Revealing how the quest for independence and challenges of democratization created a contest between nationalists and Europeanists, two powerful forces in domestic politics, after the collapse of communism, Fisher sheds light on the nationalism and post-communist transitions.

This volume reports a research that represents some of the collaborative efforts aimed at investigating political attitudes and behaviors in the broader Soviet society, examining the public opinion constraints on efforts to transform the new organizations into a competitive political party system.

This is a book about political values - socialist, nationalist, liberal and democratic values - in five former communist countries: Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Based on eleven surveys involving extended interviews with 7350 members of the public and 504 Members of Parliament it provides an authoritative account of the extent to which politicians and the public in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union have rejected communist ideals and adopted nationalist and/or liberal democratic values.

"This title was first published in 2003. Engaging directly with some of the most important issues in contemporary politics, this volume deals with the role of political culture in democratic transitions, focusing in particular on democratization in Eastern and Central Europe. The central question is the relationship between institutional development and societal norms, and between the development of a superstructure of democratic proceduralism and the attitudes and responses of post-Communist republics. Surveying over ten years of experience of post-Communist change, the book draws upon a rich range of sources using quantitative survey data in a sophisticated and enlightening way. The rigorous methodology employed provides important insights into real processes in specific countries and allows for a number of generalizations to be made about the role of political culture today."--Provided by publisher.

The collapse of Communism has created the opportunity for democracy to spread from Prague to the Baltic and Black Seas. But the alternatives—dictatorship or totalitarian rule—are more in keeping with the traditions of Central Europe. And for many post-Communist societies, democracy has come to be associated with inflation, unemployment, crime, and corruption. Is it still true, then, as Winston Churchill suggested a half-century ago, that people will accept democracy with all its faults—because it is better than anything else? To find out, political scientists Richard Rose, William Mishler, and Christian Haerpfer examine evidence from post-Communist societies in eastern Europe. Drawing on data from public opinion and exit polls, election results, and interviews, the authors present testable hypotheses regarding regime change, consolidation, and prospects for stabilization. The authors point out that the abrupt transition to democracy in post-Communist countries is normal; gradual evolution in the Anglo-American way is the exception to the rule. While most recent books on democratization focus on Latin America and, to some extent, Asia, the present volume offers a unique look at the process currently under way in nine eastern European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Despite the many problems these post-Communist societies are experiencing in making the transition to a more open and democratic polity, the authors conclude that a little democracy is better than no democracy at all.

This text aims to sketch some of the challenging issues of the attitudinal dimension of system changes. It provides facts and figures on the progress of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe.