrated to Germany before 1914 or France in the interwar period. Given levels of mobility and accessibility of communication currently available, their permanence of settlement can 66

no longer be taken for granted; indeed, their intentions may only be to work abroad for a few years and then return home. Thus the nearly one million Poles in the UK count as fully legal migrants from 2004 - there was large number of semi-legal migrants after 1990 - and some have begun to return home to Poland. Some will stay, however, and it is open question whether the rules of multi-culturalism apply to them or not. There is a little state sector provision, like interpreters at police stations, and the private sector has also begun to use Polish in a few cases. In Dublin, where there is a similarly large number of Poles, the evening paper publishes a weekly 16-page section in Polish. There are several hundred thousand French settlers in the UK, as well as British and German retirees in France and Spain. There are also an estimated 300,000 Russians in the London area. Some of them are in high status employment, like financial services and medicine. It is unclear whether they should enjoy state-supported cultural reproduction. An analogous problem is arising in the areas of Hungary within easy reach of Bratislava, where well-to-do Slovaks are buying up property, living there on a permanent basis to commute to Bratislava, and may be demanding Slovak-language nurseries for their children. Conclusion In conclusion, the argument in this paper is that historic minorities, by virtue of their temporal and spatial qualities and historically defined status, demand special consideration. They are equal citizens in formal, but seldom in real terms, in that they are subject to various disabilities politically, sometimes economically, certainly culturally, e.g. their access to tertiary education is often well below that of the majority. Perhaps more than anything else, with respect to their moral equality, as equal members of the moral community of citizens, they suffer discrimination in that they lack the same capacity for voice, for input into the discursive capital of the majority or even full access to the goods of the state. Their aspirations are brushed aside as “ethnic” and thus as falling outside the civic consensus that Europe and the nation-states of Europe are supposedly constructing. This is an inequality that demands correction both at the state and at the European level.   67

Csaba Varga AT THE CROSSROADS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE AND DISOBEDIENCE (A Case Study of a Moment of Constitutional Impotence in Hungary) Civil disobedience Civil disobedience is an idea that stands for confrontation and moral rebellion, describing one of the feasible ways of how to enforce our conscience’s word. This is one of the historically developed choices for self-sacrificing for others in human altruism with implied risk taken, which exerts its impact mostly in particular manners, on by-pass roads it channels. Just because all its elements are thoroughly pervaded by undertaking a moral front as a most specific feature of it— the first time, the expression had been used by the moral hero Thoreau in his conscientious rebellion against American slavery, then by Ghandi launching a movement that conceptualised it as a programmatic tenet after more than half a century—, certainly it is not for antipathetic or cynical outsiders and even less for those counter-interested to qualify it. When the actor identifies his deed as civil disobedience, abbreviatedly he/she simply refers the intented reason and target back to a given tradition. Civil disobedience is not a legal concept. Moreover, it is not part of the law’s concept in a larger sense either, as it just denies the compulsory force of some valid law in the light of the superior validity of some higher order, in order just to change this very law. At the same time, not even the expression itself is a legal concept, as the law has no reference to it. Or, civil disobedience is an outside event, either heterogeneous or differently homogeneous, in the course of which some provision of the valid law is broken and to the perception of which the law can only react by meting out the prescribed sanction. At this point it is high time to revealing the subtly complex network of mutual impacts in operation between morality and law, when civil disobedience challenges both of them. For, on the one hand, civil 68

disobedience is a moral challenge to law. It is an open declaration of conflict in terms of which the law is intentionally broken under some moral demand. On the other hand, the law which is calibrated to sense the outside world through the lenses of its own categorial system exclusively, may not and will not perceive anything else in this than the mere breach of some legal provisions. At the same time, considering the fact that civil disobedience usually achieves its target by forcing the legal machinery to response, the offense is mostly made publicly and with defiant unambigouity. For its provocative gesture is just aimed at excluding, on behalf of that machinery, any insensitivity, evasion, quibble or compromise solution by avoiding a definite answer to be offered by the law. On the law’s side, all this is simply taken as an injury. For law has no access or path to sense moral gesture or tradition called civil disobedience in the deed, just because no such concept is provided for and by the law. Consequently, instead of the merits or moral connotations of the deed, exclusively the act through which the injury was committed will be named by the law. Accordingly, not even the fact that the offender acted magnanimously as pushed by moral considerations in order to provoke a change to be made in law can be part of the officially established facts of the case, unless there is a specific provision on all concrete individual circumstances of the deed to be both recorded and considered for the judgment rendered. Otherwise such moral motive is to be noticed within the proceedings as personal feature at the most—without its chance to add to legal qualification itself. It follows therefrom that not even the conceptual expression itself is normative but merely descriptive as conventionally established. Albeit its moral motive offering self-sacrifice may be accompanied by pathos in its societal perception, this is hardly a reason to stint civil disobedients this quality by disqualifying them, if we happen not to agree with them or their deed. It is somewhat awkward to see representatives of state power to qualify civil disobedience practiced. For those against whom moral rebellion (culminating in intentional law breaking) is directed are from the beginning loosers in the moral dilemma having led to civil disobedience: it was the civil disobedient and not them who first came out for against some insupportable condition. Their acquiescence is in vain covered by the holy gown of the rule of law; at most the conceptual levels will be mistaken, as the mere fact of having recoursed to civil disobedience will testify to that the institutional rule of law network failed—as proved to be helpless—in the given situation. 69

The operational mechanism of civil disobedience lies in dislocating state and legal practices from daily routine. They have either to punish (with teeth furiously locked up and taste bittered in the mouth) or to acknowledge own defeat, looking for bypasses to support the underlying moral cause. Or, civil disobedience is by definition exceptional and spoiling everyday peace by its declaring a conflict irrevocably. It is also of a polarising effect by announcing a split made in society, which is the more divisive the more live it is, the stake being the fate of moral considerations shared by powerful sectors of society. Therefore it is understandable (although hardly sympathetic) to encounter power reactions these times—particularly when the official stand is not shared by the social majority—damping down the merits by either over-dimensioning the injury or rolling down the original intent to disqualify the person or his/her case. The world must be abject in which such huge amount of insensitivity, stubborness, life-strange causeless conceit or simple power game may be compressed into symbolic values by gratuitous gestures that will either force the community to prostrate itself before the state’s altar or lead to explosion. It is abject to encounter such a rule of law that in addition to repeating own mantras has no sensitivity left to curing actual troubles. Situations of unlimited power are also dangerous for being at the same time both challenging and self-exciting. For Rule of Law remains an empty framework and mere procedural frame until it will be impregnated with contents worth of being lived in a democracy asserting final human values. Well, it was a one-sided official act exercised as a symbolic gesture that the action of so called cordon removal called to account.1 It was strange to perceive continuity in that the same intellectual class of media that had once greeted past disorder (called taxi blockade) as movement of civil disobedience and heated it further in order to eventually overturn the government,2 now, as unconsecrated prelate of omniscience, deprived the For the event on 2 February 2007, cf., e.g., , and . 2 Cf., by the author, Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1995), part on »Skirmishes and the Game’s Rule«, pp. 91 et seq. [Philosophiae Iuris], and for the historical contexture, Nigel Swain Hungary: Political Developments 1989–90 (Liverpool: The University of Liverpool n.y.) 31 p. [Centre for Central and Eastern European Studies Working Paper 4] . 1

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event of its quality of civil disobedience by identifying it with a party action, instead of a moral cause. At that time and now as well, media mainstream failed to cover its political judgment with objective knowledge or relevant arguments. For we may remember that taxi-blockaders, taken away by merely pecuniary self-interest, brought millions of humans into case of necessity, while its rousing fighters fled as rats from assuming the consequences of their unlawful acts. Accordingly, it is not an issue of political likes or dislikes whether or not we had to qualify the event as a case of civil disobedience or just of common law-breaking. In case we had called it civil disobedience, we would have deprived its concept of its differential sense by identifying mob reactions with the self-sacrificing moral espousal of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others, putting the state in an insoluble conflict: either excusing resistance with no sanction (risking the state’s moral collapse) or meting out sanctions to a mass self-reproducing endlessly (unfeasible in any long run as threatening with institutional collapse). Well, the self-qualification is hardly to contest from those having dismantled the cordon yesterday if accompanied by the risk of getting sanctioned. Today’s wisdom of mainstream journalism announcing it “contravention, not civil disobedience”3 sneakes on total ignorance as to its genuine nature. (It is their old self that psychologically can exclusively motivate such a stand, which once channelled political decision makers to become reconciled to taxi blockade as civil disobedience and also granting blockaders mercy.) For—legally speaking—civil disobedience is common violation of the law which—speaking in terms of moral intention or the logic of a political action—, as committed intentionally, without violence, in public, with the penalty (which is by all means to be meted out) undertaken from the beginning, does serve ideal (not material) targets, just in order to induce change to be effected in law. Discussing the fact this time whether or not each and every procedural path in law has previously been exhausted is highly irrelevant. For, on the one hand, no such condition is implied by such an utterly a-legal concept, and, on the other, its long tradition refers this to those taking the risk to deliberate on the alternatives, if any; that is, if (even in a plain cost/ benefit analysis) there are further ways open to them, leading to comparable outcome with less risks. In policing and judicial reaction to such injury, also government has to face this challenge by making it clear for the daily practice of constitutional civil rights, namely, what will separate civil governance from a police state, proceeding on with unquestionable autocracy. E.g. Gábor Halmai ‘Ez nem polgári engedetlenség’ Népszabadság [People’s Liberty: a daily] (3 February 2007) in .

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It is worth wondering about chances, sense, dilemmas and limits of civil disobedience. One has to remember forerunners, emphasise the seriousness of offering ourselves to punishment and unconditional sacrifice, recall that the contemporary well developed doctrine of civil disobedience is due to a past when many heroes languished in long-term prison for their espousal. We have also to learn that civil disobedience as a pattern implies the danger of spreading, therefore it must be kept as an exception, not to easily allure to anarchical attitude—once we have actually reached legal normality. Civil Obedience And what remains to society, if it chooses the way of civil obedience? It is sad to state but: hardly more than what can at all be met as coming from increasingly alienated reified structures. It might have already been a squealing sign to observe how much our society expected its own salvation to materialise from the all-curing idol of law and of the Rule of Law after the fall of Communism. Instead of common sense and well-planned responsible action not shrinking even from risks, it shed its hopes in rules and judgements made by others (as if the blind was to lead the blind). It resigned to the death of the deed once the magic words of prophets promising a brave new world from idleness got in its ear. And it became even more squealing a sign, when a major part threw away its natural sense of justice, when it was made to believe the superiority of alleged ‘lawfulness’ and ‘constitutionality’, said to derive from formal ideal operations with unvenalable automatism. After the Socialist regime had annihilated law, society began to adore it as a fetish. Albeit in the depth nothing else happened than what already Comenius had reported on,4 watching “distinguished men” in the Labyrinth of the World, who, Jan Amos Komenský Labyrint sveta a ráj srdce (Amsterdam 1663), ch. 15: „The Pilgrim Observes the Legal Profession 1 Finis Juris In the last place, they led me into still another very spacious lecture room where I saw a greater number of distinguished men than anywhere else. The walls around were painted with stone walls, barriers, picket-fences, plank-fences, bars, rails, and gate staves, interspersed at various intervals by gaps and holes, doors and gates, bolts and locks, and along with it larger and smaller keys and hooks. All this they pointed out to each other, measuring where and how one might or might not pass through. »What are these people doing?« I inquired. I was told that they were searching for means how every man in the world might hold his own or might also 4

