Flawed Democracies: The Dubious Political Credentials of NATO's Proposed New Members

Thomas M. Magstadt

March 1998

Cato Institute

Executive Summary

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, conceived as a military barrier tothe spread of communism in Europe, was always portrayed as more than a traditionalmilitary alliance. From its inception, NATO cultivated the image of an alliance ofdemocracies. Although reality did not always fit that image, the democratic ideal wasalways present.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has redefined its purpose: itnow purports to be first and foremost an association of constitutional democracies committed to the common defense of democracy itself. The wisdom of expanding the alliance,which is extremely dubious from the standpoint of U.S. strategic interests, seems dubiouson political grounds as well. According to NATO's own declared standards, there needs tobe certainty that prospective entrants have a genuine and unshakable commitment todemocratic values, individual liberty, and the rule of law. That certainty is lacking withregard to all three candidate members.

The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland deserve high marks for theprogress they have made toward liberal democracy, but the process of transition in allthree countries is far from complete. Authoritarian elements from the communist era stillcontrol the administrative bureaucracy, including the military, the intelligence agencies,and the educational system. All three countries, even the much-praised Czech Republic,have alarmingly weak civil societies and less than robust democratic political cultures.Admitting fragile, unfinished democracies to NATO may undermine the prospects forlong-term freedom and stability. NATO might also have to face the embarrassment (or worse)of dealing with a member that had regressed into authoritarianism.

Introduction

On the eve of the July 1997 NATO summit meeting at Madrid, where thedecision to bring the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland into the alliance wasformalized, Secretary General Javier Solana commented, "In many ways, we werecondemned to act." Solana's explanation for that rather startling assertion wastwofold. First, the failure to enlarge NATO, he said, would "freeze the old lines ofdivision between East and West." Second, "Now that these countries have embraceddemocracy and all of its values, we have a moral obligation to open our doors tothem." ₁ His emphasis on "democracy and all of its values" accuratelyreflects NATO's new look.

That marks a significant change from the Cold War era. True, NATO alwaysportrayed itself as an alliance of democracies, but the reality was that it frequentlytook in members with less than sterling democratic credentials--if their strategic valuewas deemed sufficient. Portugal, for example, was a dictatorship when it joined NATO as afounding member in 1949 and remained so until the mid-1970s. Greece and Turkey were hardlyparagons of democracy at the time of their admission, and matters grew worse thereafter. Abrutal military junta ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974, and the Turkish military oustedcivilian governments on several occasions with no penalty imposed by NATO's democraticpowers. The strategic importance of the two countries overrode any concerns aboutdemocracy that NATO leaders may have harbored. Even Spain might have become a foundingmember of the alliance if it had not been for dictator Francisco Franco's brazen tilttoward Hitler during World War II. The new emphasis on democracy suggests that theexisting NATO powers will not be as willing to compromise their principles in the future.

Whether NATO or any other alliance is worthwhile to the United Statesought to be judged by the alliance's relevance to vital American security interests. Inother words, the political pedigree of Washington's partners should not be the determiningfactor. If, for example, an expanded NATO does not benefit the security of the Americanpeople, it matters little whether the other members are stable democracies. The advocatesof NATO expansion, however, have placed great importance on the political factor,contending both that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic deserve to become members ofthe alliance because of their transition to democracy and that NATO membership willconsolidate democracy in those countries and beyond. Even when expansion is judged on thatbasis, the inclusion of the three nations is inconsistent with NATO's own criteria.

This paper examines the democratic credentials of the three candidatemembers. It concentrates on the Czech Republic's transition and identifies the obstaclesto a more complete democratic transformation. The focus on the Czech Republic isappropriate, since it is universally regarded as the most successful and advanced of thethree candidates for NATO membership. If the Czech Republic is less than a completesuccess, the problems are almost certain to be worse in Poland and Hungary.

There are several questions about the reality (and limits) of democraticliberalism in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. First, do the prospective NATOmembers have the political institutions and basic political norms of democracy (e.g., freeand fair elections) in place? Second, even if they do, what about the more subtle butnevertheless important features of a healthy democratic political culture (e.g., anadministrative bureaucracy committed to democracy and a general population committed tothe rule of law)? And finally, what about the basic features of a healthy civil society?Strong and accessible nongovernmental institutions and civic-conscious norms of behaviorare crucial to every stable democracy. We cannot expect (nor would we want) a cop on everycorner to make sure that theft, vandalism, extortion, and a whole range of dangers to thepublic safety are not pandemic.

Unfortunately, the evidence indicates that the candidate members of NATOare deficient on both the second and third counts. Despite outward signs of progress, allthree--even the highly touted Czech Republic--still face a wide array of economic, social,and political obstacles to the consolidation of democracy. Perhaps the most nettlesomeproblem of all is how to change a deeply embedded set of attitudes, habits, and values--apolitical culture--that predisposes a majority of the population (including the young) toreject many of the assumptions that underlie a flourishing, law-based, liberal society.Those are problems that will not be solved by membership in a military alliance.

The Czech Republic: Velvet or Velcro?

The Czech Republic, until recently under the leadership of Prime MinisterV‡clav Klaus, Eastern Europe's staunchest opponent of state regulation and marketrestrictions, has been widely hailed as a model for the other former communist states inthe region. ₂ Much of that reputation is deserved. Nevertheless, the Velvet Revolutionhas gradually given way to a velcro political culture--a problem that the Klaus governmentfailed to address or even recognize publicly, despite repeated admonitions from PresidentV‡clav Havel. That was symptomatic of a larger problem. Although Prime Minister Klausinitially sought to enlist public support for his economic program and his political party(by visiting virtually every village), his leadership style became inexorably more aloof,arrogant, and authoritarian. Indeed,
as time went on, he frequently expressed contempt for public opinion and the importance ofpublic dialogue on policy issues, an attitude that had troubling implications for a newand untested democratic system. More directly to the point, he stated that he saw noreason for dialogue on the question of Czech membership in NATO, which polls in mid-1997showed that only 40 percent of the public clearly favored:

Ask prime minister Vaclav Klaus if the people of the Czech Republic need to know more about what it will mean for their country to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and he instantly wants to end the conversation. "I'm not interested," he said, seconds into the interview, as he reached to stab a tape recorder silent. "I don't see any point. I'm absolutely sure they are sufficiently educated. . . . To me, education of people is not a real issue." ₃

Such manifestations of arrogance ultimately helped bring down the Klausgovernment in November 1997. ₄ There is also disturbing evidence that Klaus's disdain forpublic input was not unique.

The Czechs' fledgling democracy has been quite stable since its inceptionin 1992, but the country's democratic transformation is incomplete and the process hasstalled. The Velvet Revolution of 1989 is now a receding memory. One searches in vain forvelvet in this society ruled so recently by almighty communist appratchiks, many of whomremain entrenched in positions of economic and political power.

The tendency of old habits and values to stick to the social fabric ofpostcommunist societies is a common problem that afflicts even the most advancedtransitional states in Eastern Europe. Without exception, the democratic revolution inthose countries is unfinished. In the Czech Republic, despite its commitment to marketreforms, key institutions and values that undergird a stable democracy remain disturbinglyanemic. Those include (1) a robust middle class, (2) a broad range of community-basedorganizations and private associations capable of mediating between state and society, and(3) a new culture of citizenship suffused with such democratic values as honesty,civility, and respect for individual rights and property. If the Czech Republic--widelyconsidered the most Westernized nation in Central and Eastern Europe--has not yet built astrong civic culture consistent with its democratic aspirations, it is highly unlikelythat any of the other former communist states, including Poland and Hungary, havesucceeded in doing so.

Signs of decay in public morality are visible on all sides in the CzechRepublic. Petty crimes and disrespect for the law are blatant and common; even people whodo obey the laws look away when others break them--often in broad daylight. The failure toaccept responsibility for creating and perpetuating a decent civic order is one of thedemons of the past that must be exorcised if Czech democracy is to thrive.

