The Centre-Right in Post-Communist East and Central Europe

Briefing note on an informal seminar

Dr. Seán Hanley and Dr. Aleks Szczerbiak

This briefing paper summarises the discussions that took place at an informal seminar held at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London on 20 June 2003. The seminar was supported by the PSA Specialist Group on Communist and Post-Communist Politics and was intended as a ‘seed corn event’ to develop comparative and collaborative research on right and centre-right in post-communist East and Central Europe. The organisers would also like to acknowledge the support of the PSA Grants and Awards Scheme for Research Visits and Seminars in meeting part of Dr Kopecký’s travel expenses.

The seminar considered two sets of issues: the nature of the right and centre-right in post-communist Europe; and the factors underlying the re-emergence of right-wing parties in the region. A particular concern was to integrate the diverse experience of different parties and states into a more coherent perspective. It was attended by Ms Brigid Fowler (University of Birmingham), Dr. Seán Hanley (Brunel University), Dr Tim Haughton (SSEES/UCL), Dr Petr Kopecký (University of Sheffield), Dr Paul Lewis (Open University), Dr. Aleks Szczerbiak (University of Sussex), and Prof Paul Webb (University of Sussex).

Introduction

Seán Hanley summarised the arguments of a framework paper distributed to participants. This argued that parties of the centre right in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) remained a significantly under-researched area. Despite recent comparative papers, existing literature was fragmentary, largely restricted to national case studies and frequently conflated the centre-right with the far right. Arguably, however the CEE centre-right was a ‘new’ force, balancing the imperatives of post-communist reform with older traditions. There were, nevertheless, many unresolved issues surrounding the comparative study of the CEE centre-right: there were few agreed definitions of the ‘right’; the relationship of liberalism and conservatism in CEE was often unclear; in many cases peasant and Christian parties were not integrated or aligned with the ‘right’; right-wing parties in CEE had formed in the absence of a bourgeoisie or other large propertied class; in some CEE states broad nationalist parties were dominant, whose relationship to left or right was unclear; finally, the CEE centre-right was emerging in the historically new context of Europeanisation and globalisation.

Defining the Right in East and Central Europe

Much of the first session focused on the utility of the terms ‘right’ and ‘centre-right’ in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Three broad positions emerged:

1) that parties of the (centre) right in the region should be broadly understood as ‘successor parties’ to opposition movements to communism.

2) that definition of the right CEE should be based on the self-definition of elites and parties in different national contexts. This implied that there were many ‘centre-rights’, not one.

3) that the notion of the ‘right’ was too imprecise, was not used in comparative party studies in Western Europe and should be abandoned for some alternative, such as the classification of party families within the CEE right.

Participants noted that, while 1) was an important insight, it overlooked the fact that some left and left-liberal groupings in the region also had their origins in opposition movements. Moreover, some right-wing formations had pre-communist historical origins. Some participants argued strongly for the use of the ‘party families’ approach. It was noted, however, that categories derived from the West European experience of party formation were often not applicable or generated little insight in CEE. The party families’ approach would, therefore, need modernising and the comparative historical method underlying it applied from first principles.

Discussion then focused on whether the right in CEE could be mapped spatially in terms of issue dimensions. Participants discussed three dimensions that might define the CEE (centre) right: 1) communism v. anti-communism; 2) market allocation v. statist approaches to the economy; and 3) libertarian and cosmopolitan values v. authoritarianism, social conservatism and nationalism. Participants then attempted to locate the position of the CEE centre-right spatially along sets of two axes

There was general agreement that it was not possible to locate the CEE centre-right in a single political space. It was noted, in particular, that although in cases such as the Czech Republic the centre-right was pro-market, in countries such as Poland and Hungary it was difficult to distinguish centre-left and centre-right in terms of their approach to the economy. Indeed, the centre-left in these states was often more pro-market than the centre-right.

There was some additional discussion of the importance of the communism v anti-communism dimension. Some argued that it was both historically contingent - varying with national experiences of communism and the transition from communism - and likely to decline as the period regime of change became more distant in time.

Finally, the discussion considered ways of distinguishing the centre-right from the extreme right. Two possibilities were raised:

1) that the centre-right could (to some extent) been seen as a modernising force presenting a future-oriented programme of social change; and

2) that the centre-right attempted to construct a broad ‘catch-all’ appeals, rather seeking to mobilise a radical minority.

Although broadly accepted for this purpose, it was noted these definitions were not effective in distinguishing the centre-right from the centre-left. Moreover, some participants stressed, in states with fragmented party systems, such as Poland and Slovakia, it was in practice sometimes difficult to distinguish centre-right from extreme-right parties,

Key points
• The link between social conservatism and economic liberalism on the CEE right is much less clear than for centre-right parties in Western Europe.
• It is often difficult to identify the right on an axis of economic liberalism v. anti-liberalism in CEE.
• CEE centre-right parties often draw on heterogeneous electorates and lack the much clearer bases of support their West European counterparts had.

Explaining the Right in East and Central Europe

The afternoon session attempted to identify factors, which could account for the varying levels of success of centre-right parties across CEE. There was an initial discussion as to how ‘success’ should be defined and measured. It was broadly agreed that this should be some combination of vote share and participation in office.

Four broad explanatory approaches were then identified:

1. Structural, legacy-based approaches, such as those of Kitschelt et al (1999) and Vachudová (2001). These attempt to relate the strength and nature of the centre-right to the nature of the previous regime and its relationship to society.

2. The dynamics of the early transition period as a key formative moment.

3. Institutional factors, such as electoral systems, and the success or failure of individual parties in insitutionalising themselves.

4. Political agency – the role of political entrepreneurs and the presence (or lack) of ideologically and socially cohesive elites in a position to act as political entrepreneurs.

Many participants were critical of legacy-based approaches, which threw up numerous anomalies. Much discussion centred on the case of Poland, where despite a weak regime and strong mass opposition, the centre-right had been weak and fragmented after 1989. It was suggested that the Polish centre-right fragmented as a result of Poland’s prolonged transition and had been prevented from institutionalising effectively by the existence of the Solidarity trade union movement. There was some discussion of the case of FIDESZ in Hungary, which had successfully integrated a range of right-wing forces. It appeared that a key factor facilitating the party’s realignment was the cohesiveness of its leadership group.

Key points:
• Structural-historical models, which often focus on regime legacies, have limited capacity to explain the varying strength and cohesiveness of the centre-right in CEE..
• Although certain cases present key anomalies, there is a need to move beyond description of single country case studies.

References

Kitschelt H, et al (1999), Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-party Collaboration, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vachudová M A (2001), ‘Right-Wing Parties and Political Outcomes in Eastern Europe’, paper presented at the APSA annual meeting, San Francisco, 2001.

Overall key points:
• The comparative study of centre-right parties in East and Central Europe poses problems of definition, which are considerably more complex than those faced by scholars working on West European party families or post-communist successor parties.

• Centre-right parties in the region represent a diverse range of outcomes. In some cases, the centre-right is not identifiable as a distinct force.

• Legacy-based approaches have only limited explanatory power in explaining this diversity. Future comparative works should take into account the dynamics of post-communist politics more systematically.