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pushing mysterious linkages here and there on tables and monologuising about connections and separations, did in fact allocate fate of properties and empires, in a manner “founded upon the mere whim of a few men”. This is to reach here what Marx had in a classical age rightfully grieved about, how much artefacts generated by humans ever for their own welfare can turn against humans by taking the rule over the world. As dazed from poppy seeds, we ourselves are also acting as cussed.5 One may remember Russia having fallen in crushing chaos and misery due to the fury of mostly Americans chasing after profit, when less than a decade ago those profiteering from all this shouted: “More shock therapy!”.6 Well, as if we had nothing left except to nestle to the new moloch: “Still more law! More Rule of Law!”. We should eventually return to the rationality of natural sense to clear peacefully obtain something from another’s property without disturbing order and concord. »That is a fine thing!« I remarked. But observing it a while, it grew disgusting to me. 2 Jus Circa Quid Vesetur For, in the first place, I noticed that the barriers enclosed neither the soul, the mind, nor the body of man, but solely his property, which is of incidental importance to him; and it did not seem to me worthy of the extremely difficult toil that was, as I saw, expended upon it. 3 Fundamentum Juris Besides, I observed that all this science was founded upon the mere whim of a few men to whom one or another thing seemed worthy of being enjoined as a statute and which the others now obsesrved. Moreover (as I noticed here), some erected or demolished the bars or gaps as the notion entered their heads. Consequently, there was much outright contradiction in it all, the rectification of which caused a group of them a great deal of curious and ingenious labor; I was amazed that they sweated and toiled so much upon most insignificant minutiae, amounting to very little, and occurring scarcely once in a millenium; and all with not a little pride. For the more a man broke through some bar or made an opening that he was able to wall up again, the better he thought of himself and the more was he envied by others. But some (in order to show the keenness of their wit) rose up and opposed him, contending that the bars should be set up or the gaps broken thus so. Hence arose contentions and quarrels, until finally separating, they painted each his case in his own way, at the same time attracting spectators to themselves. Observing this tomfoolery sufficiently, I shook my head, exclaiming: »Let us hurry away! I feel distressed here!« »Is there anything in the world to your liking?« my interpreter angrily retorted. »You find fault even with the noblest of callings, you weathercock!« »It seems that he is religious-minded; let us take him to see the clerical professions; perhaps he will find it to his liking,« Mr. Ubiquitous suggested.” . 5 Cf., by the author, ‘»Thing« and Reification in Law’ in his The Place of Law in Lukács’ World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985, 21998), Appendix, pp. 160–184. 6 Stephen F.Cohen Failed Cruisade America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company 2000). Cf., by the author, ‘Amerikai önbizalom, orosz katasztrófa: Kudarcot vallott kereszteshadjárat?’ [Failed crusade? American self-confidence, Russian catastrophe] PoLísz (December 2002-January 2003) No. 68., pp. 18–28 & .

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it finally: who is to serve? and whom? Is the fate of our nation for the law’s sake or law is for man’s sake? Were we born, do we live and die only to have an ideal legal perfectionism been fulfilled? Or, since we live, in our life we slowly build culture, then and therein law—in order to be improved? Our system of election raised unusually high threshold to get in popular representation, thereby excluding just differentiated representation of the variety of life relations and historical experiences. We speak about morals with dandy affectation, only just against taking over of power through false means we do not have any remedy. And although our Constitution encourages people to direct participation, today’s descendants of those “distinguished men” limit it to a low-grade implementation. Our rush in human rights’ defence is managed to become so perfect that real man can hardly survive it. For reassurance, we may also take notice of the right of resistance, protected already in the Golden Bull throughout our Middle Ages called dark,7 but in our post-modern Enlightenment we—as alleged by the mainstream press8—proudly assigned it to Constitutional Court justices. Thus we have actually arrived at one of the best possible worlds, in which we have succeeded in making ourselves totally defenceless and unprotected. Not much is left from the property of the nation, however, even less from self-esteem and readiness to act. And not even pearls were received in return for our renunciation of the future. I remember well how it seemed to be astoundingly brave and just frivolous to learn, when I was young, from Dicey,9 genius of British constitutionalism, that all the achievement for what his nation had fought and made it a principle of everyday practice is based eventually on the force of public opinion, instead of formulas committed to paper. That is, for a mature nation, the genuine soul is not hidden in stones, rules, or reified entities. Strength is not drawn from such tangible ephemera but from cultural continuity. Otherwise speaking, what may be got into hand, whatever chased it should be, is only reminder. And what anyone thinks today is merely a daily affair. Or, successive days are not derived from stones or texts concluded the previous day—and certainly not cut out by Cf., as a first orientation, and . 8 Péter N. Nagy ‘A tőkétől a kerítésig’ [From the capital to the fence] Népszabadság [People’s Liberty – a daily] (11 February 2007) in . 9 Albert Venn Dicey Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitutuion [1885] 2nd. ed. (London: Macmillan 1923) and Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century [1905] 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan 1926). 7

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geometric compasses and rules—but from what the nation will draw up out of itself in the challenge of the next day, actualising its own primordial tradition. People in a culture like this are never tired, because they are always ready to continue their further cultural adaptation, trusting in the continuability of such a culture and being matured enough to undertake responsibility—assured in that they may count on themselves. In a social science perspective, the Bible is a corpus of historical wisdom on man. It tells us what is worthy to know about those having peopled the Earth (although others may regard it as dated, unable to meet the new profane requirements of political correctness). Since it reports on us as a herd to be kept driving by shepherds, who needs both birdlime and lash not to lose the way. We may get to know therefrom to be destined to get easily tired as unwilling to work. At the same time, we are easily tempted to the voices of sirens, although we should realise lastly that we can only arrive at what we have laboured for. The historical data collection of Europe is a profusion of results due to bloody battles only. Our populous minorities are humiliated day to day in so called succesor states in our direct neighbourhood, however, instead of launching real fight, we sublimate our anxiety to self-discipline of dictions and artistic mourning. In consequence, our noble heart is adequately praised as we are busy with ourselves, not giving anybody much trouble. As known quite well, national entities that matter at all with a firm determination to reach anything are used to actually doing for it. Albeit voices of sirens are tempting everywhere to reducing desire to act and discouraging assessment of interests. For mostly those are tempted in fact who are already flabby to act and dissuaded from following own paths, even if rough. By reading newspapers, it catches your eyes who listens to such voices and who to whatever else. Because there is hardly to write anything about those enchanted by others. Is law anywhere else better? Yes or no, but readiness to act may be greater. For those who listen to themselves and their articulated interests are ready to act: they know what law is for. Namely, it is to use it, since we have created it as part of our culture. It is not a fetish, so we do not idolise it. It is not our supra-natural commander, therefore we do not throw our fate in front of it as mere spoil. Law is my part what I live with, in order to pursue our collective life in a nobler way. And as we live our culture on a daily basis, we aim for implantation of all that is left to us in the potential of our law and for seeing its fruits materialised again in our everyday life. 75

Law is not a goal, only means.10 To live merely for means, I would lose perspectives. Goal may derive only from values resulting from our being a Godly creature and attached to our personal dignity. Our means may exclusively serve us, humans. And even if hindered, they can not divert us from the goal yet. Conclusion Have we resigned from forming our law? Have we abandoned dignity born with us in order to respect law not as our reified Lord but as our servant, formed as an artefact from ouselves? Have we declined to such extent that we place law—any law—as fetish to the altar of the highest reason of existence—instead of God? On last resort we should notice at least that no law formed by others is formed for us. Or, the sequence of Madách describing the Tragedy of Man is by far not contingent: we have to strive on creating an anabasis upon which we can already nurture trust—by having faith in.11 For, from miracle expectation, no planche will result, no solid soil inviting to pass on will emerge, as neither personality mature for struggle is likely to grow. Our law has been formed by elites to their own pleasure. This is not simply good or bad, even if we are urged to observe that in significant regards it is alien to genuine needs, too doctrinal and weak, and avoids real problems to be faced.12 Albeit with readiness to act we could shape it. This is the reason why we had better to develop an own civil society.

See, by the author, ‘Buts et moyens en droit’ in Giovanni Paolo II Le vie della giustizia: Itinerari per il terzo millenio (Omaggio dei giuristi a Sua Santità nel XXV anno di pontificato) a cura die Aldo Loiodice & Massimo Vari (Roma: Bardi Editore & Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2003), pp. 71–75 and enlarged as ‘Goals and Means in Law: or Janus-faced Abstract Rights’ in Jurisprudencija [Vilnius: Mykolo Romerio Universitetas] (2005) 68(60): Terorizmas ir žmogaus teisės, pp. 5–10 & & . 11 Imre Madách The Tragedy of Man [1860] trans. George Szirtes, ending by The Lord’s words: “Man, I have spoken: strive on, trust, have faith!” in . 12 Cf., e.g., as a compendium of contemporary Western criticism, Kiáltás gyakorlatiasságért a jogállami átmenetben [Cry for practicalness in transition to rule of law] ed. Csaba Varga (Budapest: [AKAPrint] 1998) 122 pp. [Windsor Club II]. 10

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Literature Cohen, Stephen F. Failed Cruisade America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company 2000). Dicey, Albert Venn Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitutuion [1885] 2nd. ed. (London: Macmillan 1923). Dicey, Albert Venn Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century [1905] 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan 1926). Halmai, Gábor ‘Ez nem polgári engedetlenség’ [Not a case of civil disobedience] Népszabadság [People’s Liberty – a daily] (3 February 2007) in . Komenský, Jan Amos Labyrint sveta a ráj srdce (Amsterdam 1663) in . Nagy, Péter N. ‘A tőkétől a kerítésig’ [From the capital to the fence] Népszabadság [People’s Liberty – a daily] (11 February 2007) in . Swain, Nigel Hungary: Political Developments 1989–90 (Liverpool: The University of Liverpool n.y.) [Centre for Central and Eastern European Studies Working Paper 4]. Varga, Csaba ‘»Thing« and Reification in Law’ in his The Place of Law in Lukács’ World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985, 21998), Appendix, 160–184. Varga, Csaba Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1995) [Philosophiae Iuris]. Varga, Csaba (ed.) Kiáltás gyakorlatiasságért a jogállami átmenetben [Cry for practicalness in transition to rule of law] (Budapest: [AKAPrint] 1998) [Windsor Club II]. Varga, Csaba ‘Goals and Means in Law: or Janus-faced Abstract Rights’ in Jurisprudencija [Vilnius: Mykolo Romerio Universitetas] (2005) 68(60), 5–10. & &.