Civic rehabilitation depends, in the first instance, on whether thegovernment can win popular trust. The public at present has little confidence, not only inpoliticians, but in the political process, the police, and the legal system. Formercommunists run government ministries, universities, banks, and industrial complexes.Well-publicized banking scandals, stock frauds, and rampant official corruption aresymptoms of deeper problems. ₅

Havel's famous collection of essays, Living in Truth, written at a timewhen his reward for literary effort was more likely to be the prison in Plzen (Bory) thanthe palace in Prague, is still worth reading, but most Czechs are not interested in whatPresident Havel thinks or says these days. ₆ (Often his speeches are not published evenin the leading newspapers.) The problem for Czechs who long to live in truth--andliberty--is that the hopes inspired by the Velvet Revolution have faded into politicalcynicism and corruption.

The problems facing the Czech Republic are not unique. Hungary and Polandexhibit many of the same "hangover" symptoms, a common legacy of communist rule.Foreign policy formulation in Washington and other Western capitals has focused almostexclusively on politics and economics, leaving the important dimensions of social andcultural change largely unexamined. As a result, the extent of liberalization in EasternEurope has been greatly exaggerated. The West should adopt a wait-and-see attitude towardEastern Europe, stressing the need for further development of the much-neglected civic andsocial foundations of democracy. In particular, the U.S. Senate ought to use itsconstitutional "advise and consent" power to apply the brakes to theNATO-expansion train before it is too late.

The Czech Transition: A Qualified Success

There is good reason why the Czech Republic is frequently cited as anexemplary case of free enterprise and parliamentary democracy in the new Eastern Europe.Indeed, the Czechs have succeeded in doing what even neighboring Poland and Hungary--alsowidely regarded as success stories--have failed to do: they have made a remarkably smootheconomic transition from a command to a market-oriented economy and an equally smoothsimultaneous transition from a one-party totalitarian dictatorship to a multipartyparliamentary democracy. That two-track transition has been achieved without the zig-zagcourse of economic policy so glaringly apparent in Russia or the political oscillationsbetween governments run by anti-communists and ones run by former communists that haveoccurred in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere.

The political record of the Czechs is all the more remarkable because ithas been accomplished in spite of the breakup in 1992 of the former state ofCzechoslovakia--a state that, like Yugoslavia, was created (and remained intact except forthe period of Nazi occupation) after the end of World War I. (Unlike Yugoslavia, however,Czechoslovakia consisted of only two main ethnic groups whose languages and culture are sosimilar that in the minds of many impartial observers they are, in fact, one.) Today,there is surprisingly little rancor between the Czech and Slovak populations in the CzechRepublic or Slovakia. Indeed, there is palpably more tension between Slovakia and Hungary(stemming largely from discrimination against ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia) thanbetween the two governments of the former Czechoslovakia.

As builders of a new liberal order, the Czechs are in a class bythemselves. Under the leadership of Havel and Klaus, odd bedfellows by any reckoning, some80 percent of the Czech economy was either wholly or partially privatized by 1995, forwhich Prague was rewarded in that same year by becoming the first postcommunist member ofthe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. ₇ Throughout that  difficult period of steadily rising prices and diminishing state subsidies, thecoalition government led by Klaus held together and maintained a steady economic course.Poland and Hungary have also undertaken bold free-market reforms and establishedmultiparty parliamentary rule, but neither country has been able to achieve the level ofgovernmental and political stability found in the Czech Republic. Slovakia's performancehas been far less impressive by any measure.

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Table 1
Economic Indicators

Country	GDP ($ billions)	GDP per Capita ($)	Population (millions)	GDP Growth (percentage)	Inflation (percentage)
Czech Rep.	57.4	5,570	5.5	10.3	8.2
Hungary	48.1	4,720	10.2	3.5	19.0
Poland	152.3	3,930	38.7	5.2	18.1
Slovakia	21.0	3,870	5.4	4.6	10.0

Source: "The World in Figures: Countries," in The Worldin 1997 (London: The Economist, 1996), p. 86. All figures are 1997 forecasts.

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Using dollar exchange rates, the Czech Republic's projected gross domesticproduct per capita in 1997 was the highest in Eastern Europe (see Table 1). ₈ Judged byother macroeconomic measures of vitality, notably inflation, the Czech economy looksequally healthy. In addition, unemployment is very low--around 3 percent in 1995, comparedto 15 percent in neighboring Poland. Indeed, the Czech jobless rate is one of the lowestin Europe, east or west. That relatively rosy picture stands in sharp contrast to afloundering Bulgaria, for example, where GDP fell by an estimated 10 percent in 1996, theinflation rate has skyrocketed, and unemployment is expected to have reached 14 percent in1997. ₉

The Czech Republic has also been a model of political stability. Thegovernment operates as a full-blown parliamentary democracy under a constitution patternedafter those of Western countries. The Czech constitution created a dual executive in whichan indirectly elected president plays an important role in the realm of foreign policy andperforms symbolic and ceremonial functions, but the paramount powers of governance areexercised by a prime minister who must have majority support in the parliament. ₁₀ Freeand unfettered elections have taken place on several occasions in the Czech Republic since1989 without any hint of fraud or ballot-box irregularities. That is the side of Czechpolitical society Westerners understand best and frequently (and justifiably) applaud.

But there is another side, less well understood in the West, that istroubling. We should not be surprised to discover that there are still holes in thefoundation of the new democracies in Eastern Europe. In the Czech Republic, those holesare gaping but hidden from the eyes of outsiders by a rich and multilayered culture fewcizinci (foreigners) ever penetrate. ₁₁

The Elusive Middle Class

The importance of a broad middle class to the health and vitality of ademocratic state has been recognized by political thinkers for a very long time.Aristotle, for example, argued that the best possible (as opposed to the best imaginable)form of government in most cases was a "polity," or constitutional system, thatcombined elements of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. Such a mixed regime, he believed,would give the middle class a key role in the government--that of mediating between therich (whom they admire without resenting) and the poor (whom they pity without eitherfearing or embracing). That type of regime would be the best way of achieving equilibriumbetween the class interests of the two extremes, especially where the middle class waslarge. The middle class, he reasoned, was not so affluent as to lack all sympathy for thepoor nor so destitute as to seek to dispossess the rich. Moderate wealth would producemoderate political opinions. ₁₂ The history of modern democracy cautions against anyrevision of that ancient insight. Indeed, the existence of a well-developed middle classis viewed by many political observers as one of the key correlates of democracy. ₁₃

Much has been written about the damage done by decades of communism topublic morality, the human spirit, the economy, and the environment. Fixing the economyand the environment is a daunting task. Repairing the social, psychological, and moraldamage is no easier. Of particular relevance to this study is the need to create theconditions for the reemergence of a legitimate entrepreneurial stratum, including managersand professionals committed to market principles (e.g., free and fair competition,deregulation, consumer protection, and customer satisfaction), that can serve as thenucleus for and champion of a new middle class.

Throughout Eastern Europe, one searches in vain for a strong middle class.The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland--despite far-reaching economic reforms--are noexceptions. Nor is the absence of that class a surprise, given the long domination of theregion by Marxist-Leninist political regimes. It is no secret that Marx viewed the middleclass with disdain or hatred. Marx's heirs in Russia and Eastern Europe were equallyhostile to the middle class, but unlike Marx they found themselves in a position to act onthat bias. And act they did. Whatever nascent middle class existed in the countries wherecommunism came to power was extinguished. Czechoslovakia, which established after WorldWar I the only democracy the Slavic world had ever known, did have a thriving middle classbefore the German occupation in 1939, but the remnants of the Czech middle class thatsurvived the Holocaust were obliterated after 1948. As a result, the growth of a middleclass in the Czech Republic since 1989 has had to begin almost from square one.

During the communist era, there was an intermediate social stratum betweenthe privileged oligarchy and the proletarianized mass. That stratum (usually called theintelligentsia) consisted of artists, writers, scientists, and academicians favored by theregime. Although its members often enjoyed a higher standard of living than did ordinaryworkers or peasants, the intelligentsia did not champion liberal causes, did not cultivatean entrepreneurial culture, and did not constitute the nucleus of a broader middle classin Czechoslovakia or anywhere else within the Soviet bloc. As the possible nucleus of amiddle class, the intelligentsia in the communist states had glaring defects. First, itwas a powerless group with no rights; the privileges that its individual members weregiven could be arbitrarily withdrawn at any time. Second, the intelligentsia did notinclude a legitimate entrepreneurial element--normally the vanguard of an emerging middleclass. Third, the intelligentsia in Soviet bloc countries lacked the peculiar mix ofvalues and virtues normally exhibited by the middle class: initiative, pragmatism,self-reliance, optimism, inventiveness, a propensity for risk taking, civic-mindedness, astrong work ethic, and so on.

