Democratization without Decommunization. The Balkans Unfinished Revolutions
Democratization without Decommunization. The Balkans Unfinished Revolutions

Summary/Abstract: Due to their perspectives of European integration and the formidable incentives they face in this process, the Balkan countries are set on a clear course towards improving their democracies. As one external factor, the general fall of Communism, has triggered their transition, another external factor, the accession perspective to the European Union, has been a crucial factor of consolidation. Domestic factors explain only how smooth or difficult a transition was, but the final goal of the political change is everywhere the same. Communism was a mixture of domestic regime and regional empire, and everything needed reinvention after it collapsed. The more reinvention needed, the greatest the task to reconstitute the nation, the state and the society, and the more difficult the political transition, because the task was not identical in every postcommunist country. Prior to asking ourselves if democratic transition succeeded or failed in a given society the preliminary question is to what extent Communists had succeeded or failed there, not to bring about happiness, but to destroy completely the organic society and replace it with one designed by them.

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