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József N. Szabó The Role of the Hungarian Non-governmental Participants in the Diplomatic Connections with the Western Countries /1945-1948/

1. The special role of the non-governmental participants Non-government bodies, especially civilian organizations, undertook a very important role in Hungary’s breaking out of international isolation and opening Hungarian culture to the outside world. In the new democratic atmosphere after the world war people made use of the opportunities and established a wide variety of organizations. These new organizations were based upon the interests of smaller or larger groups of people, for instance clubs, educational associations and societies. The associations were primarily established by and consisted of professionals, but their membership usually also reflected the pluralism of society. The professional élite - scientists, artists and writers - felt particularly responsible for the future of the nation in the postwar era when a new world order was taking shape. Although the “defection of the c1erks” was only characteristic of a few percent of the professionals, the great majority of the intelligentsia felt responsible for the terrible things that had happened in the previous period and believed that they should have been able to do more to prevent the tragedy. This was one of the reasons why many of them became very active after 1945 - they were determined to take part in building up a more humanistic society and to eliminate the problems of the near past. The democratic professionals fully recognized the desperate situation of the country after the war - the danger of isolation - so they wanted to find arguments that reduced the responsibility of Hungary for the war. They believed that if they succeeded in proving that the Hungarian nation as a whole was not identical with the handful of leaders who dragged the country into the war, Hungary would be an equal and respected member of the community of nations again. It was therefore not surprising that the civilian 78

organizations that carne into being in a period when Hungary’s international reputation was at an all-time low made gestures and initiatives that they hoped would re-integrate Hungary into the community of democratic nations again. With these initiatives they targetted the powers that had a powerful influence in laying the foundations of the new world order. All actions and efforts of the civilian organizations, the cultural and scientific events, emphasized the universality of human civilization, the need of cooperation, the friendship of nations and the shared humanistic values. Educational and cultural associations and societies, however, did not confine their activities to culture and science. They sought for, and found, points of meeting between Hungary and other nations in various fields of life. In a world that had just recovered from the shock of barbarism there was a great demand for the values relayed by these organizations. The new and positive impressions generated by the civilian organizations had a great importance in dispelling the old prejudice and hatred that separated the nations from each other. Culture was able to connect nations to each other through these organizations. Building confidence and mutual trust was one of the most important parts of the miss ion the civilian organizations fulfilled. Finding common historic roots was important, as it was expected to serve as a foundation upon which a more peaceful future would be built. Hungarians living outside Hungary, the ethnic Hungarians in the neighboring states and the emigrants scattered in a number of countries, were taken into consideration when the educational organizations and cultural associations were brought into being. It was soon recognized that educational and cultural associations were the most successful in connection with countries where a significant and successful Hungarian emigration lived. Direct political intentions and priorities, naturally, also influenced the creation of educational organizations. Whenever any common historic or cultural roots were not available to be put into the service of rapprochement, political aspects dictated the necessity of cooperation and motivated the activity of social and civilian organizations. As creating social and civilian organizations was primarily the interest of the Hungarians, there was usually no reciprocity in these actions - the foreign partners did not hasten to return the Hungarian initiatives. It was a very negative phenomenon, as the associations were only effective when they had a similar counterpart in the partner country. Rapprochement was only possible if both parties involved really wanted it and were ready to actively participate in the process. 79

Although the various cultural organizations and educational associations were basically democratic and civilian bodies, there were significant political interests behind them. The professional élite did not give up their cultural and professional autonomy when they offered their assistance to the politicians in the difficult situation of the nation. It was their moral and intellectual obligation. Professionals could not hide in their “ivory towers” their expertise, knowledge and foreign connections were required to help their country in seeking understanding and reconciliation with other nations.

2. Hungarian-French and French-Hungarian Associations Meeting of cultures and nations is usually only successful when this encounter is the outcome of an initiative by civilian associations, supported by broad layers of the society. The four hundred people, who early in September 1945 established the Hungarian-French Association, were motivated by a respect and love of French culture. Prominent personalities of Hungarian cultural and political life were members of the new Association. Its chairman was Imre Oltványi, and the associate chairmen were Pál Auer, György Bölöni, Jenő Heltai, Artúr Kárász, Zoltán Kodály, István Ries, Albert Szen t-Györgyi and Géza Teleki.1 In enhancing cultural connections between the two countries and eliminating old prejudices, the establishment of the French-Hungarian Association, in Paris late in November 1945, had a great importance. The Association France-Hongrie participated in all events desirable and necessary for improving the positions of Hungarian culture, and exerted significant influence on behalf of Hungarian-French friendship.The Association organized a celebration on 15 March, in order to commemorate the anniversary of the 1848 Revolution and War of Independence, and gave a press reception on the occasion of the visit of Zoltán Tildy, President of the Republic of Hungary. Despite the relatively high activity of the Association, its potentials were not exploited to the full. One of the reasons for the inadequate efficiency was that no sufficient financial resources were at the disposal of the Association.2 Another reason was that the Association had few “real” French members. Szabad Szó, 13 September, 1945. UMKL-XIX-J-I-k. 1947-60514

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From a legal aspect, the Association France-Hongrie was a French organization, but its existence was the result of Hungarian initiatives, and the role of the French leadership was often a mere formality. They usually acted in cooperation with Legation Counsellor János Erős. The Association harmonically matched the program of the Democratic Association of Hungarians in France, and that of the Hungarian Institute. One of the great achievements of the Association was that they invited several celebrities of French culture to Hungary. As a result of their efforts Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Georges Altman and Louis Martin Chauffer carne to Budapest.3 Both Associations significantly contributed to the propagation of the values of literature and arts. Nagyvilág (The Wide World), edited by László Gereblyés and issued by the Hungarian-French Association, was particularly effective in this field. Magyarok, Irodalomtudomány, Válasz (The Answer), and Forum all joined Nagyvilág in the mission of relaying the values of French literature to the Hungarian readers.4 Local branches of the HungarianFrench Association carne into being, the first one being established in Debrecen in January 1946.5

3. Hungarian-American Association The Hungarian-American Association and its regional representatives played an important role in the supporting of Hungarian-American cultural connections and English-American studies in Hungary. The Chairman of the Association was Lipót Baranyai, and its Managing Secretary was János Lukács (John Lukacs).6 Out of the regional branches of the Association the ones in Kecskemét and Pestimre were the most successful. The Association placed great emphasis on English language education, and its courses in English were highly successful and popular. UMKL-XIX-J-I-k. 1947-62708/6 Szabad Szó, 10 December, 1945; A magyar irodalom története, 1945-1970, Irodalmi élet és irodalomkritika, Ed. Miklós Béládi. Budapest, 1981. p. 61. 5 Szabadság, 25 January, 1946. 6 UMKL-XIX-I-1e. 1946-96901. Information from John Lukacs (Prof. János Lukács’s letter to the author.); According to Tiszántúli Népszava, the Hungarian-American Association was established on 4 october, 1945. Its Chairman was Lipót Baranyai, and vice-chairperson was Anna Kéthly. Tiszántúli Népszava, 5 October, 1945. 3 4

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One of Hungary’s boy-scouts’ units chose the name of George Washington as its official name within the framework of the Association in the autumn of 1946. One of the honorary commanders of the boy-scout troop was Lt. General William Key. With the support of the HungarianAmerican Association, Hungaria Hírlap Press issued a selection of poems by “the most American poet,” Walt Whitman, a prophet of freedom and democracy, in the Hungarian translation of Zoltán Kesztelyi. On 4 July, 1947, the Hungarian edition of the Declaration of Independence was published by the same press. The translation was prepared and the introduction written by Managing Director János Vecseklőy. This event was significant from the aspect of the history of Hungarian press, as this was the first complete issue of the Declaration of Independence in Hungarian. In the autumn of 1946 the Hungarian-American Association launched a lecture course on the problems of democracy. The first lecture, entitled “American Democracy,” was delivered by E. Lewis Revey. The importance of the topic and the event was indicated by the presence of Arthur Shoenfeld, Ambassador of the United States. After Revey’s lecture some others followed: “Citizens and Democracy,” “Socialism and Democracy,” and “fascism and Democracy.” The lectures in topics of politics came to an end in the spring of 1947, which was not surprising - Hungary gave up political pluralism, and it was no longer desirable to approach and analyse politics in a way different from the ideas of the Party. It was still possible to organize politically neutral events in the second half of 1947. The Hungarian-American Association staged William Saroyan’s ‘The Time of Y our Life’in the Vígszínház Theatre in September 1947. The appearance of the President of the Republic and several of the staff of the Embassy of the United States increased the cultural diplomatic importance of the event. Anna Kéthly, Chairwoman of the Association at that time and outstanding personality of the Hungarian social democratic movement delivered an introductory address. In order to introduce American music in Hungary, the Hungarian-American Association launched a series of representational concerts, the opening event of which took place on 24 September, 1947. Selden Chopin, Ambassador of the United States to Hungary undertook the role of the honorary patron of the concerts. The first grand concert was held at the College of Music on II November, 1947. The repertoire included Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, Emest Block’s “Schelomo” and David Diamond’s “Rounds”. The Hungarian-American Association decided to organize a weekly club for its members, in addition to the large and representative lectures. 82

The clubs were at the library of the American Embassy every Tuesday. The purpose of the club was providing participants with an opportunity of learning about the life and institutions of the United States. A joint organization of the Hungarian-American Association and the Hungarian Radio was a series of radio plays, based upon writings by Thomton Wilder and Norman Corvin. The first of these plays was on the air on 9 April, 1947. On 18 February, 1947, Arnold Bidus, the famous American violin player had a concert under the auspices of the Hungarian-American Association at the Grand Hall of the Academy of Music. The solo and sonata evening of American pianist Eugene Liszt and violin player Dorroll Glenn took place on 7 May, 1947. The movie entitled “Rhapsody in Blue” was performed as a joint event of the Motion Pictures Export Association Inc. and the Hungarian-American Association on 13 May, 1947. Ambassador Schoenfeld attended the show. The Association organized a monthly movie show in the building of the Embassy, using cine films received from the States.7 In democratic societies non-govemmenta1 organizations come into being as a result of democratic initiatives. All such organizations were banned in Hungary by the end of 1949. The Hungarian-American Association could not have a possibi1ity in Hungary either. The main purpose of the Association was promoting Hungarian-American connections. As the “main enemy” of Hungary was the United States, such an organization became“dysfunctional.”No activities of such an association were needed during the period of a one-way cultural orientation.

4. Hungarian-English Association, Hungarian-Austrian Educational Association and Hungarian-Italian Association Such an organization was the Hungarian-English Association, established with Zoltán Kodály as its Chairman.8 The results were, however, different: whereas the Hungarian-American Association was active and successful, the Hungarian-British Association failed to occupy a central position in promoting Hungary’s relations with Great Britain. For an isolated Hungary in 1945 it was not easy to find the avenues UMKL-XIX-I-1e. 1948-244412; Magyar Nemzet, 6 July, 1947. UMKL-XIX-I. 1946-96901.

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of connection to the German culture. Late in the summer of 1945 the Hungarian-Austrian Educational Association was created. As the result of an initiative of the Council of Arts, the Hungarian-Austrian Educational Association was one of the first of such associations to come into being in August 1945. The Honorary Chairmen of the Association were Count Géza Teleki and József Kövágó. Author Sándor Márai was the Chairman, Aurél Bernáth, Sándor Veress, Gyula Ortutayand Gyula Szekfű were e1ected Vice-Chairmen. László Cs. Szabó was appointed Secretary General and Virgil Borbíró managing secretary.9 It was an indication that the Hungarian Government properly recognized that it was an e1ementary need for Hungary to maintain connections with the German-speaking countries. It was dictated by a perspective of common European development. Both the Hungarian cultural government and the whole of the civilian society were aware that the victorious allies did not intend to excommunicate German culture from universal human culture for all times. They also saw, on the other hand, the tremendous destruction Germany had been subjected to at the end of the war would prevent German people from occupying their due place in European culture for a long time. Hungarian cultural leaders therefore believed that the focus of German education would be shifted to Austria. Although·there were no political problems between Hungary and Italy, civilian organizations, so important in establishing cultural contacts with other countries, did not play any special role in the case of the Italian-Hungarian relations. A Hungarian-Italian Association had been functioning since 24 August, 1946, with Artúr Kárász as its Chairman. The activities of this Association, however, were much less efficient than those of the other bilateral associations.10 The Association launched a journal in Hungarian, entitled Itália. They also organized some cultural events, but these did not have a great significance in terms of cultural diplomacy. In Italy no particular importance was attached to such organizations, although the country was open to Hungarian connections and Hungarian culture. Italian indifference in this matter is indicated by the fact that they had not established an Italian-Hungarian Association by 1947.11 Szabad Szó, 31 August, 1945. UMKL-XIX-I-1e. 1946-96901 11 Magda Jászay:L’institutio Italiano di Cultura pev L’Ungeria. A magyar Olasz Kultúrintézet Róma 1991. p. 31. 9

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Jody Jensen Netizens of the Blogosphere: E-democracy or E-ristocracy?