In The New Class, Milovan Djilas, onetime confidant of Yugoslaviandictator Josef Broz Tito, turned class analysis against the very Communists who claimed toown it, arguing forcefully that the communist rulers had created a new political class inplace of the old aristocracies they had crushed. ₁₄ At the same time, those regimeshomogenized and proletarianized the general population by equalizing wages and salaries,by constructing monomorphic mass housing complexes, and by abolishing virtually all formsof independent organization in society (small businesses, parochial schools, serviceclubs, and the like). Everybody worked for the state; nobody worked for a profit--at leastnot legally. There was little incentive to innovate, and the concept of customer servicewas virtually nonexistent. No enterprise, no matter how inefficient, ever failed; exceptfor political dissidents, workers were rarely fired; virtually every necessity of life wassubsidized. There was scant point in saving, no opportunity to invest, and precious littleto buy. In short, the ideological and material conditions for sustaining or creating amiddle class simply did not exist.

That gray picture is an accurate reflection of the past from which EasternEurope is now struggling to escape. The Czechs may have a head start economically becauseCzechoslovakia under communism was the best of a bad lot. Although Czech pensionersremember queuing to get staples, Czechs were to some extent spared the meager subsistencelifestyle that communism brought to so much of Eastern Europe. Also, because the Czechshad had a democracy for two decades between the first and second world wars and considerthemselves culturally part of the West, they had an advantage over other Slavic countries(and non-Slavic Hungary and Romania) in throwing off the communist heritage. ₁₅

Finally, building blocks for a Czech middle class were not entirely absentat the time of the Velvet Revolution. For example, many Czechs were and are landowners.Working-class Czechs rent or own a flat in the town or city where they work, but many alsoown a modest cottage (often without running water or central heat) in the country. Thetypical chalupa (cottage) is intended for seasonal, weekend habitation. There is a massexodus from the cramped sidliste (high-rise housing projects) to the bucolic countrysideevery Friday afternoon during all but the coldest winter months. That phenomenon is notnew or remarkable per se: Czechs were living in much the same way under communism. Butwith the ideological taboos against "bourgeois materialism" now gone andindependent building firms that specialize in single-family houses springing up, the factthat lot-sized land parcels are already broadly distributed in the Czech Republic createsthe possibility for a new middle class based on private home ownership. Nevertheless, itremains just a possibility at present.

The Nature of Civic Order

In the Czech Republic, the very names of two of the parties in thegoverning coalition from 1992 to 1997--the Civic Democratic Party and the Civic DemocraticAlliance--stress the importance of the "civic" element in democracy. ₁₆ Bothare offshoots of the defunct Civic Forum, the vanguard of the Velvet Revolution. Is was noaccident that Havel, the leader of Civic Forum in 1989, placed civic regeneration at theheart of the revolution he inspired. Unfortunately, as president his inspiration ran itscourse at warp speed, and the politicians who have run the country exhibit no interest inimproving the nation's civic health. ₁₇

It is axiomatic that democracy thrives on a competitive economy. A healthyfree-market system imparts a general sense of well-being to the population by bringing ameasure of prosperity within reach of all who are willing to work for it. It also fostersa desire for individual decisionmaking in the political as well as the economic arena.That is why economic success in many East Asian and Latin American countries has beenfollowed by pressure for greater political pluralism.

Nonetheless, in the political climate fostered by the triumph ofcapitalism over communism there is a tendency to exaggerate the role of economics inunderpinning democracy. Where democratic institutions have a long, unbroken history--as inthe United States or Great Britain--the presence of a supportive civic (or political)culture is too often taken for granted. When that happens, the seminal importance of sucha culture can easily be overlooked. And yet the absence of norms associated with a civicculture of the kind typically found in established constitutional democracies is the mostglaring defect of democracy in the former communist states, including the Czech Republic.

Civic culture in a democratic setting has at its core a clear concept ofcitizenship--a commonly accepted definition of what it means to be a good citizen. In ahealthy democracy, most people take the ideal of citizenship seriously even if theysometimes fail to live up to it. The idea itself is a simple one: a good citizen is honestand trustworthy, obeys the laws, respects the rights of others, and so on. What seemsself-evident to most Americans, however, often sounds incredibly naive to people who havenever lived in a real democracy--East Europeans, for example. Czechs did live in ademocracy once before, but that experience was apparently too short and too long ago(1919-39) to have made a deep and enduring imprint. More disturbing, Czech society has notshaken off the more recent past or shed the habits engendered by 40 years of communistrule. Those habits, and the history that nurtured them, are anathema to democraticself-government.

Symptoms of Civic Disorder

Leaders in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary ought to be far moreconcerned about the unfinished work of building democracy at home than about trying toachieve aims and goals of dubious value abroad--for example, rushing into NATO. Althoughthe Czechs are often seen (and often see themselves) as the pacesetter in Central Europe,any claim they may have to being either a transitional model for other East Europeanstates or a postcommunist nation deserving fast-track treatment by the European Union andother Western institutions will be squandered if the beliefs, habits, and reflexes of theCzech citizenry cannot be reformed to mesh with the machinery of democracy and fit thecontours of liberty. That reformation is the next test facing the Czech Republic, and byfar the most critical one since the fall of communism.

Graft and corruption in high places became a serious stain on the recordof the Czech government (long before Prime Minister Klaus was implicated in November1997). No government can excuse itself from a share of the responsibility when societylacks the moral fiber and the structural integrity that are the hallmarks of a healthycivic order. It is particularly damning when a parade of society's most privileged andpublic figures sets the worst example. Organized crime is a blight not only in the CzechRepublic but also in Hungary and Poland, where it is even more pervasive and corrosive.Crime is a huge problem in Hungary, where the general breakdown of law and order has ledto a "street-level brand of terrorism" in "once-peacefulneighborhoods." Not only do mafia-type organizations "dabble in traditionalrackets such as drugs, prostitution, gambling, and extortion, but they have also earnedhundreds of millions of dollars from smuggling heating oil, stolen cars, and even nuclearmaterials." ₁₈

True, other democratic societies (even stable and secure ones) exhibitsome of those undesirable traits. But nations in which democracy has been entrenched fordecades are markedly less susceptible to destabilization because of such problems.Moreover, it is the severe and pervasive quality of negative behavioral patterns in theCzech Republic and the other candidates for NATO membership that is so troubling.

The Entrenched Communists

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," may be aFrench adage, but it fits the predicament facing Czechs, Poles, and Hungarians. Manycitizens believe (not without good reason) that former Communists continue to control thelevers of political, economic, and financial power--even in the Czech Republic where theelectorate has never voted them back into power. Most Czechs also believe thatopportunistic ex-Communists have prospered more than any other single group in Czechsociety, including members of organized crime syndicates, and (though it soundsfar-fetched) that the Velvet Revolution was the final communist conspiracy, a falserevolution secretly backed by cynical power brokers who believed that communism had becomean albatross around the neck of the very ruling class it had spawned. According to thatconspiracy thesis, scuttling the old system opened the door to vast and previouslyunattainable personal riches for the apparatchiks.

That issue is extremely difficult to address, not least because of thethick fog surrounding the whole question of who was--and who was not--a committedCommunist. Nowadays, few Czechs openly admit to having been party members. That lack ofcandor easily deepens already festering suspicions. For example, there is a persistent(and unsubstantiated) rumor in the Czech Republic that Klaus at one time belonged to theCommunist Party. And as if the question of party membership is not dicey enough, there isalways the question about why prominent people joined. Many "Communists" werenot true believers; they simply signed up because failure to do so was not careerenhancing. Of course, East Europeans everywhere, Czechs included, understand that suchconduct occurred. But understanding is one thing; excusing, accepting, or forgiving isquite another.

The public perception that communist holdovers continue to run things nomatter which party is officially in power would be a serious obstacle to the emergence ofa healthy civic culture even if it were unfounded, which, unfortunately, it is not. ₁₉ Although a highly publicized lustration was undertaken to ferret out and remove fromoffice former Communists in the Czech Republic, and later in Poland, those purges wereneither wide nor deep. The lustrations primarily hit individuals implicated in thenefarious activities of the old secret police. In the Czech Republic--and in Poland, aswell--such inquiries stopped far short of what many citizens would have preferred.

