Transition towards what kind of Democrarcy? Cover Image

Tranzicija prema kakvoj demokraciji?
Transition towards what kind of Democrarcy?

Author(s): Dunja Larise
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Fakultet političkih znanosti u Zagrebu
Keywords: transition; neoliberal economic doctrine; political doctrine of democratization; conservative liberal democracy; democratizational entrepreneurs

Summary/Abstract: Belief in market economy has shown particular strength in post-socialist countries as being accompanied by great expectations regarding economic improvements at the individual level. Twenty years after the fall of the, so- -called, real existing socialism these hopes have been fawned for the great majority of the citizens of these countries. The equation offered to explain the tendential low of individual living standard despite of increasing GDP, the access to European integrations and the implementation of structural reforms in the first decade of 2000s has been that the transition towards market economy has not yet been completed and that the problems with the wider prosperity of the citizens are due to inadequate or too slow course of the reform enforcement. This article proposes the exact opposite view by arguing that the wide economic deprivation of the citizens as well as the current economic crisis in which they are caught, are the effects of the neoliberal re-structuration and concomitant “democratization”, and not the result of the lack of compliance to it. This article holds that the economic prosperity for the great majority is not compatible with the project of neoliberal economy cum conservative liberal democracy and that it can not be achieved within this frame. In post-socialist countries this simple conclusion has been obscured by the eschatological discourse about “transition towards democracy”.

  • Issue Year: XLVIII/2011
  • Issue No: 04
  • Page Range: 71-97
  • Page Count: 27
  • Language: Croatian
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