The Birth of Cyber-Language Wikipedia defines the terms in the title of this piece as follows: A Netizen (a portmanteau of Internet and citizen) or cybercitizen is a person actively involved in online communities. Netizens use the Internet to engage in activities of extended social groups, such as giving and receiving viewpoints, furnishing information, fostering the Internet as an intellectual and a social resource, and making choices for the self-assembled communities. Generally, a netizen can be any user of the worldwide, unstructured forums of the Internet. The word “netizen” was coined by Michael Hauben. Netizens are Internet users who utilize the networks from their home, workplace, or school (among other places). Netizens try to be conducive to the Internet’s use and growth. Netizens, who use and know about the network of networks, usually have a self-imposed responsibility to make certain that it is improved in its development while encouraging free speech and open access. The term blogosphere was coined on September 10, 1999 by Brad L. Graham, as a joke. It was re-coined in 2002 by William Quick, and was quickly adopted and propagated by the warblog community. The term resembles the older word „logosphere” (from Greek logos meaning word, and sphere, interpreted as world), the „the world of words”, the universe of discourse. It also resembles the term „noosphere” (Greek nous meaning mind). As of 2007, a lot of people still treat the term blogosphere as a joke; however, the BBC, and National Public Radio’s programs „Morning Edition,” „Day To Day,” and „All Things Considered” have used the term several times to discuss public opinion. A number of media outlets in recent years have started treating the blogosphere as a gauge of public opinion, and it has been cited in both academic and non-academic work as evidence of rising or falling resistance to globalization, 85

voter fatigue, and many other phenomena, and also in reference to identifying influential bloggers and „familiar strangers” in the blogosphere. The Reorganization of Social and Political Space Globalization also entails global networks of social relationships, flows of meaning as well as people and goods. According to a series of articles in The Economist from 2006, the global digital age, besides provoking a plethora of new vocabulary, has profoundly impacted, among other things, the way people organize and conduct their social lives, the way we access information and news (now everyone can be a journalist, See, for example: www.indymedia.org, www.wearemorethanme.org, www. kuro5hin.org, www.ohmynews.com, www.wethemedia.com, www. instapundit.com ) and the way businesses do business. Today a new blog is created every second of every day, according to Technorati, a search engine for blogs, and the “blogosphere” is doubling in size every five months (see Graph 1). From teenagers to corporate executives, the new bloggers all have reasons of their own for engaging in this new pursuit. (The Economist. 2006. April 20. “It’s the Links, Stupid. Blogging is just another Word for having Conversations.”) Businesses are increasingly using the new technologies to provide customer services, marketing and public relations, and internal communications. At the same time, the alignment of the media, technology and political interests is also clear. Very recently, a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Report found that the percentage of Americans who go online regularly to find out about the presidential campaign has increased from 13% in 2004 to 24% percent for the 2008 elections. 42% of young adults, ages 18 to 29, use the Web as a primary source of news today, up from 20% in 2004. As a whole, nearly 25% of American adults regularly learn about campaign information from the Internet, up from 9% percent during the 2000 presidential campaign (The Economist: 2006. April 20. “It’s the Links, Stupid.Blogging is just another Word for having Conversations.”) Sometimes the media, technology and political constellation can provide the tools for better governance, by enabling a better informed citizenry. A very good example of this can be found at: www.earth911.com, which is a public-private partnership and the brainchild of a single, motivated citizen. 86

Manuel Castells has argued that the electronic media has become the “privileged space of politics.” Without an active presence in the media, political proposals or candidates do not stand a chance of gathering broad support. Media politics is not all politics, but all politics must go through the media to affect decision-making. So doing, politics is fundamentally framed, in its substance, organization, process, and leadership, by the inherent logic of the media system, particularly by the new electronic media. (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. The Power of Identity. Vol. 2. Blackwell. 1998, p. 317.) New Technologies and New Dangers But we should always keep in mind that the new media can also invent new ways to deceive and mislead through abuse and manipulation, promoting anti-cosmopolitan values and interests like nationalism, xenophobia and exclusion. A recent example of this reality was found during the investigations of “Terrorist 007,” an Islamic extremist who worked not just at the level of Al-Qaida propaganda, but actively created websites like ‹www.YouBombIt.com› and links for marketing and distributing Al-Qaida’s message. Students radicalized each other through the Internet terrorist propaganda machine where the whole world became a virtual terrorist training camp. “Terrorist 007” was finally located and arrested in England, after a nearly successful suicide bombing attack in Sarajevo last year which was planned and made operational on the Internet. A global network of terrorists, from Denmark, Canada, the US and Great Britain, were involved and as a result an American military spokesman acknowledged that fighting the internet war has become part of military strategy. This has grave consequences for freedom of speech on the net and questions whether people can be arrested for what they download, and not for what they actually do with the information. Freedom of speech and the new communications technologies is going to be an area of increasing debate and confrontation. Some scholars have observed that technology perpetuates antidemocratic power relations by eroding the social contexts for developing and expressing citizenship. It has also been observed that if the business of politics is increasingly conducted in virtual spaces, the new media presents new forms 87

of disenfrachisement from the political process because of the digital divide, i.e., not only in the lack of access to the new media but also in the lack of knowledge of how to exploit it effectively for political change. Simultaneously, the economic and political interests and aspirations of society exploit the new media technologies. This is visible in the use and development of cyberspace by new social movements and expanded social activism and advocacy by an emerging global civil society in the areas, for example, of environmental and citizens’ rights. Here, ‹www.McSpotlight.org› is a good example. In 1993, Joi Ito concluded that:“The monolithic media and its increasingly simplistic representation of the world cannot provide the competition of ideas necessary to building consensus.” One of the significant differences between the printed media and the web is that web-based conversations transcend geographical boundaries. They are also conversations (designed for both many-to-many and few-to-few), and not monologues or sermons (designed as one-to-many) (Joi Ito: 2003 April. “Emergent Democracy,” at: ‹http://joi.ito.com/static/emergentdemocracy.html›.) So far the traditional media has been slow to jump into the realm of blogs, but it can be predicted that this reluctance will quickly change and accelerate to engagement in the future, especially, if as Philip Meyer predicts the last reader will recycle the last newspaper in April 2040. (The Economist: 2006.April 20. “Compose yourself: Journalism too is becoming Interactive, and Maybe Better.”) The net has also become a sphere of new constellations of social relationships and social networking which have no overt political or economic motivations. You can see this in the expansion of such sites and services as Facebook and MeetUp. One question that arises is can virtual communities really constitute the basis for new forms of community in the digitalized age? The present openness of the new web technologies is not something to take for granted or to become complacent about. There are already expressed state and economic interests converging in efforts to control and govern access and content of what we have taken, until today, as being a free medium, open to all who have access to the technology. Challenges and Opportunities:Towards a Proletarian Cosmopolitanism? The era of participatory media provides challenges and opportunities, but also dangers. The designation of a potential global public sphere connoting forms of global communicational life (as oppose 88

to the designation of civil society with associational life) has been especially influential in media studies. This generates much debate about democratic participation and its limits in the new, globalized media and communications spaces. Some foresee the renaissance of the notion of a truly informed citizenry, others want to know who is being left outside the global conversations and why? Are we seeing the rise of a new, globalized, digitalized proletariate or the formation of new global elites who feel increasingly comfortable in digitalized, virtual worlds which are further distanced from the “real” life worlds of the majority? Transnational cultures have been, first and foremost, the realm of intellectuals who share, according to Alvin Goldner, a “culture of critical discourse.” There are increasing numbers, however, of students, activists, bureaucrats, politicians, journalists, diplomats, etc., that are transversing national boundaries and cultures through technology in a “ ‘Cambrian explosion’ of creativity: a flowering of expressive diversity on the scale of the eponymous proliferation of biological species 530m years ago.” Are we “entering an age of cultural richness and abundant choice that we’ve never seen before in history”? (The Economist: 2006. April 20. “Among the Audience.”) Cosmopolitanism, if viewed as a mode for managing meaning, entails a willingness and openness to become involved with the Other, in relationships to a plurality of cultures. For Cosmopolitans there is a value in diversity as such. Kai Hafez (Kai Hafez: 2007. The Myth of Media Globalization. Polity), for one, admits that people who spend a lot of time playing around in the global spaces of the internet can expand their knowledge of the world, but he questions the authenticity of these virtual encounters. Is the media that is being produced for local consumption, which speaks of other distant cultures and places, making everyone more cosmopolitan and promoting proto-global citizens? Is it possible to become a cosmopolitan without ever leaving home in virtual social, political and economic spaces? Does the power of the new media make everybody a little more cosmopolitan?

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Notes “It’s the Links, Stupid. Blogging is just another Word for having Conversations.” =The Economist. 2006. April 20. 2. ibidem. 3. Manuel Castells: Age: Economy, Society and Culture. =The Power of Identity. Vol. 2. Blackwell. 1998, p. 317. 4. Philip Meyer: “Compose yourself:Journalism too is becoming Interactive, and Maybe Better.” =The Economist: 2006. April 20. 5. Alvin Goldner: “Among the Audience.” =The Economist: 2006. April 20. 1.

Graph 1

“The blogs, and the “blogosphere” is doubling in size every five months”. Source: “It’s the Links, Stupid. Blogging is just another Word for having Conversations.” =The Economist. 2006. April 20.

