Flying Blind [antikvár]

Preface This is the second volume in two years that I have been lucky enough to edit in the field of political transformation problematique. The first (Democracy and Political Transformation. Theories and East-Central European Realities), published in 1991 alsó dealt with the East-Central European region, especially Hungary and studied the same phenomenon, the social and political transition process from state socialism to a new, qualitatively different polity. This historic transformation had long been ripening. Both actors and analysts knew that this qualitative change, a whole series of deep structural modifications accomodating clearly forseeable political constitutional alternatives, would alsó involve social uncertainties re-sulting from the imbalances in the world system and the structural crisis of developed capitalism. It was alsó evident that there is no unique model of plurálist democracies, consequently the political elites behind the political transformation would have to choose among different institutional alternatives. The euphoria of 1989 -1990 is already over. What we knew in theory has become a commonplace of everyday politics: it is easier to dismantle outdated and imperfect model elements than to create a new balance among disrupted political forces. The introduction of a plurálist constitutional framework can take place overnight, but enforcement of new regulations and development of new ethical norms is not that easy. Short term political changes and long term historical waves are not necessarily in the same frequency rangé, and actually they can interfere with one another. It turnéd out that there is a slowdown effect right after the new regime inception. This early consolidation creates obstacles to deeper changes, making institutions in-flexible, limiting effective political actions. In addition, the „freezing effect" can be observed as a result of the changing of the guard. The incoming elite groups have not yet Consolidated their economic background and their political environment is alsó full of unpredictability. This situation favours irrational political behaviour which obscures real social conflicts and involves emotional, sometimes deeply and purely ideological policy making in the democratically elected parliaments. But this is only the surface of the political bargaining games. After the immediate institutional transformation — „partifícation," pluralization, constitution drafting, creation of institutions and rules of the game — the major challenge appears to arise from the sphere of economy. In the framework of a pluralistic polity, the prime task of the new political elite is the dismantling of state ownership, the modelling of privatization. This task evidently hurts existing economic interests, there are losers and winners. But who are the losers and the winners? What happens if the supporters of political change find themselves on the losers' side? After state socialism, which, in its more successful models, provided relatíve social security, job security, low prices in exchange for low quality, state subsidised health care etc., people are not likely to accept all the hardships of a markét economy without the