Thus, there has been little real catharsis and therefore little realclosure in any of the three countries under consideration for NATO membership. ₂₀ As aresult, the wrongs done in the past by officials on all levels continue to haunt thegovernments and bureaucracies of those countries. In Poland and Hungary, the electoralsuccess of "reconditioned communist-era parties" illustrates both theambivalence of the public toward democracy and the continued access of communist holdoversto high office. The associated political instability and civic disorientation have beenconveniently ignored by the Clinton administration and other advocates of NATO expansion.

The Polish parliamentary elections in September 1997, in which votersdelivered yet another shock, illustrate the point. Having earlier rejected onetimeSolidarity hero Lech Walesa for ex-Communist Alexander Kwasniewski and voted out acentrist government in favor of one led by two ex-communist parties, the electorate did anabout face and voted in a new conservative government "based on the [Solidarity]trade union that vanquished communism." ₂₁ The Economist wrote, "The singleidea that ties it all together--and the main source of passion in a lacklustre electioncampaign--is resentment of an ex-communist elite that seemed to profit more than anyoneelse from Poland's revolution." ₂₂ The election in this view demonstrated the Poles'"appetite for justice." What is particularly interesting for the presentdiscussion is The Economist's interpretation of what lay at the root of voter discontent:

Like the rulers of many ex-communist countries, Poland's bosses have a talent for confounding public and private interests, for muddling up favouritism with competition, for letting politics wander where it should not, above all for accumulating power. They have packed Poland's state-owned companies with nomenklatura cronies. State broadcasting is firmly under Warsaw politicians' thumbs. So is regional government: the 49 voivodships, the tier between local and central administration, are in [sic] the gift of central government. This system of cosy patronage is inefficient as well as unjust. The ex-communist establishment is creating what has been called a "network economy," not a competitive one. ₂₃

Also, it is noteworthy that grandiose efforts by the ex-Communists to washout the past by investigating party members accused of collaboration with the formerSoviet Union obviously failed to impress Polish voters. ₂₄ Given the high levels ofcynicism found in all the formerly communist societies, such efforts may even have backfired.

The extent of communist holdovers in the bureaucracies of all threecountries also poses a subtle but significant problem for the political health of the newdemocratic systems. That is especially true of personnel entrenched in the military andthe security services. Journalist Aviezer Tucker notes one of many disturbingmanifestations in the Czech Republic.

The voting pattern in the military is completely different from that inthe general population; in the 1996 elections, 38 percent voted for the Social Democrats,18 percent for the Communist Party, 14 percent voted for Klaus's Civic Democratic Party,14 percent voted for the neo-fascist "Republican" party, and 9 percent voted forthe junior members of Klaus's coalition. Allowing for the votes of ordinary men, who areuniversally conscripted for one year of military service, it appears that more thanone-third of Czech security services have extremist anti-democratic views. ₂₅

Yet, as Tucker notes, replacing personnel in the police and military (andthe judiciary and educational systems as well) "is not even underdiscussion." ₂₆

Criminality and Political Corruption

Organized crime is a huge problem not only in Russia, where it has been inthe international spotlight, but throughout the former Soviet bloc. Of course, thatproblem is not, in itself, proof of political immaturity, but it points to another,closely related problem: the public in those countries does not trust the police--one ofthe legacies of a past when the "knock on the door in the middle of the night"became a metaphor for the universal dread of arbitrary arrest and punishment. The mixingof law enforcement and politics, one of the hallmarks of Soviet-type regimes, had adevastating effect on respect for the police and the law wherever communism held sway. Sofar, that damage has not been adequately repaired in any of the East European countries,including the Czech Republic.

In Hungary, where "communism's demise and mass border openingsunleashed a torrent of organized crime," the police response to the problem has beencharacterized by a leading Hungarian criminologist as "a macho communist-era holdoverwhere the police 'are used as tools, not as brains.'" ₂₇ Again, the perception of acommunist-style police force operating in a supposedly democratic society is not wide ofthe mark: "The government, careful not to criticize the powerful 31,000 member policeforce, has been reluctant to revamp its structure and leadership. Meanwhile, corruption issaid to be rampant among younger officers, and human-rights observers accuse police ofusing excessive force on suspects to coerce confessions." ₂₈

Certainly, public trust is not enhanced when top officials in thegovernment lie and cheat or high-flying financiers abscond with depositors' money withlittle fear of apprehension or punishment. Adding to the miasma of mistrust, an epidemicof banking scandals and stock fraud has rocked the Czech Republic in the past year,leading The Economist, a publication not generally given to hyperbole, to lament in March1997:

Every month, it seems, brings another stain on the Czech Republic's reputation as a financial centre. Last year, eight banks went down thanks to incompetence or fraud. Now investment funds are being tainted. In recent weeks more than 75,000 shareholders in two investment fund groups, Trend and CS Fondy, have been fleeced of assets worth nearly 2.3 billion koruna ($79m). ₂₉

What makes that phenomenon particularly relevant to the discussion of thedepth of Czech democracy is that the cloud hanging over the coupon privatization drive,the banking system, and the stock market has also (inevitably) cast a dark shadow over thegovernment.

In the past year foreign investors have pulled about $500m out of theCzech stock market, thanks in part to lax regulation. This withdrawal is one reason whythe market has fallen by 3.8% in dollar terms this year, while bourses in neighboringHungary and Poland have been rising. Much more could follow, says Howard Golden, presidentof the New York-based Central European Privatization Fund, unless the government"fights the perception that the Prague stock exchange is just a vehicle for selectinsiders to enrich themselves at the expense of the ordinary shareholder." ₃₀

Crony Capitalism

There is a far closer relationship between the banks and the government inthe Czech Republic than in the United States. Even though government has recently moved todivest itself of some its major bank holdings, the impression of collusion lingers, notwithout some justification. For example, a small bank called Plzenska (located in the townof Plzen) allowed the managers of CS Fondy to rob shareholders, but the money wastransferred out of the country, which required approval by the Ministry of Finance. Theministry and the central bank promised an investigation of Plzenska's custodianship, butit was too much like putting the fox in charge of guarding the hen house. To cite oneother example, assets totaling 270 million koruna were stolen from Trend--while it wasbeing run by government-appointed administrators. ₃₁

Even the Czech privatization program--the spearhead and symbol of marketreforms--has been badly tainted by official corruption. The man who headed the couponprivatization program, Miroslav Lizner, was caught with a valise full of dirty money at arestaurant in Prague. The fact that Lizner was indicted, convicted, and sent to jail wouldnormally be a good sign that the justice system is working. But the damage done by suchbody blows to public confidence in a society already jaded by bitter experience is noteasily undone.

The corrosive power of such negative examples in a society already all butimmobilized by cynicism is hard to exaggerate, but Western political leaders tend toignore the implications. ₃₂ Concern about that problem ought to be at the top of theagenda for every public official, educator, and business leader in the Czech Republic.Concerns about the trade balance, the budget deficit, or NATO membership seem almosttrivial by comparison.

The Enemy Within

One rarely encounters anyone in the Czech Republic who does not lament thelow level of honesty, decency, and responsible behavior in public life. Again, it is notthat such low levels are absent from or unknown in other democratic countries, but theyare noticeably more pervasive in the Czech Republic and the other former Soviet blocstates. They are also more corrosive and dangerous in settings where democratic norms andinstitutions are still new and fragile. Countries with long-standing democratic traditionscan weather a certain amount of anti-social behavior (although that capacity is notunlimited); embryonic democracies may not have a comparable degree of resilience.

Four decades of arbitrary rule have left most Czechs with virtually nosense of political efficacy. The natural tendency of people who feel powerless is tobelieve that the government, rather than the citizenry, bears sole responsibility for thecondition of society--a belief that the unexemplary behavior of high- and low-rankingofficials alike does little to refute. Is governmental malfeasance, however widespread,cause or effect? Is flagrantly irresponsible behavior by individuals in positions of trustthe sickness or only a symptom? Both answers have some validi-ty, since governmentmisconduct and a weak political culture are two components of a mutually reinforcingprocess.