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Leonidas Donskis Soviet Culture, Russian and Lithuanian Culture

Soviet culture revolved around the ambition of a nation of workers to create a new individual and an alternative civilization to the West – this endeavor failed, but left many unanswered questions in its wake. What was Soviet culture? Was it the same Russian culture, only ideologized to the extreme and transformed into a totalitarian project, or was it a completely new type of culture, erasing both history and traditions, and incompatible with anything that had existed prior to it? Perhaps it was simply an imperial culture seasoned with added radicalism due to Russia’s path to modernization and totalitarian order, or was it a new destructive neologism, eliminating first of all Russia, and then all the other nations and cultures that had fallen to its sphere of influence? There is no one, clear answer to these questions. If Soviet culture was indeed completely incompatible with the traditions of Russian and European culture, the question arises, why did the Soviets then still show no tolerance for the truly revolutionary proletarian cultural movement, which, had it only been allowed to gain momentum, would have simply wiped out all of the literature of the Russian golden and silver ages, not to mention the classics and canon of the West. Something similar to the absolute triumph of proletarian-cultural logic occurred during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when the old Confucian Chinese civilization and its cultural traditions were wiped away, like paint from a canvas, all in the name of revolutionary modernization. Later, the same Confucian cultural logic that had been pushed out the back door by the Communists, came back in through the window and legitimized the Communist Party as the new managerial class, but that is another story. Vladimir Lenin’s and Anatoly Lunacharsky’s tirades about the Soviet person, absorbing the very best that humanity has created, and adding to this cultural golden fund Soviet ideals of incomparable value testifies to the compromise which this, seemingly lethal, heroism and deathworshipping culture has made, in respect to the classics and the Western canon. It suffices to recall Lenin’s open admiration for Leo Tolstoy’s 91

novels, Ludwig van Beethoven’s sonatas, and the comparison of Tolstoy with a rock and the belief that there is nothing of greater beauty than Beethoven’s Appassionata. If we compare these classical tastes and orientation towards the ideas of artists and philosopher-modernists of Western Europe, such as Theodor W. Adorno’s evaluation of Beethoven’s music as the aestheticization of the bourgeois world, and the reconciliation of that world with, to use Adorno’s term, his affirmation, then Lenin in reality appears not as the great leader of the October Revolution and creator of the workers’ nation, but rather, as a small-league bourgeoisie, a stranger to real radicalism, change on a world-wide scale and the spirit of creative experimentation. In other words, this attempt by Lenin and other more highly-educated Bolsheviks to reconcile totalitarianism and the cultural canon was most likely what the Nazis called cultural-Bolshevism (Kulturbolschewismus), that is, the lack of radicalism and heroism when renouncing vital values and worshipping brute force. While this phenomenon was not only evidence of the parasitic effect of Soviet totalitarianism at the cost of European traditions, and its inability to provide any suitable antithesis, at the same time, it did save the Hermitage and other art galleries and libraries from physical destruction. Stalin, with his aesthetic tastes and evaluation of artworks, in no way reminds us of a leftist modernist (there were also right-leaning modernists – let us not forget the Italian Fascist artists). During the Second World War he was forced to rely on Sergey Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky to mobilize feelings of Russian patriotism, not to mention Eisenstein’s other film Ivan the Terrible, where Stalin undoubtedly recognized himself, symbolically incorporated into the tradition of Russian political might and the state’s history. After Lenin’s open renouncement of Tsarist Russia’s imperial patriotism, such sentiments expressed by Stalin appear at the very least strange, and can be evaluated as a covert return to traditions about the might of the old regime. This can also be likened to Stalin’s predilection for nightly listenings to the arias of famous Ukrainian tenor Ivan Kozlovsky, and other well-known opera singers of the time. So what was Soviet culture after all, which was meant to create the new Soviet person? A feeling for history and reality must first of all be lost, to determinedly state it was the sister of authentic modernism, even less so, avant-garde. Wonderful Russian modernism, which had no equal at the time in Europe, apart from French and Viennese modernism, 92

was literally murdered by the Bolsheviks. The emigration of Kandinsky, Malevich, Chagall and Rothko and their transformation into Western artists not only had the effect of saving their artworks (perhaps also their lives), but also shows what Russia may have become in a modern cultural context, had it not been subjected to a social and political catastrophe. Soviet culture was a strange amalgam of propaganda, revolutionary rhetoric, socialist realism, the remains of classical and modern Russian culture, allegorical art and writing between the lines, that is, Aesopian language, in which, as described by Milan Kundera, political and ideological kitsch coexisted alongside talented artists and grandiose cultural expression. If the strangest feature of Soviet culture had to be identified, I would undoubtedly have to mention the following parallel yet non-converging realities: Alexander Dovzhenko’s Soviet propaganda kitch film-studio productions and mass culture at one pole, and geniuses, such as Andrey Tarkovsky or Sergey Parajanov, at the other; Mikhail Shatrov’s hopeless revolutionary plays about Lenin at one end of the spectrum, and at the other, Georgian theatre director Robert Sturua, who innovatively brought Shakespeare’s tragedies to the stage, and who on the occasion of its Moscow premiere, had to listen to a fraught Shatrov defend his own authored play. The existence of these parallel realities, allegedly representing the same Soviet culture, is in fact its greatest paradox. A factured and continually reasserting identity, always producing something different to what existed before, was typical among many participants in the Soviet project – at one stage the continuity of great Russian culture and traditions was highlighted, concurrent with the advance of the new, that is, Soviet, whose cultural character was incompatible with the old monarchial Russian life, the oppression of other nations, etc... Indeed, it remains unclear, what held Soviet culture, if it ever existed, together. Was it the forcible and ideological “alliance of nations,” or expressions of the sometimes authentic multi-national Soviet Empire’s internationalism? When Russian film master Grigory Kozintsev created his immortal television versions of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Hamlet (1964) and King Lear (1970), he consciously invited actors from the Baltic countries, allowing them to speak Russian with an accent without dubbing voiceovers. To add, both films were filmed by the great Lithuanian cinematographer, Jonas Gricius. Are these mere coincidences? Perhaps the Russian master simply needed Western characters? Or maybe no – instead it may have been his 93

conscious desire to raise the status of his colleagues from other nations to take on the roles about which the cultural representatives of his own nation could only dream of. Or is it more the becoming of the Baltic nations as the Other in the consciousness and imagination of Russians? Baltic country actors, appeared as Westerners, but were the same as the rest. In fact, sometimes there was no love lost for the greater fatherland (even more specifically, they were lost between a state of odi et amo and tortured by a love-hate ambivalence), but all the same, they were not strangers. Perhaps this is the root of the painful question directed towards Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, often asked by simple Russians: why do you dislike us so? More so, perhaps this is the origin of the most chauvinistic of today’s Russian political groupings’ hate for the small Baltic countries, founded on the belief that they betrayed the great nation’s geopolitical interests and rejected its historical friendship? Of course, the memorable role of the Lithuanian film actor Donatas Banionis in Andrey Tarkovsky’s Solaris, as well as the impressive ensemble of Baltic cinema masters in Grigory Kozintsev’s films reach the greatest heights of Russian culture, and are not a typical case of Soviet culture. In Soviet films meant for mass consumption, actors from Lithuania and the other two Baltic countries were more often assigned to take on the roles of Nazi Germany’s officers, or American CIA agents (in other words, historical and ideological enemies). It is no wonder that the recent Estonian documentary film The Fritzes and the Blondes reveals an interesting phenomenon – the continual assignment of Nazi roles to Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian actors eventually allowed the regime to project the image of the Baltic countries as being enemies and fascists. This provocative Estonian film has already received a strong reaction in Estonia, but has undoubtedly raised a problem worthy of analysis in post-colonial studies. So, Soviet culture has a mix of everything – the grandeur and universalism of Russian culture not extinguished during Soviet times, authentic internationalism (which appears to have vanished from contemporary Russian culture), as well as combative, yet fruitless propaganda, artworks of little value, caricatures of high art, and a deformed black and white social optical image of the world. One thing raises no doubts – this culture did not produce anything close to a new person. Just as it never became an effective alternative to the West. Soviet modernization (just like the no more or no less terrible and 94

brutal Chinese modernization) created modernity without freedom, or, paraphrasing the catch-cry of the 1960’s generation after Nikita Khrushchev’s Thaw policy, modernity without a human face. George Orwell’s prophecy had come true, that all totalitarian revolutions are destined to become the longest road leading from one form of oppression and exploitation to the next. Or a transformation from one form of capitalism to another that is even more savage. Yet the most beautiful aspect of Soviet culture were the everyday cares, objects, nostalgia and memories that survived and were fiercely defended in the films, plays and books from Russia and other nations (just as Winston Smith found in Orwell’s 1984). Eldar Riazanov, Georgy Danelia, Mark Zakharov and their warm, humanistic films were nothing else than evidence of the longing for modernity with a human face. Most likely the same could be said about the great moments of Lithuanian culture from the Soviet period.

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CALL FOR ENTRIES GIPSY – LIFE II. DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM FESTIVAL II. Central European Short Documentary and Report Films Festival about the Romany Budapest, 9 May, 2009 (Saturday) Location: Bem Art Cinema, Budapest, Hungary

Goals of the festival: The Central European Roma Short Documentary and Report Films Festival primarily aims at facilitating a recognition and a better understanding of the Roma culture, providing a realistic image of the situation of the minority and its relation to the majority culture. It documents the complex reality of the Roma culture and its system of traditions, its set of values, its everyday life, and reveals the inevitable effects that emerge from these. With the help of the short films we are looking for answers to such questions as how historical tradition and the course of contemporary life affects Roma families and their coexistence with the majority nation, and what are the possibilities and limitations of integration from the point of view of members of the minority. The goal of the films festival is to raise awareness to the problems of the Romany and the difficulties of Roma–non-Roma coexistence, since the unresolved and ever graver problems keep widening the gap between them throughout Europe. Fear and threat of violence are growing among those standing on opposite sides of the gap, which can easily lead to the development of explosive social conflicts. Further aim of the organizers is to call the attention of policymakers and responsible intellectuals to the problems of the Roma and the hardships of Roma–non-Roma coexistence. 96

Application requirements: As a Central European festival, applicants are awaited from the following countries: the Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Ukraine-Ruthenia. Documentary short subjects and report films not longer than 15 minutes, conforming to the above declared objectives of the organizers are welcome. Please make all submissions in DVD format. Applicants are kindly requested to attach English and/or Hungarian texts (typed separately) or provide the film with subtitles. By the assessment of the works we regard realistic depiction, capturing of everyday life, seeking for factual evidence, spontaneity and overall impact very important. The organizers are awaiting works which accommodate the high standards of motion picture portrayal, but are not composed feature films. The works should contribute to the acknowledgement and understanding of the Roma way of life in their language, phrasing, and their manner of depiction. The organizers wish to screen films that are socially, politically and culturally sensitive and mirror individual perspective. We are awaiting documentaries, report films and sociographic works that convey a true image of a segment of Roma life and with the help of which we can better understand the life of the Romany. Amateur filmmakers, students or professional filmmakers can equally participate, irrespective of the fact whether their works have or have not been already screened or broadcast on any television channel, cinema or public screening. Participants can apply with a maximum of three films per studio, where individual works cannot exceed 15 minutes in length. Feature films, films based on imaginary or fictitious material, and films already presented at alternative festivals are excluded. Works cannot be longer than max.15 minutes and more than 4 years old. Application deadline: 1 April 2009 Participating short films are judged by a preliminary jury. The 100 best works are going to be screened in the course of the one-day Festival, and going to be broadcast on national Hungarian and Central European television channels. Films are going to be assessed by an international group of judges, awarding the most remarkable pieces. 97

The awards will be assigned as the highlight of a gala event with the participation of the media. Further information and application forms at: www.sisza.hu

www.docfilm.hu

Phone: 00-36-209173102

or

[email protected] tel: 00-36-302317695

Please send the film to the following address: SISZA Ltd 1124 Budapest Németvölgyi út 69/a. Hungary

