Learning from Transition: Who's Learning From Whom?

On March 23rd, Mirjam Kunkler (Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University) visited the Harriman Institute to give a talk on her latest research. Professor Kunkler noted that while the first two waves of democratization swept through Protestant-majority states and the third one swept over Catholic one, the forth wave of democratization has been a lot more diverse. Pro-democratic interpretations of religion, including Islam, are possible across all religious traditions. The question is: Under what conditions do religious actors become supportive of democratization processes?

Kunkler’s comparative study of five Muslim democracies (democratic for at least ten years in a row by different rankings) looks at Turkey, Senegal, Albania, Indonesia, and Mali. One of the findings is that an important factor is whether religious actors have some de facto and financial autonomy from the state. That does not necessarily mean a secular state as the state could still promote religion in public life. The difference is whether it is one particular religion or whether all religions are protected. Other important factors are the level of societal permeation of religious organizations and whether these are networked organizations or not, so that they can mobilize on a short notice and establish horizontal communication channels.

Kunkler argued that in terms of stabilizing democratic rule, at issue are neither elections, nor constitutionalism but rather minority and women’s rights.

In 2014, there was a lot of attention paid to the 25th anniversary of the fall of the  communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. While these events were undoubtedly epochal in significance, equally important were the first free elections in the Spring of 1990. Commemorating the first quarter century since these free elections, we would like to share a curated collection of political party posters from Hungary, Poland, and East Germany.

Just a sample…

For more, click here.

Mirjam Künkler, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University will present her research on religious actors in democratization process on

February 23^rd, Monday at 5:00pm-6:30pm in  International Affairs Bldg, Room 1201

What is the role of religious actors in the democratization processes of Muslim-majority countries? The only five countries categorized as democratic and free/partly free by Freedom House, the BTI and Polity IV as part of the Third and Fourth Waves of Democratization are Albania, Indonesia, Mali, Senegal and Turkey. The talk will provide an overview of the common patterns and factors that have prompted religious actors to support or obstruct processes of democratization and de-democratization in these countries. Professor Künkler will clarify whether the role of Islamic actors and organizations in democratic transition processes has been substantively different from that in Christian-majority contexts in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia.

On February 4^th Jeffrey Wasserstrom gave a highly attended and very engaging talk on the longevity of the Chinese communist regime. The (anti)-lessons the leaders of the Communist party took from the fall similar organizations in Eastern Europe and the subsequent breakdown of the Soviet Union were two: cut any organized opposition to the regime at the root and allow personal choice in some realms like consumption and lifestyle. These two lessons gave shape to the new Chinese Dream and at the same time fuel the modern Chinese Nightmare. Prof. Wasserstrom used a series of illustrations and photographs to guide his audience through these two polarities of modern Chinese life.

The new Chinese Dream took shape over the next couple of decades, the dream of modern, globalized China in touch with its past: the China of super-fast trains and Confucian values. Today, one can find not only global luxury brands and high-rises but also, somewhat paradoxically, a bookstore entirely dedicated to George Orwell and “1984”. Throughout the 1990s and on, the control over intellectual consumer goods was loosened and one could find a wider range of things to read or listed to, such as Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” or Aldus Huxley’s “Brave New World”. More freedom to discuss things in private, less pressure to conform at universities: “If it is not a movement, anything goes!”, is the way a Chinese bartender put it.

On the other hand, intellectuals and students cannot organize and public criticism of the regime is not tolerated. The Chinese Nightmare of modernity carried too far is realized in the image of skyscraper with a huge screen on it, all mired in thick smog. Both “1984” and “Brave New World” capture the new Chinese Nightmare – Big Brother Watching but also keeping people in line by encouraging decadence and stroking fears. Soft and hard forms of authoritarianism co-exist and the Chinese Communist Party has learned how to use coercion, censorship, cooptation, or conciliation at different times and places.

Unfortunately, the last few years seem to point to a new tightening of the regime, as some pressure is exerted again against artistic and intellectual freedom. Global events, such the recession of 2008, the bloody protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, and even terrorism is used by the party to bolster its claim that it is keeping chaos at bay. Wasserstrom told of an old joke which used to have resonance in China and Eastern Europe in the 1980s:

An American goes to China and boasts to the Chinese of the freedoms Americans have:

–        I can go to Times Square and shout ‘Ronald Reagan is an idiot’ and nothing will happen to me.

To which his Chinese host replies:

–        You are so boastful, we have the same freedoms in China. I can go to Tienanmen Square and shout ‘Ronald Reagan is an idiot’ and nothing will happen to me either.

This joke still resonates in China.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Department of History, University of California Irvine

Chinese Dreams and Chinese Nightmares, 1989 to 2014

February 4^th, Wednesday at 2:10pm-4:00pm

Room IAB 1219

How has the Chinese Communist Party stayed in power so long after similar organizations fell in Eastern and Central Europe?  Are the strategies that it has been using to deal with protest since 1989 still effective?  What makes Xi Jinping similar to and different from his immediate predecessors?  These are the sorts of questions the speaker will address, focusing in part on the different sorts of dreams that inspire hope and nightmares that cause anxiety among various groups within the People’s Republic of China, from officials in Beijing, to students in Hong Kong, from migrant workers in Dongguan to Uyghurs in Urumqi.

In late 1989 and early 1990, the dominant idea was that policymakers in Eastern Europe would be learning from the West. The term “transition” offered an image in which East Europeans were on a road to catching up with Western institutions which had earlier “arrived” at the right answers for the proper models of the relationship between markets and democracies. Twenty five years later, our goal is to consolidate existing research – less about “1989” itself than about the past 25 years of experience with political and economic transformation. To do so, this component of the Harriman Core Project for 2014-15 will focus on how different actors are learning from each other. Who is paying attention to whom? And what new combinations are being cobbled together in this process?

For example, in an important speech in July 2014, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban commended the idea of “illiberal democracy” and pointed to China and Russia as exemplars from which his country had much to learn. In this speech, Orban explicitly problematized the relationship between markets and democracy and challenged the policymaking consensus of the last quarter century. In no place is this challenge more clearly visible than in China. If June 4, 1989 was the day of Solidarity’s electoral triumph against the communist party in Poland, it was also the very same day in which the Chinese leadership crushed the Tiananmen Square protesters. How has China subsequently paid attention to developments in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union? Evidence suggests that China took the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of dissident groups, and internal divisions within the communist parties of the region as a negative model for its own future. While Eastern Europe was importing institutions wholesale, China has invented a hybrid model that we can refer to as “Market Leninism.” This model combines market reforms with one-party control over the army, economic appointments, and ideological doctrine.

If we broaden our vision, we can see other instances of non-violent attempts to overthrow authoritarian regimes via popular uprisings in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine,Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia. From the so-called Colored Revolutions of Eurasia, to the Jasmine Revolutions of North Africa, to the Umbrella Revolution in contemporary Hong Kong, what models of democratic and economic institutions are they paying attention to? And what lessons have authoritarian governments learned? If governments are experimenting with new models, protestors are also inventing new repertoires of resistance and demonstrations. Our goal is to investigate these evolving processes by observing who is paying attention to whom.

David Stark, Director
Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology and International Affairs
Columbia University

Elena Krumova
Postdoctoral Fellow
Harriman Institute
Columbia University