Revelations of crooked business dealings and dishonesty in government areonly the tip of the iceberg. The stories that make the headlines do not cause civicdisorder in Czech society so much as they reflect its ubiquity. No insider has anydifficulty reeling off one example after another of dishonesty on the part of localofficials or police indifference to petty law breaking. Nor would outsiders havedifficulty identifying blatantly uncivil or anti-civic behavior unapologetically engagedin everyday by ordinary citizens. ₃₃ Czechs who do not commit those offenses are soinured to them that they take little notice and do not appear to realize that suchbehavior is not normal in established democracies.

Everyday hazards involving the danger of personal injury for which thereis generally little or no recourse in the Czech legal system abound. For example, workersoften leave gaping holes in sidewalks and streets for days or even weeks; around theperimeter of ubiquitous construction sites (where children play) strands of rusty barbedwire are left hanging loosely at eye level along well-worn foot paths, iron pipes stickout of the ground, and the like. No signs warn of hazards, and company executives do notexhibit concern, much less responsibility. Again, the significant point is not merely thatsuch irresponsible behavior is distressingly common, but that the victims usually have nolegal recourse. That is yet another painful hangover from the communist era. To be sure,some moves have been made to establish a coherent, equitable legal system, but progresshas been slow, and the Czech Republic is still a long way from the kind of society basedon the rule of law that is taken for granted in Western democratic countries.

It is no secret that stealing was a way of life under communism--not onlyin the Soviet Union but also in other East European countries. ₃₄ When everythingbelonged to society (or more accurately, the state), everyone had an equal right to it.That, at least, was the crude logic that operated in the old command economies. The Czechcountryside is dotted with little private cottages not a few of which were built on stolentime with stolen materials.

Again, it is distressing to observe how little has changed. Stealing andcheating are still widespread. Nobody dares to leave anything of value unguarded for aminute. Auto theft is a major problem that gets a lot of publicity, but all sorts of pettytheft goes unreported. Czechs are quick to insist that the Romanies (Gypsies) are toblame. But Czech prejudice toward the Gypsy minority is widespread and often virulent. ₃₅ And there are plenty of thieves--in the suites and on the streets--among the Czechsthemselves. ₃₆

And the attitude of Czech youth does not provide much cause for optimism.The apathy and indifference Czech university students demonstrate toward political andsocial issues is shocking, substantially exceeding that found in Western Europe or theUnited States. The moral dimension of public life arouses no interest. Few students willopenly express an opinion on any question of public policy.

In private, they tend to paint the same picture: They were taught tomemorize facts and formulas in school, not to think critically and certainly not toquestion anything the teacher said in class. Students typically state that they want acollege education only to get a good job and make lots of money. By itself, such anattitude would not be surprising and indeed can be found throughout the West, but Czechstudents often combine that utilitarianism with an especially poisonous brand of cynicism.

In sum, symptoms of civic disorder--incivility, mistrust, cynicism,apathy, refusal to take personal responsibility, a feeling of powerlessness--areeverywhere apparent in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is not alone in that regard:ample evidence of the same sort of malaise (indeed, worse in many cases) exists throughoutthe former Soviet bloc. ₃₇ There is no panacea for a society suffering from severe civicanemia, but any remedy depends on a correct diagnosis of the problem. Remedies cannot beimposed from the outside, but the West, led by the United States, can make it clear topolitical and commercial elites in Eastern Europe that they must either see the transitionprocess through to completion or their societies will pay a price for stopping short ofthat goal.

Membership in a military alliance, however, will do little to promotedemocratic stability or the emergence of healthy civil societies. Indeed, it could producethe opposite result. The requirement that the militaries in the new members be brought upto NATO standards will cause a substantial diversion of financial resources from theprivate sector to the military. Involving the new members in NATO peacekeeping missions,as Hungary is deeply involved in the Bosnia operation, gives the military hierarchy undueinfluence and focuses the attention of the Central European countries on the wrong issues.Those nations need greater access to West European markets to accelerate the growth oftheir economies, and they need to concentrate on strengthening their domestic politicaland civic institutions. Giving priority to membership in a military alliance is adistraction at best and destructive at worst.

A Transition Checklist

Any change of direction in U.S. foreign policy along the lines suggestedin this paper would, of course, benefit greatly from the support of America's NATO allies.The difficulties involved in coordinating foreign policy within NATO are obvious to allwho have observed the changing landscape of international relations since the 1950s, whenthe United States was the undisputed leader of the free world. A policy based on acomprehensive analysis of the existing situation in the Czech Republic, Hungary, andPoland (as well as any other candidates for admission to NATO) must be clear about whatcriteria are being used to evaluate liberalization in those countries and what furtherchanges are needed to satisfy those criteria. Three fundamental measures of socio-culturaltransition to democracy deserve the closest possible scrutiny: the rule of law, aprogressive educational system, and the growth of civic (nongovernmental) organizations.Together, those three measures comprise a useful checklist for policymakers.

The Rule of Law

Any stable democracy must be based on the rule of law. A dependable andimpartial system of justice based on reasonable rules that are consistently enforced is animportant agent of political socialization and civic education, and it is a crucialcomponent of any democratic society that values liberty. A widely publicized poll taken bythe Institute for the Study of Public Opinion (IVVM) in late May 1997 confirmed that astaggering majority of Czechs give the government low marks both for law enforcement andfor development of the legal system. ₃₈

Why? Laws--both big and small--are flouted all the time, often in the mostflagrant fashion, with no consequences for the violators. Everybody knows it. People dumpgarbage or discarded car parts wherever they please. The incipient new class ofservice-sector entrepreneurs wants to work without contracts and strictly "off thebooks" to evade the tax laws. School directors refuse to admit Gypsy children, inviolation of existing anti-discrimination laws. Fund managers abscond with shareholders'money. Banks allow crooks to move huge sums out of the country with a wink from theMinistry of Finance. And so on ad nauseam. To repeat, everybody knows it and everybodylooks the other way, including officials at all levels. The solution is simple: enforceexisting laws or, especially where the laws are unjust or unenforceable, change them. Asituation in which an abundance of laws is on the books but violations are epidemic is theworst of all possible combinations.

Education

Throughout Eastern Europe, educational reform has still not caught up withdemocratic claims and aspirations. In the Czech Republic, for example, the IVVM pollmentioned earlier found that 72 percent of the population rated the government's handlingof education policy "rather bad" or "very bad," and only 20 percentgave some measure of approval. ₃₉ According to Stephen Heyneman, an education specialistat the World Bank, "When everyone was concentrating on economic reforms, they tendedto be complacent about the education systems because they were seen as good. People onlygradually realized that, although they may have been good for a planned economy, theyweren't good for a market economy." ₄₀ The school systems throughout Eastern Europewere heavily influenced by the Soviet model. In practice, Heyneman notes that that meant"systems designed to promote an ideology and train children in jobs for life. So theyover-emphasized narrow vocational teaching and over-regulated the curriculum and teachingmethods." He concludes, "All this has to change. In a flexible job market,people have to have more flexible skills. And in a democracy, they have to be able tocriticize what they are being taught." ₄₁

Detailed proposals for an overhaul of teaching methods, curricula,funding, and administration are beyond the scope of the present study, but it is pertinentto note that the old ways of operating are still the norm. That should not be surprising:in most cases, many of the same people who were in charge before 1989 are still in charge.(The same holds true for virtually all other Czech institutions, including the mass media,heavy industry, the trade unions, local government, and the state bureaucracy.) One shouldnot expect entrenched communist-era bureaucrats to have all become converts to the valuesof a pluralistic democratic society.

Changes in higher education are needed as well. University students stillattend classes tuition free. Despite huge funding problems at Czech universities, therehas been, at best, a slow move by the government to introduce any sort of studenttuition--a new law that would introduce tuition fees has been drafted but not yet adopted.In Hungary, students now pay $15 a month. ₄₂

People tend to appreciate the things they pay for and waste or abuse thethings that are paid for by faceless third parties, especially the state. Thus, it is nosurprise that Czech students, by and large, are not willing to devote a great deal of timeor effort to learning. By American standards, Czech universities are shockingly lax andpoorly administered. Many of the internal problems can be traced to the fact that Czechuniversities do not operate in a competitive environment. In short, the free ridecontinues to triumph over the free market.