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CALL FOR PAPERS Europeanization of National Politics Conference of CENTRAL EUROPEAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 2nd to 5th October 2008, Opatija, Croatia Dear CEPSA Executive Committee Members, Dear Colleagues! We would like to draw your attention once more to CEPSA Annual Conference 2008, which will take place in Opatija, October 3-4, 2008, following the Croatian Political Science Conference) and the Call for Papers linked with for further details and application procedure: http://www.politologija.hr/konferencije.php?konf=2 Below we add again the information sent by our Croatian colleagues and forwarded to you by the end of January. CEPSA Conference will be separated in three panels, centred round the general topic“Europeanization of National Politics”, which we consider as an important theme for CEPSA. Although the deadline has been postponed meanwhile until June 2, we have asked our Croatian colleagues to further defer it (we suggested at least end of June - three month before the conference). We hope this will enable more scholars from CEPSA member countries to contribute. Since joint effort will help to improve participation of scholars and representatives from CEPSA member countries, we would be grateful, if you could forward respective information also to your colleagues and encourage them to apply for the conference. Thank you for your support! Concerning the annual Executive Committee Meeting we suggest to split it into two parts: a shorter meeting on Thursday (October 2) late 99

afternoon and a longer working session scheduled after the closing session of CEPSA conference on Saturday (October 4). We’ll come back to you with concrete information regarding the schedule as soon as possible and hope that we will meet you all in Opatija. We would also appreciate if you could inform us in advance about topics you wish to add to the agenda Thank you again for your co-operation. Cordial regards Silvia and Karin Karin Liebhart Political Science Department, University of Vienna Universitätsstrasse 7/2 A-1010 Vienna T: +43/1/4277/47739 F: +43/1/4277/9477 [email protected]

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Europeanization of National Politics Conference of CEPSA CENTRAL EUROPEAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 2nd to 5th October 2008, Opatija, Croatia

The general topic of the conference is “Europeanization of National Politics”. The topic is broad enough to satisfy scientific and research interests of different sub-disciplines of political science and in the same time equally interesting to political scientists from EU as well as from countries that are still in the process of accession. However, the general topic would split into three panels: Panel 1: Ideas, Symbols and Identities; Panel 2: Political Institutions; Panel 3: Public Policy. Panel 1: Ideas, Symbols and Identities The CEPSA conference welcomes proposals on a wide range of topics related to the effects of Europeanization with regard to history of political ideas, ideologies, development of supranational, national, regional or local identities, nationalism, symbolic politics, ethnic conflicts, state-building and citizenship in Central Europe.The conference also features a section devoted to theoretical approaches to nationalism within any of the fields listed above. We are interested in comparative and case-studies of the politics of identity and symbols related to the transition and the EU accession process of Central European states and nations. We are tending to focus our research towards the further questions: How the transition from dictatorship towards democracy reflected on the politics of symbols? Which politics of national identity stimulates and which constipates the Euro-integration processes? What is the relationship between the supranational, national and sub-national identities? How the politics of symbols and national identity reflects on the classical division of political parties on the right and on the left? How process of Europeanization affects the relation between national and religious identity? 101

A special problem is related to Europeanization and the contemporary concept of democracy. Does Europeanization advances or ruins the concept of representative democracy as developed by national democratic polities? Does European Union needs a radically different concept of citizenship and what is the relationship between new demands and the existing concept of citizenship? How Europeanization already changed democratic citizenship and the principles of representative democracy? In the field of national identities and the politics of symbols, we are also interested in new trends in media representations, the role of media in (re)creating collective memories and identities, extreme political rhetoric in post-communist societies, as well as in the retrospective look on the collapse of communism; the Glasnost and the revitalization of the public sphere as contributing factors to the collapse of communist regimes; media censorship and prosecution of free speech in communist and post-communist societies; dissident media channels and practices in former communist countries. The papers in this section do not need to be grounded in the area of CEPSA, provided that the issues examined are relevant to a truly comparative understanding of nationalism-related issues. In this vein, we are welcoming theory-focused and comparative proposals, as well as specific case studies from Central and Eastern Europe. A dozen of panels are expected to be featured in the panel (Tihomir Cipek, Ph.D). Panel 2: Political Institutions One aspect of the process of the Europeanization of national politics in the new member-states or in the candidate-states refers to the established democratic political institutions, changes in their operation, and adaptation. Both formal and informal institutions as well as actors and processes that are bounded by such institutional networks are exposed to the process of Europeanization, yet some of them are more and the other less affected by the process itself. The panel includes research reports that range from the analysis of national constitutional designs, parliamentary and executive branches of government, through parties and party systems, electoral behaviour and administrative state structures to the civic institutional networks. Papers can deal with the changes in the formal 102

structures of the democratic institutions as well as with the changes of the established collective patterns of the political behaviour. What are direct and what indirect effects of the process of Europeanization on political institutions of the national political systems? Does the Europeanization process affect national democratic institutions differently during the process of accession and after the accession? Could differences be explained more by timing or sequence of accession or more by the institutional structure of discrete political systems? To what extent the supranational Panel 3: Public Policies In order to fully understand the possible effects of Europeanization in Central European member and would-be member countries one has to take into consideration at least four macro-dynamic pillars, including not just EU single market and EMU, but also regulatory competition in Europe and the process of enlargement. The third pillar means that Europeanization is not simply the product of widening in the array of policies performed in Brussels. It also includes market-driven process, including various forms of regulatory competition between countries, showing that the adjustment of national public policies is not just to fit to EU standards but as well to market dynamic forced by globalization processes. The fourth pillar shows that EU was trying to export the acquis communautaire. But what was left for national governments in policy-making process? In his famous book on political system of the EU Simon Hix suggests that supranational level in Brussels sets over 80 per cent of the legislations governing economic matters in member states. Many studies call into question such an estimate, decreasing the real impact of EU level on national legislation to more moderate levels, but nevertheless we are faced with the fact that supranational level became dependable prerequisite for understanding policy-making in member and wouldbe member countries. In trying to understand the possible impact of EU policy-making on national administrative structures and public policy regimes it is very helpful to connect patterns of governance with particular types of 103

policies. One of the early efforts to use such an approach was made by the German political scientist Christoph Knill who explored the Europeanization of national administrations through patterns of institutional change and persistence. Connecting modes of governance and types of policies he concluded that there are three possible outcomes of Europeanization, ranging from strict compliance with EU institutional requirements, through changes in domestic opportunity structures, aimed at excluding certain options as national policy choices (covering numerous examples of negative integration, e.g. marketmaking rules), to changes in domestic beliefs and expectations, as a third and weakest form of European policies’ impact. Last form opens the space for the various kinds of policy transfers from other countries, increasing the probability for policy convergence between EU member states (Zdravko Petak, Ph.D.). Papers are now invited for presentation to this conference, convened by the CEPSA and hosted by the Croatian Political Science Association (CPSA) and Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia). Those wishing to attend the conference and to present a paper should apply on the web page of Croatian Political Science Association, by filling out the Application form. The application, including the topic of the presentation and a summary (title and a 100-200 words abstract) should be sent no later than May 1st, 2008. Your application and participation are earnestly expected. Professor Branko Caratan CEPSA President www.politologija.hr

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CALL FOR PAPER ARMED FORCES AND SOCIETY: NEW CHALLENGES AND ENVIRONMENTS — TOWARD A GARRISON STATE OR MORE OF THE SAME? The Research Committee on Armed Forces and Society of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) will hold its triennial international and interdisciplinary conference in Santiago, Chile, 26-28 June 2008.

Guantanamo Bay and “terrorist prisons” in Central Europe? The 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin-towers helped generate substantial change in national security and civil-military relations. The changes are numerous, some easily detectable and others more opaque. While civilian and military authorities in consolidated democracies are seeking to define their relationship in the new setting, overt or covert military intervention seems to have re-appeared in some countries. The once authoritarian but weak African state remains authoritarian but has now acquired the means to “catch” the terrorists. Heelers have turned bomb throwers, national security is being privatized, and well-armed and sophisticated armies cannot provide for individual security. Presidents opposed to globalization have taken power in Latin America and demographic problems are forcing governments in Europe and Asia to grapple with immigration and the potential impact on state and societal security. Grinding poverty is pushing the have-nots to illegal activity and delinquency, prompting governments to use the military to fight crime and gang-related violence. Guantanamo Bay and “terrorist prisons” in Central Europe are raising red flags as far as human rights and constitutional protections are concerned. 105

Finally, environmental degradation is no longer an avocation for greens and futurologists, but a pressing issue that can affect state, societal, and individual security. These developments seem to occur while globalization is marching on and democratization has slowed. Concerns such as these as well and other related issues beg scholarly attention and scrutiny. The organizing committee invites paper and entire panel proposals. To inquire about the conference, Contact Dr. Ricardo Israel [email protected] at [email protected]

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CALL FOR APPLICATION „Global Shift and the Return of Central Europe” XIIIth Annual Savaria International Summer University Europe House Kőszeg, Hungary Application Deadline is June 2, 2008. Notification of acceptance is June 9, 2008. Without a shift in our mindsets and behaviour, the future of humanity on planet earth is jeopardized. Failure to take action now will create severe conflicts in the decades ahead. • How do small states react to global transformations? • What role does regional cooperation and European integration play? • How can we turn crises into successes? These are the questions addressed in the first week of the XIIIth Annual SISU. This year we will pay special attention to the topics of: the independence of Kosovo and its implications in the regions of South Eastern and East Central Europe; and to the new role Turkey can play in European integration and the realization of the European neighbourhood policy. The “return” of Central Europe to Europe occurred at the same moment as an historic shift which necessitates a “new script”, a new vision, for the entire EU and for its historic regions. The language of the Summer University is English. Application Deadline is June 2, 2008. Notification of acceptance is June 9, 2008., Total Cost of the Summer University is: 800 Euro. This includes registration + tuition + materials, accommodation + meals. Limited scholarships are available up to 400 Euro. 5 ECTS credits will be granted to participants who complete the full course, make a presentation and write a 15 page research paper. 107

Invited Guest Lecturers: Ahmet Evin, Sabanci University, Istanbul; András Blahó, Corvinus University, Budapest; Atila Eralp, METU, Ankara; Attila Fábián, University of West Hungary, Sopron; Attila Pók, Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; Elemér Hankiss, Institute of Political Sciences, HAS, Budapest; Ervin László, Budapest Club, Toscana; Ferenc Miszlivetz, Director of ISES and SISU, Szombathely-Kőszeg, HAS, Budapest; George Schöpflin, Member of the European Parliament, University College of London, Tallin, Budapest; Guy Vanhaeverbeke, TEPSA, Brussels ; James Malachy Skelly, University of Ulster, Derry; Jody P. Jensen, Institute of Political Sciences, HAS, Budapest, ISES, Kőszeg; Katalin Bogyay, State Secretary, Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture, Budapest; Kati Marton, Author, New York; Mitja Zagar, University of Ljubljana; Noémi Lendvai, ISES Kőszeg-Szombathely; Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the United Nations; Richard Madsen, University of California, San Diego; Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, New York; Slobodan Markovic, University of Belgrade; Sonja Licht, President of Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, Belgrade; Thomas Glaser, Former Head of Communications at the EU Delegation in Budapest; Tibor Palánkai, Corvinus University, Budapest; Zoltán Pogátsa, ISES Kőszeg-Szombathely.

