The ideology of modernization and the policy of materialism: The day after for the socialists

Post‐communist parties in East‐Central Europe can be divided by their policies of modernization or nationalism. Where the political of nationalism had been occupied by parties with a non‐communist past, the new socialists returning to power had no option other than to follow a rather undefined policy of modernization which embraces a sort of pro‐capitalist policy ‘with a human face’. The clearest example of this policy is the governing Hungarian Socialist Party, which returned to power in 1994 and reached a consolidation of democracy by using the ideology of non‐ideological modernization. This was not far from the technocratic orientation of reform communists in the late 1980s so, paradoxically, this type of consolidation has the aura of restoration. The different explanations for the return of former communists offer alternative answers to the change in voters' behaviour as well. Although the policies of ‘modernizing socialists’ can negatively influence the quality of democracy, in general ‐ unlike the case of ‘nationalizing socialists’ ‐ it does not mean a return to the undemocratic past.