Civil Society and Democratic Transition in East Central Europe

With the collapse of communist regimes across the former Soviet bloc, reforms of one sort or another are now taking place throughout the eastern half of Europe. Progress towards democracy in the region seems unambiguously underway only in the area of East Central Europe -the former German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. In discussions of this democratization, the reemergence of society is often noted as a significant development. The first purpose of this account is to clarify the meaning of the term civil Its second and central purpose is to try to understand the relationship of society to democratization in the East Central European context and on a general theoretical level. Modern democracy, as well as the limited forms of representative government that preceded it, have only existed in conjunction with a society. It constitutes the sphere of autonomy from which political forces representing constellations of interests in society have contested state power. Civil society has been a necessary condition for the existence of representative forms of government including democracy. One question that I will try to answer is whether it is, or can be, more than this. Before turning to a discussion of contemporary East Central Europe I will first discuss the concept of society in historical and conceptual terms.