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BOOK REVIEW Assessing Intergenerational Equity -

An Interdisciplinary Study of Aging and Pension Reform in Hungary Edited by R.I. Gál – I. Iwasaki – Zs. Széman Published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2008. by Péter Tamási In aging societies, as in most of the countries in Europe, the pension systems seem to signal the coming of a collapse, especially at the time when the baby-boom generation will retire. Due to progress in medicine, technology and living conditions, life expectancy is increasing, while for mainly psychological and social reasons fertility is decreasing; as a consequence, the active cohorts contributing to the pension funds of the pay-as-you-go systems are getting smaller. However, the issues of intergenerational equity consist not only of the simple question of the equilibrium of contributions and pensions paid out, but also of more comprehensive interrelations among the social subsystems of industrialised societies. In the pre-industrial age intergenerational reallocation was realised within the family, but with the emergence of industrialised nations, this was raised to the level of society. In modern societies there are four closely interrelated subsystems, namely: social benefits relating to child raising, education, health care and pensions. When changing one of them, the other three should also be taken into account. Only in this way can intergenerational equity be treated properly. Sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Science of Japan, a top-priority research project on intergenerational equity was launched by the Tokyo based Institute of Economic Research of the Hitotsubashi University. Based on both theoretical and empirical analyses, the project’s main objective was “to set options for the fair distribution of well-being among different generations”. It also extended examinations 109

to the social security systems of the Central and East European countries where following the systemic change the social safety nets became seriously damaged. To repair this damage, reforms were needed. Some of these reforms were successful, others failed, while many of them have only existed on paper and have never been introduced. It was this international context that Hungary came into the picture. The volume entitled Assessing Intergenerational Equity – An Interdisciplinary Study of Aging and Pension Reform in Hungary is a collection of studies written in the frame of the Japanese international project on intergenerational equity. The book is focusing on three main topics, namely: aging population, the pension reform, and some issues of intergenerational equity in Hungary. However, under the title of Part III, namely “Intergenerational Equity”, it is again the pension system that is mainly treated, though from a different perspective. One has the feeling that the main title of the book promises a wider covering than is actually dealt with in the book. True, the subtitle is in harmony with the content. Apart from a few shortcomings (missing unit of measurement in some figures, logic of listing the countries in some tables) and inconsistencies (e.g. use of comma with numbers over thousand, the use of % versus its written out form), the book is well edited, which – together with the well designed layout – helps the reader to get through the book easily. The studies are very valuable, cover a wide range of the issues related to the Hungarian pension system and reforms from different angles (economic, historical, and sociological). Hungary established its pension system in 1929, but this funded system collapsed during the time of World War II. The new pay-as-you-go public pension system was initiated in 1949 and by the mid-1980s it reached about 100% coverage of the working population. This system was then reformed in 1998 to become a three-pillar system. Due to political reasons, however, the reform has not proceeded in the way it should have to. The aging of the population is causing serious adjustment problems; it is going to upset the balance of the pension system, so steps should be urgently taken to avoid the collapse of the system. To achieve the best results, multidisciplinary studies are needed to search for the right solutions. This book is a valuable contribution to seeking solutions for the problems. The first part of the book is devoted to the topic of aging. Within this, László Hablicsek is dealing with the current and future demographic developments. Analysing the interrelations among 110

fertility, life expectancy, the age structure and international migration primarily in the EU countries, and with especial attention to the ten new member states having joined the EU in 2004, he comes to the following conclusions. Contrary to the view widely held, there will not be a decrease in the European population up to 2020. And this holds true despite the fact that fertility is low, because migration and longer life expectancy counterbalances low fertility. At the same time, increased life expectancy leads to the acceleration of the aging process which, in his view, is only at its early stage and will come to full swing when the baby-boom cohorts will enter into old age. At that time, every third person will belong to the elderly people, which will suddenly and remarkably increase the dependency ratio. This is all the more a problem, as the young generations, due to longer education period, enter the labour market later and postpone the founding of a family. Hablicsek holds that population aging is not a harmful process one should fight against, it is a simple consequence of the first and second demographic transitions. In the second chapter of the first part, Zsuzsa Széman and Csaba Kucsera are studying the changing social perceptions of older people, of aging in Hungary. They base their analysis on representative surveys carried out in 1982, 1989 and 2004. Following the change of the social system from socialism where everybody had a workplace, a great number of people lost their jobs, unemployment was sharply rising. The government at the time tried to decrease unemployment also by various early retirement schemes. Though these people were only in their fifties, policy-makers treated them as old people because they went on pension. This study, however, found that public opinion made a strict distinction between working age pensioners and the really old people. This is perfectly all right, as these two groups can be clearly differentiated by sociological characteristics. The third chapter in part one, by Zsuzsa Széman and László Harsányi, is dealing with social aging. In the authors’ definition, this term refers to the proportion of pensioners within the population and is strongly related to early retirement and labour market processes. As already mentioned, the first democratic Hungarian government following the systemic change introduced early retirement schemes to ease unemployment. One was called anticipatory, the other pre-retirement retirement. The first one was made available for unemployed older workers, whereas the second gave an opportunity for firms to discharge their workers in a 111

humane way if they were within five years from retirement age. Although these were understandable steps for employment policy reasons, they substantially increased the number of pensioners. In addition, the process of going on disability pension was not controlled properly, and so tens of thousands of employees made use of this opportunity. Later there were various attempts to return working age pensioners to the labour market and the pensionable age was also raised, but these measures had only limited effects. In the short run the early retirement schemes greatly contributed to social aging. The second part of the book is studying the Hungarian pension reforms. Its first chapter (i.e. Chapter 4) by András Simonovits is examining the first pillar of the Hungarian pay-as-you-go pension system. For a long time, from the beginning of the post-World War Two period, the Hungarian system was based on one pillar until 1998, when the socialist–liberal government then in power introduced a multi-pillar (i.e. mixed) pension system. This was meant to realise a partial and stepby-step privatisation of the pay-as-you-go public pension system and a concomitant modernisation of the public pillar. And this also meant the introduction of a second (mandatory private), and a third (voluntary) pillar. These reforms were badly needed because the then existing pension system seemed unsustainable in the long run. After the 1998 elections a conservative government came into power which reduced the pension and health contribution rates, without, however, having funds for compensating for this reduction. As a result, members of the mixed system suffered losses, without any compensation, which practically meant the unilateral renunciation of the former government’s long term contract. Since the public pillar will for a long time remain far the most important, it is essential that it should function well and be well co-ordinated with the second and third pillars. And what is perhaps the most important: pension systems are long-term systems that should not be exposed to short-term political or electoral considerations. The second chapter in this part, namely Chapter 5 by Ichiro Iwasaki and Kazuko Sato, is examining the so-called second pillar of the Hungarian pension system, which is practically a mandatory private pension scheme. The introduction of this scheme – together with the so-called third pillar, which is to be discussed in the next chapter – meant the essence of the reformation of the Hungarian pension system. In other words, it was meant to be the beginning of the partial privatisation of the system. It 112

was planned that at first only 6% of the contribution would go to the private funds, which share would have gone up to about one quarter in the course of the years. However, as already mentioned, for political reasons employees’ contributions to the private funds were frozen at 6%. Moreover, although there have been many private pension funds one could choose from, compared to international standards most of them had a quite weak asset management performance until 2003 (later they improved). The authors conclude that this private pillar can only remain sustainable if corporate governance reforms and the reinforcement of the monitoring system will be effected. There have been several measures taken to improve the situation, still, the efficiency and the transparency of the private pension fund system should be greatly improved. It is also a serious problem closely related to this issue that the whole pension system suffers from political instability due to fierce political rivalry. The next chapter by Ágnes Matits (Chapter 6) analyses the third pillar of the Hungarian pension system: the voluntary pension funds. The first such funds were established in 1993, but until the pension reform in 1998 they hardly developed due, perhaps, to lack of information and/ or distrust. People’s interest in them started to grow after the reform had been initiated. Both participation in as well as contribution to these funds are voluntary. They are helped by the government through tax allowances. Employers and employees alike can pay such contributions. It is meant to be a supplementary pillar. Like in the case of the second pillar, efficiency and transparency cause the most problems here too. It is also important that people should learn what self-provision means. People who were bought up in the socialist system are not familiar with this term, so they cannot be expected to act accordingly. It should also be taken into account that an instable economic environment can endanger the private pension funds, and if they are not able to perform well for years, people will turn away from them. The title of Part III is Intergenerational Equity. Its first chapter (i.e. Chapter 7) by Róbert Iván Gál and Géza Tarcali is dealing with the relationship between the Hungarian pension reform and intergenerational redistribution. After giving a short history of the Hungarian pension system, the authors – using generational accounting – analyse the long-term impacts of the pension reform. They come to the conclusion that there is a significant redistribution in favour of the first generations who enter the system. For later cohorts the advantage 113

is decreasing, but it still remains “profitable” up to the now 70-year-olds. From that point on, however, each year-group suffers losses. The largest net lifetime contributors are the ones who were born between 1940 and 1955, for the younger generations the loss is continually decreasing. In other words, as a result of the 1998 pension reform, the cohorts now are living pay for the costs of intergenerational redistribution. The next chapter (i.e. Chapter 8) by Mária Augusztinovics and János Köllő investigates the effects of labour market trends on expected pensions in Hungary. As the pay-as-you-go public pension system is dependent upon the number of employed people, following the systemic change the Hungarian pension system – under the dual pressure of decreasing employment and increasing number of pensioners due to the early retirement schemes – came into a critical situation. Thus, changes had to be introduced which were implemented in the 1998 pension reform. As a result of these changes, however, for the employees who are going to retire in the next one and a half decades the situation is not very promising. Especially for those who are evading the pension contributions and thus will not be eligible for pensions or will receive a low entry pension. Their situation will be all the more problematic, as declining relative pensions can be expected over the retirement span for a long time to come. Chapter 9, the last chapter of Part III by András Gábos – Róbert Iván – Gábor Kézdi, analyses the fertility effects of the pension system as well as other intergenerational transfers. These “transfers” were made in traditional societies within the extended family. In modern societies, however, the greatest part of such transfers flow among generations of a society. In this context the chapter examines the discrepancy between the consumption path and the income path of the life-cycle, which stems from the fact that children and the elderly are also consumers, but they only produce income in their active period. Thus there must be transfers from the active people to children on the one hand, and to the elderly on the other. Restricting their analysis to public cash transfers, i.e. excluding in-kind transfers like education and health care, the authors have concluded that there is a strong effect of family benefits and pensions as intergenerational transfers on fertility. The book is valuable reading for all those who are interested in the Hungarian pension system and its problems. The reader gets an insight into various details from different angles. It is a highly recommended reading for professionals, researchers and laymen alike. 114

ABSTRACTS Ashok Kumar Upadhyay: Multiculturalism as Political Concern What brings cultural studies in social discourse? What is multiculturalism all about? What are the different stages of philosophical frame work for its development? How does it see the concepts like identity, social justice and feminism? Culture is an activity, which is originally derived from nature, and is perhaps one of the most complicated words. Intellectual development refers to the capacity of considered moral judgment for taking a decision to make a workable choice. However, this is not the complete statement about the life of a free individual. It becomes multi-culturalist and the follower of multiculturalism when it publicly declares through policy and legislations that all cultures are equal in their capacity and substance. Multiculturalism is the interplay between the three basic insights of culture. There is a significant link between identity of a person and his community. It also gains the support of all minority groups by recognizing their uniqueness and by providing them importance in public sphere. This helps in bringing the political obligation towards the democratic Social Order. Jesús de Andrés Sanz and Rubén Ruiz Ramas: Institutions and political regime in Putin’s Russia: an analysis The article analyzes four main elements in the institutionalization of the Russian political system (executive, legislative, party system and the informal influence of elite groups) during the two presidential terms of Vladimir Putin. This analysis will allow us to contribute to a controversial debate: Under Putin’s rule was there more change or more continuity in the Russian political regime? The hypothesis supported points out that Putin has achieved consolidation and stabilization of a political project that Yeltsin failed to materialize, a project which was devised in the Russian Constitution of 1993. As a consequence, the author’s position is that Putin’s period has not meant a change in direction of Russia’s democratization, but it has produced the consolidation of a hybrid political regime. 115