The situation described above will not improve until schools anduniversities in the Czech Republic--and elsewhere in Eastern Europe--are compelled tocompete for students. There are few private or parochial schools and no privateuniversities in operation today. Education continues to be controlled by the state (which,it bears repeating, means that many of the same people who controlled the purse stringsand policy, including curricula, during the communist era still do). The Czech Republicdoes have a voucher system in place and it even includes private schools--about 12 percentof Czech school children now attend private schools. ₄₃ The range of choice is limited,however, because, so far, there are many state-run schools and only a few private ones.Even so, the Czechs have taken an important first step toward the goal of giving parentsand pupils a real choice. The same choice needs to be made available to universitystudents.

Any drive to democratize the political culture and bring a new civicspirit to the fore must involve the schools. The Fulbright Program has had a strongpresence in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The Civic Education Project has also operatedhigh-quality programs in the region for several years. Funded by billionaire financierGeorge Soros, CEP provides grants to Western-educated (mostly American) teachers in thefields of law, history, and political science--disciplines that 40 years of communist ruleleft in a shambles. ₄₄ Unfortunately, those endeavors, however well-intentioned, can onlyachieve the desired results with the wholehearted support of local faculty andadministrators, who in many cases prospered under the old regime, are extremelyconservative, and continue to be suspicious of outsiders.

Civic Organizations

Czech society still shows unmistakable signs of the monolithic designcommunism stamped on all the societies it held in thrall. There were no associations,clubs, or enterprises outside the framework of the party-state in Czechoslovakia for morethan four decades. The void the Czech Republic inherited from the communist state thatpreceded it has not been filled. Hence, there is no homegrown Czech counterpart to theubiquitous service clubs such as Kiwanis or Rotary found in the United States.

It is difficult to explain why such is the case, except that so many yearsof living in a society that made spying on one another and mutual mistrust its hallmarkshave habituated people to avoiding relationships outside the immediate family or a tightcircle of close friends. Time alone can change those habits, but the very existence oflocal associations and private clubs would, over time, stimulate change in the rightdirection.

Holding NATO to Its Democratic Standards

According to the NATO Handbook, the organization's latest rationale forits continued existence is to promote stability in Europe based on "common democraticvalues and respect for human rights and the rule of law." ₄₅ President Clinton hastaken pride in (and personal credit for) the recent change in NATO's mission. "Fromthe start of my first administration," he told reporters in May 1997, "theUnited States has worked to adapt NATO to new missions in a new century, to open its doorsto Europe's new democracies." The president went out of his way to praise Havel forwriting "a very compelling article in one of our major newspapers," choosing toparaphrase Havel's words: "We are not going to define NATO in the 21st century in thesame way we did in the 20th century. And we are trying to
change the realities that caused so much grief in the last century." ₄₆

Indeed, President Clinton has spoken repeatedly of his vision for a"Europe that is free and democratic," a "Europe that is undivided,democratic, and at peace for the first time in the history of the Continent." ₄₇ InFebruary 1997 he wrote in a letter to Congress, "Inclusion of new members into NATO'sranks is an indispensable element of a broader American strategy to create an undivided,democratic Europe for the 21st century. By extending the underpinnings of security beyondthe arbitrary line of the Cold War NATO can strengthen democratic and free market reformsfor all of Europe, just as it has done for Western Europe in the decades in1949." ₄₈ And when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went to Prague in July 1997to welcome the Czech Republic into NATO, she declared, "For 50 years, you looked tothe free world for support. Now you are the free world; other nations will look to you forsupport." ₄₉

The exact identity of those "other nations" remains to be seen.France had wanted to invite Romania and Slovenia to join NATO at the same time as theCzech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Other candidates frequently mentioned in this contextare Slovakia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. As the expansion campaign gathers momentum,it will become increasingly difficult to turn away any applicant or supplicant that mightknock on NATO's door. Indeed, President Clinton has made it clear that his vision forNATO's future is broadly expansionist. Speaking at a ceremony in the Hague on the 50thanniversary of the Marshall Plan, the president declared, "The first new members willnot be the last. NATO's doors must and will remain open to all those able to share theresponsibilities of membership." ₅₀

Prague, Budapest, and Warsaw want to join the exclusive clubs that havelong tied the fates and fortunes of Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Rome, and the otherWest European capitals to each other and to Washington. Although the European Uniondecided in December 1997 to open talks with five aspiring former communist countries(Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Estonia), it is generally agreed thatthose countries are not yet ready to join Western Europe for economic reasons. That theyare not ready to join the West--including NATO--for political and social reasons has gonelargely unnoticed.

The Perils of Premature Integration

An especially successful experiment in "integration" involvingsovereign states has occurred in Western Europe during the last half of the 20th century.The seed of the European Union was a relatively modest project known as the European Coaland Steel Community, launched in 1953. Then came the Rome Treaty and the Common Market afew short years later. The rest is history, including the failure of a proposal to createjoint armed forces in Western Europe in 1954. The point is this: the West Europeansstarted in the economic sphere, and only later moved on to the political and militaryspheres--in which progress or cooperation lags far behind right down to the present day.(Indeed, the European Union still has enormous difficulties coordinating foreign policyamong its member-states and has, of course, never moved to merge national military forcesinto a single all-Union entity.)

The logic of bringing new and politically untested members into a militarystructure first thus flies in the face of both common sense and historical experience. Ifthe Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland are 5 to 10 years away from qualifying formembership in Western Europe's premier economic structure, why would they be ready forimmediate admission into Europe's major political-military structure?

The Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary have come a long way since 1989,but they still have a long way to go to become mature, stable democracies. Although thisstudy has focused on the oft-neglected socio-cultural aspects of the transition process inthe Czech Republic, the democratic transformation in all three countries remainsincomplete in all spheres of public life--including the government and the economy. Oneshould not be surprised at that fact; it would be remarkable if the ravages of nearly ahalf century of totalitarianism could be undone in less than a decade.

If there is any truth to the popular belief that the Czech Republic isahead of the other former communist states in the transition race, then it is a mistake toallow any of those states into multilateral arrangements such as NATO forged by (and for)the Western democracies during the Cold War. (The need for NATO in the post-Cold Warperiod is itself open to question, but that is beyond the scope of this paper.) ₅₁ Thereis no reason to rush to judgment. Naturally, the East European societies are impatient tobe "certified" as democratic, and thus to qualify for the military and economicbenefits perceived, rightly or wrongly, to accompany such certification. But theirimpatience, however understandable, should not blind the United States and the other NATOcountries to the fact that embracing fragile, unfinished democratic states entailsunnecessary risks and liabilities. Conversely, a go-slow approach leaves the door open toall future possibilities (including the phasing out of NATO) and maximizes Westerninfluence (by withholding a major carrot). In the meantime, any government aspiring tobecome a full partner with the West should be put on notice that until the society overwhich it presides exhibits a healthy civic order, it has not earned the right to join thedemocratic club.

Just as observers from other countries who are often harsh critics of theUnited States nonetheless deserve to be taken seriously because they can see us in a moreobjective light than we can see ourselves, so Western critics of the transitionalsocieties in Eastern Europe deserve to be taken seriously by its indigenous populationsand their leaders. Unfortunately, that is not happening in the Czech Republic, wherecriticism from the West typically triggers instant rebukes or rebuttals, both publicly andprivately, often in dismissive, condescending tones.

Understanding the Extent of the Communist Hangover

More than four decades of communism did not banish aristocracy fromEastern Europe; it simply introduced a new elite class. Communism is gone but notCommunists, much less communist patterns of behavior by those in positions of power.Having deserted a sinking ship, many ex-Communists remain entrenched in positions ofpower, influence, and privilege. The aloofness and arrogance of governmental elites inthose countries is itself a sign that the democratic spirit has not triumphed.

That has become especially apparent in the campaign for NATO expansionwaged by the Central European governments. By and large, the governing elites seemed tobelieve that an open, public debate on the merits of joining the alliance was bothunnecessary and undesirable. That attitude on the part of Klaus drew a rebuke from theeditors of the Journal of Commerce, a publication normally friendly to pro-marketpolitical factions in Central Europe.

Czech Premier Vaclav Klaus doesn't want a national referendum on hiscountry's entry into NATO, mainly, as he put it, because it would spark "unnecessarydestabilizing debates" among the political factions. That way he decides which debateis warranted and which isn't.

