ECONOMIC CHAOS AND THE FRAGILITY OF DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION IN FORMER COMMUNIST REGIMES

It has been suggested that in the early stages of transition to democratic capitalism, commitment to reform in former communist regimes is shaken by economic chaos. Evidence presented in this article demonstrates that regardless of how much information, education, or status citizens have, they are not likely to abandon democracy and capitalism because of economic chaos. In other words, there are no readily identifiable pockets of unsophisticated citizenry that will respond to economic catastrophe by embracing antimarket or antidemocratic solutions. The following analysis also suggests that citizens of the former Soviet Union and of Eastern Europe recognize the differences between insititutions and incumbents. While they do not abandon democratic capitalism in the face of economic chaos, they are likely to punish incumbents for economic hardships. The analysis relies on a survey of public opinion conducted by the author in 1990 of a representative sample of residents of the European portion of the USSR and surveys conducted in 1991 by Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.