Peter Szigeti and Ibolya Vincze: Politics and Political Action – Some Remarks to the Theory of Political Power Every period of civil society is followed by the dualism of socio-economic and political power. The thematization of Karl Marx and Max Weber, which are significantly different from each other but both use objective and subjective factors (Klassenherrschaft: Herrschaft – Macht), has mental superiority to the monistic elite-theories. The exercise of power is detached to the regime. In the process of globalization, between the dominance relationships of world systems global order prevails above the nation states in such a way, that the correlation of institutionalization of the organizational (WB, WTO, OECD, IMF, Transnational investors services) , normative-legislative, ideological (Washington consensus) of the super structure and that of the nation-state level actors can both be seen. The latter playing the functional complementary role in the steering of politics, which takes place without a Global Governance (J. Stiglitz). György Schöpflin: Minorities, Citizenship and Europe At the heart of the problem of minorities is the failure of democratic theory and forms of citizenship to develop an adequate response to collectivities which have a different ethnic identity to that of the ethnic majority. The argument in this paper is that historic minorities, by virtue of their temporal and spatial qualities and historically defined status, demand special consideration. They are equal citizens in formal, but seldom in real terms, in that they are subject to various disabilities politically, sometimes economically, certainly culturally, e.g. their access to tertiary education is often well below that of the majority. Perhaps more than anything else, with respect to their moral equality, as equal members of the moral community of citizens, they suffer discrimination in that they lack the same capacity for voice, for input into the discursive capital of the majority or even full access to the goods of the state. Csaba Varga At the Crossroads of Civil Obedience and Disobedience (A Case Study of a Moment of Constitutional Impotence in Hungary) Two cases are confronted in the essay, showing the political partisanship of both the intellectuals and the media in situations of political divide, the 116

taxi-blockade of October, 1990, falsely qualified to be an instance of civil disobedience but enforced to end by granting blockaders mercy, and the dismantling of the cordon fencing around the parliament building in February, 2007, falsely refuted to be an instance of civil disobedience but unreacted in law to this very day. In the first one, gasoline price policy of the government was at stake, in the second one, the constitutional impasse of protesting against police restrictions of the popular protest. The legal analysis of civil disobedience, performed by the author in 1990 and renewed in 2007 as well, is then contrasted by weighing the chances of civil obedience under the conditions of constitutional impotence. The outcome is to show that rule of law committed on paper and used in official rhetorics does not imply automatically that claims under the rule of law can be easily implemented in practice. József N. Szabó: The Role of the Hungarian Non-governmental Participants in the Diplomatic Connections with the Western Countries /1945-1948/ Non-government bodies, especially civilian organizations, undertook a very important role in Hungary’s breaking out of international isolation and opening Hungarian culture to the outside world. In the new democratic atmosphere after the world war people made use of the opportunities and established a wide variety of organizations. The democratic professionals fully recognized the danger of isolation of country after the war so they wanted to find arguments that reduced the responsibility of Hungary for the war. They were established by and consisted of professionals, but their membership usually also reflected the pluralism of society. The professional elite - scientists, artists and writers - felt particularly responsible for the future of the nation in the postwar era when a new world order was taking shape. All actions and efforts of the civilian organizations, the cultural and scientific events, emphasized the universality of human civilization, the need of cooperation, the friendship of nations and the shared humanistic values. Educational and cultural associations and societies, however, did not confine their activities to culture and science. They sought for, and found, points of meeting between Hungary and other nations in various fields of life. Culture was able to connect nations to each 117

other through these organizations. Building confidence and mutual trust was one of the most important parts of the mission the civilian organizations fulfilled. Finding common historic roots was important, as it was expected to serve as a foundation upon which a more peaceful future would be built. Jody Jensen: Netizens of the Blogosphere: E-democracy or E-ristocracy? Netizens are Internet users who utilize the networks from their home, workplace, or school (among other places). Netizens try to be conducive to the Internet’s use and growth. The era of participatory media provides challenges and opportunities, but also dangers. The monolithic media and its increasingly simplistic representation of the world cannot provide the competition of ideas necessary to building consensus. Besides new opportunities, challenges and responsibilities, we should always keep in mind that the new media can also invent new ways to deceive and mislead through abuse and manipulation, promoting anti-cosmopolitan values and interests like nationalism, xenophobia and exclusion. Leonidas Donskis: Soviet Culture, Russian and Lithuanian Culture What was Soviet culture? Was it the same Russian culture, only ideologized to the extreme and transformed into a totalitarian project, or was it a completely new type of culture, erasing both history and traditions, and incompatible with anything that had existed prior to it? Soviet modernization created modernity without freedom, or, paraphrasing the catch-cry of the 1960’s generation after Nikita Khrushchev’s Thaw policy, modernity without a human face. George Orwell’s prophecy had come true, that all totalitarian revolutions are destined to become the longest road leading from one form of oppression and exploitation to the next. Yet the most beautiful aspect of Soviet culture were the everyday cares, objects, nostalgia and memories that survived and were fiercely defended in the films, plays and books from Russia and other nations. The same could be said about the great moments of Lithuanian culture from the Soviet period. 118

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ashok Kumar Upadhyay is an Indian professor of political philosophy. He was a visiting scholar at Institute for Political Science of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest by Indo-Hungarian Cultural Exchange Programme. He is working on the questions relating to Multiculturalism and Democratic Governance. In India he is an Associate Professor of Political Science at S.M.M.Town Postgraduate College, Ballia and of University of Varanasi (Benares). He has published many research articles in different academic journals on the themes such as Rawlsian Social Order, Rawls’ Two Principles of Justice, and Issues before Democratic Governance. He wrote a book on Rawls Concept of Justice (1999). [email protected] Rubén Ruiz Ramas is a Spanish political scientist (Zaragoza, 1979). He is Fellow Research at the Political Science Department at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of the UNED in Madrid, Spain. Degree in ‘Contemporary History’ and ‘Master Degree in Constitutional Law and Political Science’ at the Political and Constitutional Studies Centre (CEPC). Currently, he is preparing his PhD thesis focused on the influence of regionalist factionalism on the political instability in three post-soviet countries: Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Finally, along with Jesús de Andrés Sanz and Antonio Moneo Laín have launched www.eurasianet.es, an initiative that, with the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Education’s financing support, propose to create a virtual congress for whom that research about Central and Eastern Europe, Balkans and former Soviet Union republics. [email protected] Jesús de Andrés Sanz is a Spanish political scientist (Guadalajara, 1968). He is Professor at the Political Science Department at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of the UNED in Madrid, Spain. He defended his PhD thesis in June 2002 (“Golpe de Estado y cambio político en el proceso de transición soviético-ruso”). Jesús de Andrés Sanz has 119

took part in several research projects related with the post-communist area: CESEDEN („ Capacity and Russian influence on the world context”, “ Russian problematic in the XXI’s Century”); CICYT (“ Comparative Analysis of the conflicts around the Eastern Europe minorities”); “ Ethnic minorities conflicts in Eastern Europe. Key variables” at the Instituto Gutiérrez Mellado. Jesús de Andrés Sanz is author of a great number of articles and book chapters which are available on the following site: www.eurasianet.es Peter Szigeti is a Hungarian jurisprudent and political scientist; scientific adviser at the Institute for Science Politic of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and professor at the I. Széchenyi University of Győr in Hungary. He is head of Department of Legal Philosophy and President of the Hungarian National Election Committee. He was Author of four monographers (Organized Capitalism 1991; Theory of Rule of Law 2004; In look for World System 2005; State of Legal Order in Hungary 19892006) and three other books in these topics. [email protected] Ibolya Vincze is a Hungarian economist, teacher at the financial department of István Széchenyi University of Győr in Hungary, and a doctorate candidate. She has worked as an economist for international companies. As a teacher she teaches marketing, PR and business informatics. Now her research is focused on the economic and political aspects of the transmission in Eastern-Central Europe. She has given several presentations on this topic both in Hungarian and in international congresses. Her last article on this topic has appeared in Hungarian review „Eszmélet” in 2008. [email protected] George Schöpflin is a British-Hungarian historian and political scientist and Emeritus professor. He was Jean Monnet Professor of Politics at the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Currently he is elected Member of the European Parliament, and visiting professor at the University of Bologna. He is author of 24 books on Central Europe: The dilemmas of Identity (2005); Nation, Identity, Power: The New 120

Politics of Europe (London, Hurst, 2000); Politics in Central Europe 1944-1992 (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993). He is member of International Advisor Committee of Central European Political Science Review [email protected] Csaba Varga is a Hungarian jurisprudent, scientific adviser at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and professor at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University of Hungary, founding director of its Institute for Legal Philosophy. In addition to transition to rule of law (with facing the past and civil obedience/disobedience included) which became one of his standing research topics when he served as a member of the Advisory Board to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary after the first free election (between 1991–1994), his interest now ranges from legal philosophy & methodology via patterns of judicial thought to comparative legal cultures. In addition to his twelve authored and nineteen edited books in English or German, his relevant publications do include Coming to Terms with the Past under the Rule of Law (Budapest 1994, “Windsor Klub” series) and Transition to Rule of Law (Budapest 1995, „Philosophiae Iuris” series), as well as Transition? to Rule of Law? (Budapest 2008, “PoLíSz könyvek” series). [email protected] József N. Szabó is a Hungarian political scientist. He is professor and head of Department of International Relations in the Faculty of Economic and Social Science at the College of Nyíregyháza, Hungary. He has been member of the Academy of New York since 2003 and a Visiting Professor of University of Paris Sud since 2002. His mayor field of research is the relation of culture and politics in the post-war Hungary and history of the Hungarian cultural diplomacy. [email protected] Jody Jensen is an English-Hungarian political scientist, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. She is also the Director of International Relations for the European University Institute in Kőszeg, Hungary where she teaches in the International MA Program in International Relations and European Studies. Her current research topics and courses include global governance and global civil society, 121

transformation of the nation state and governing global markets. [email protected] Leonidas Donskis is a Lithuanian philosopher, historian of ideas, political commentator, and critic. He was majoring in philology and theater, and then pursued his graduate studies in philosophy at the University of Vilnius. He later earned his second doctorate in social and moral philosophy from the Univ. of Helsinki. Currently he serves as Director of the Political Science and Diplomacy School at Vytautas Magnus Univ. in Kaunas, Lithuania. He acts as Foreign Docent of Social and Moral Philosophy at the Univ. of Helsinki. He is the author of nine books, including: Loyalty, Dissent, and Betrayal: Modern Lithuania and East-Central European Moral Imagination (Rodopi, 2005), Forms of Hatred: The Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature (Rodopi, 2003; VIBS-Value Inquiry Book Series Nomination for the 2003 Best Book in Social Philosophy in North America; VIBS 2003 Best Book Award), Identity and Freedom: Mapping Nationalism and Social Criticism in Twentieth-Century Lithuania (Routledge, 2002), and The End of Ideology and Utopia? (Peter Lang, 2000). [email protected] Peter Tamási is a Hungarian sociologist, earlier member of the research staff of the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy, started his career as an editor at Akadémiai Kiadó. In 1979–1983 he worked for the European Co-ordination Centre for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences, Vienna, as a scientific secretary responsible for the coordination of international projects and the publication of the research results. Between 1983 and 1995 he was a chief official at the Central Bureau of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences responsible for science management, then chief counsellor to the President. He has taken part in several international projects and has also co-ordinated some of them. [email protected]

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