On the same grounds, he refused to submit the 1993 split of Czechoslovakiato a referendum, even though polls were showing most Czechs and Slovaks were against it.It seems the more voices there are speaking against him, the less he likes the debate. ₅₂

Although the Journal of Commerce conceded that not every decision in ademocratic country must be subjected to a national referendum, it was Klaus's rationalethat the editors found so disturbing. It was wrong, they emphasized, to reject calls for areferendum "on the grounds that it would lead to a public debate." ₅₃ (Anequally harsh view of Klaus's political style was expressed by John Stein of the Institutefor East-West Studies, a think tank in Prague, who characterized Klaus as "aBolshevik of the right.") ₅₄

That is the pertinent point. In a healthy democracy, public debate shouldbe encouraged, not regarded as an annoyance or a threat. Klaus's determination to excludethe Czech public from the decision about joining NATO was especially troubling, sincethere was no popular consensus on the issue. A public opinion survey taken in November1997 showed that 43 percent of respondents favored the republic's membership in NATO, 29percent were opposed, and the remainder were still undecided. Moreover, the gap betweensupporters and opponents had narrowed by several percentage points since a similar pollwas conducted in July. ₅₅

Another example of a cavalier attitude toward democratic principlesoccurred in Hungary, where the government-controlled news media embarked on a concerted($900,000) effort to propagandize a sometimes apathetic population about the benefits ofHungary's joining NATO. The propaganda blitz even reached the point of having charactersin popular television soap operas wax rhapsodic about the virtues of NATO membership. Thereaction of Tibor Csaszar, the Foreign Ministry official in charge of the NATO campaign,to criticism that such one-sided "educational efforts" were inherently unfairwas most revealing. "In a democracy, parliament represents the people. If thegovernment and the main political parties support the Euro-Atlantic integration process,then we simply do not have the right to give a major voice to the opposition." ₅₆ There was no willingness to acknowledge that public opinion surveys had consistently shownthe Hungarian population divided on the issue of NATO membership and that there ought tobe an honest debate on the issue, if Hungary is truly a democracy. Even worse, Csaszarexhibited no awareness that there might be something wrong with the government of ademocratic country's having a dominant position in the media, much less using thatposition to exclude views opposed to official policy. Such cynical intolerance does notspeak well for the underlying health of Hungarian democracy.

The comments of Foreign Ministry State Secretary Ferenc Somogyi, Hungary'schief negotiator at the NATO accession talks in Brussels, in defense of the propagandacampaign were almost as chilling. "The major objective of our strategy is to let thepublic know as much as possible about NATO," Somogyi told reporters. "NATO is anissue where the facts speak for themselves." ₅₇ There is a troubling echo here ofcommunist-era thinking: the belief that there is only one legitimate viewpoint--thegovernment's--and that the "masses" must be force-fed that viewpoint until theyultimately recognize the wisdom of the government's position. That attitude, along withKlaus's disdain for public input on a crucial policy issue, suggests that a temptation toauthoritarianism may not lie all that far beneath the skin of Central Europe's newdemocratic leaders. ₅₈

The Specter of Illiberal Democracies in NATO

The seemingly oxymoronic practice of elitist democracy confirms a pointemphasized by Fareed Zakaria, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, in a recent issue ofthat journal. Zakaria makes an important distinction between political democracy andconstitutional liberalism. The central feature of the former is the regular conduct offree and fair elections, but the latter includes a "bundle of freedoms"including "the rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basicliberties of speech, assembly, religion and property." ₅₉ Although in the Westernexperience the two concepts have become virtual political Siamese twins, that is notnecessarily true in the rest of the world. Indeed, many of the newly democratizingcountries, from Russia to Argentina, have democratic political systems with pronouncedauthoritarian practices (e.g., frequent use of presidential decrees). Zakaria describessuch systems as "illiberal democracies."

The Czech Republic and the other two candidates for NATO membership arecertainly closer to the Western model than they are to the more blatant examples ofilliberal democracy. ₆₀ Nevertheless, some of the actions of the three governments raisequestions about just how deeply rooted the values of constitutional liberalism really are.It is still much too early to render a definitive verdict on that matter. Proponents ofNATO expansion are relying on faith rather than an abundance of evidence that the CentralEuropean countries are solidly and irrevocably part of the liberal democratic West.

Indeed, the already considerable gap between the elites and society in theCentral European countries shows signs of widening. Cynicism and mistrust run so deepwithin post-communist political cultures in Eastern Europe that it is unrealistic toexpect the problem to be overcome any time soon. A whole new generation of citizensprepared to participate constructively in the civic life of those societies is needed.Even the most heroic efforts by such leaders as Havel would prove inadequate to the taskin the short run.

A major civic project of this kind will take time and patience. Indeed,there is no quick fix for the cynicism, mistrust, and pervasive sense of powerlessnesscaused by decades of atrocious government. The West ought not to condemn or censure thosesocieties. To do so would be to forget the hardships East Europeans endured undercommunism. But, given the fact that it will take not a few years but a few decades for thedeep psychological and cultural wounds inflicted by Stalinist rule to heal, neither oughtNATO to rush headlong into permanent arrangements that could well prove financiallyburdensome, politically counterproductive, and militarily dangerous.

The West can gently prod those countries further down the road to realdemocracy, which by definition must reach the grassroots of society, or it can play alongwith the self-serving myth that the "transition" (a buzzword that quicklyoutlived its usefulness) has been successfully completed. But buying into the mythincreases the likelihood that embryonic democracy in Eastern Europe will abort just as itdid during the decades between the world wars. Above all, advocates of NATO expansionshould consider what it will mean for the West if not only three, but possibly a dozen ormore, former communist states belong to NATO as such a scenario unfolds.

That is not a minor issue. There is no provision in the North AtlanticTreaty for expelling or even suspending a member that comes under the control of adictatorship. NATO has rather hypocritically avoided the issue in the past, for examplewhen Greece was ruled by a military junta from 1967 to 1974. But such lapses occurredduring the Cold War when the mission of deterring Soviet aggression eclipsed every otherconsideration. It is not at all clear that the existing NATO members would be so tolerantin the future. The refusal of the European Union to consider Turkey for membership becauseof its shaky democratic credentials and unsavory civil liberties record suggests that theissue of political values is now much more prominent than it was during the Cold War. EvenNATO partisans might, therefore, wish to pause and consider the potential disruption ofthe alliance that could result from the rise of an authoritarian regime in one of the newmember states. Leaving aside the many disturbing strategic problems with NATO expansion,the political immaturity of the Central European countries is reason enough to reject theinitiative.

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Notes:

Note 1: Quoted in William Drozdiak, "NATO to Expand Borders, Purpose,"Washington Post, July 7, 1997. Back.

Note 2: Cato Institute scholars have frequently expressed admiration forKlaus's achievements. See, for example, Roger Fontaine, "Red Phoenix Rising? Dealingwith the Communist Resurgence in Eastern Europe," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no.255, June 13, 1996, pp. 26-28. The Institute has also published a volume of Klaus'sspeeches. Vaclav Klaus, Renaissance: The Rebirth of Liberty in the Heart of Europe(Washington: Cato Institute, 1997). Back.

Note 3: Christine Spolar, "Aspiring to NATO: Ex-Communist States SteerWestward: Will Alliance Play in Posnan, Plzen?" Washington Post, June 18, 1997, p.A1. In a companion piece, "How Popular Is NATO," Washington Post, June 19, 1997,the results of opinion polls done by the Factum polling agency in all three countries werepublished, showing that public support for NATO entry was highest by far in Poland andlowest in the Czech Republic. In the latter, only 40 percent of those polled favoredjoining NATO, while 29 percent were opposed and 31 percent were undecided. The large"don't know" response may have resulted, at least in part, from the Klausgovernment's conscious decision not to make any effort to inform or educate the public. Back.

Note 4: See, for example, "House of Klaus on Fire," Prague BusinessJournal, December 8-14, 1997, p. 1. Back.

Note 5: The Czech currency crisis in the spring of 1997 underscored theeconomic challenges still facing the country and deprived the Klaus government of itsprimary source of popular support, its reputation for competency in managing the economy.Klaus's forced resignation on November 30, 1997, was prompted by a campaign fundraisingscandal, but the prime minister's tarnished image as an economic manager who could workmagic no doubt contributed to his fall. Back.

Note 6: Vaclav Havel, Living in Truth, ed. Jan Vladislav (London: Faber andFaber, 1987). Back.

Note 7: Ruth Walker, "Czechs Join Economic Club of the IndustrialNations," Christian Science Monitor, November 27, 1995, p. 9. Back.

Note 8: The other most common comparative measure of macroeconomic performanceis purchasing power parity, which yields a rather different number. By that measure, forexample, the estimated gross national product per capita for the Czech Republic in 1995was over $10,200, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. See "The CzechRepublic," in The World Factbook (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, 1996),also available at www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/factbook/ez.htm. Back.

Note 9: "Emerging-Market Indicators," The Economist, April 12, 1997,p. 110. Back.

Note 10: For an analysis of the constitutional powers of the president andprime minister, respectively, see Jack Van Doren and Thomas Magstadt, "CzechConstitutional Democracy: Focus on the Czech Dual Executive Power and the FutureSenate," Fordham International Law Review 20 (Summer 1997): 701-19; and ThomasMagstadt, Nations and Governments: Comparative Politics in Regional Perspective (New York:St. Martin's, 1994), pp. 27-28. Back.

Note 11: Czech society has opened up to the world but remains surprisinglyopaque to non-Czechs. Oddly, in terms of accessibility to foreigners, it is more likeJapan than like neighboring Germany or Austria. Czech opacity is a function of language,culture, and recent history. Foreign observers of Czech politics often fail to appreciatehow difficult it is even in today's open society to distinguish between appearance andreality. Not surprisingly, the commentary and analysis produced by Western journalistsposted to Prague is frequently derided in the Czech press, as well as by politicians andprivate citizens, as naive or simple-minded, which it often is. Back.

Note 12: See Aristotle, Politics, trans. and ed. Ernest Barker (New York:Oxford University Press, 1962). Back.

Note 13: For a general discussion of the economic and political correlates ofdemocracy, see Thomas Magstadt and Peter Schotten, Understanding Politics: Ideas,Institutions, and Issues (New York: St. Martin's, 1996), pp. 230-33. See also SeymourLipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Democracy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983);Tatu Vanhanen, The Process of Democratization: A Comparative Study of 147 States,1980-1988 (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1990); Samuel P. Huntington, "Will MoreCountries Become Democratic?" Political Science Quarterly 99 (1984): 193-218; andCarl Gershman, "Democracy as the Wave of the Future: A World Revolution,"Current, May 1989, pp. 18-23. Back.

Note 14: Milovan Djilas, The New Class (New York: Praeger, 1957), pp. 37-40. Back.

Note 15: The Czechs are, at most, semi-Western. The justly famous "highculture" of Bohemia is Prague centered and self-consciously elitist. Once reservedfor the Czech aristocracy and diplomatic community in the capital, the performing arts arenow primarily a perquisite of the nouveaux riches--and foreigners. The Bohemia-Moravia ofthe towns and villages is not to be found in Stare Mesto (Old Town), Vaclavske Namesti(Wenceslas Square), or Mala Strana. Back.

Note 16: - Back.

Note 17: Havel is virtually the only prominent Czech politician who has hadanything interesting to say about this problem. Klaus has focused all his attention on theeconomy and can barely conceal his contempt for philosophical musings about civic virtue.Havel and Klaus obviously saw things through very different lens, but they avoided publicdisplays of acrimony. However, Havel was unwilling or unable to provide more effective andmore assertive moral leadership by using the "bully pulpit" of the presidency,at least prior to Klaus's resignation. Havel did play an important role in stabilizing thepolitical situation and finding at least a temporary alternative to Klaus at the end of1997. Back.

Note 18: Michael J. Jordan, "Organized Crime Sets Up Shop at theCrossroads of Europe: Hungary Sees Spread of Violence, Some Blame the West,"Christian Science Monitor, December 17, 1996, p. 7. Back.

Note 19: There are frequent newspaper articles in all the East Europeancountries with a free press about the role of former Communists in the government,economy, and education. In the Czech media, that theme continues to be popular andjournalists never miss an opportunity to do a story on it. Now that the Cold War is over,the issue receives less attention in the Western press, interestingly enough. Even so, ithas not gone unreported. It is important to note that many citizens in all three countriesare ambivalent about the Communists now and not a few are openly nostalgic, as electionsin Poland and Hungary in the mid-1990s revealed. See, for example, Jane Perlez,"Young Poles View Walesa as Passe; Generation X Votes for Ex-Communist," NewYork Times, November 12, 1995, p. 10; see also Marshall Ingwerson and Peter Ford,"Ex-communists Retake the Helm; East Europeans, Once Swept Along by Anti-CommunistFervor, Now Vote Their Wallets," Christian Science Monitor, November 21, 1995, p. 1;David B. Ottaway, "Socialists Win in Hungary; Analysts Cite 'Nostalgia' for CommunistEra," Washington Post, May 9, 1994, p. A1; and Jane Perlez, "Gyula Horn,Recycled Communist, Takes Power in Hungary," New York Times, June 5, 1994, p. 3. Back.

Note 20: In the Czech Republic, President Havel has vigorously opposed revengeand retribution, arguing that the only way to lay the past to rest is through compassionand forgiveness. But the moral rectitude of Havel's position, sadly, does not obviate thepolitical fact that in the public mind justice has not been done: the perpetrators of pastwrongs have not been punished, and because they are now widely believed to be flourishingunder the new "capitalist" system, the wounds continue to fester. Indeed,virtually everybody can and will (in private) give specific examples of this phenomenon. Back.

Note 21: "Poland Turns Again," The Economist, September 27, 1997, pp.19-20. Back.

Note 22: Ibid. Back.

Note 23: Ibid. Back.

Note 24: Gregory Piatt, "Poland's Ex-reds Use More Bleach to Wash OutPast," Christian Science Monitor, February 8, 1996, p. 6. Back.

Note 25: Aviezer Tucker, "Czech Reality," Liberty, November 1997, pp.46-47. For discussions of the still murky civil-military relations in the Central Europeancountries, see Jeffrey Simon, Central European Civil-Military Relations and NATO Expansion(Washington: National Defense University, 1995); and Anton A. Beiber, ed., Civil-MilitaryRelations in Post-Communist States: Central and Eastern Europe in Transition (New York:Praeger, 1997). Back.

Note 26: Tucker, p. 48. The presence of holdover personnel in the intelligenceagencies of the Central European countries worries even some supporters of NATO expansion.Jane Perlez, "Touchy Issue of Bigger NATO: Spy Agencies," New York Times,January 5, 1998, p. A3. Back.

Note 27: Jordan. Back.

Note 28: Ibid. Back.

Note 29: "Czech Investment Funds: Worrying Trend," The Economist,March 29, 1997, p. 82. Back.

Note 30: Ibid. Back.

Note 31: Ibid. Back.

Note 32: Cynicism is difficult to quantify, but its grip on Czech society isnot questioned even by public officials with a vested interest in putting the best face onthings. For example, the Czech deputy foreign minister, Karl Kovanda, speakingdismissively about the low level of public support for Czech entry into NATO had this tosay: "This country is a country of cynics. They [Czechs] are cynical about themilitary and particularly about threats to the security." Quoted in Spolar, p. A1. Back.

Note 33: One daily observes and encounters an astonishing lack of civility onthe streets, in the shops, on the buses, trams, and trolleys. Shop assistants do notassist. If a customer has a complaint, the customer is always wrong. Even the mostobviously defective item will likely not be replaced; money surrendered is almost neverrefunded. "I do not make the things people buy in this shop, I just sell them,"is the typical response. From the highest officials to the lowest clerks, there is anunwillingness to accept responsibility for anything. Any suggestion that a clerk or themanagement made a mistake is more likely to be met by insult or invective than by anapology or an admission of error. Apparently, civil behavior is not yet profitable inCzech society. Back.

Note 34: See Hedrick Smith, The Russians (New York: Ballantine, 1984). Thisbook remains a classic. It is a penetrating study of Soviet society by a Westernjournalist who brilliantly described its moral and political decay more than a decadebefore Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and unsuccessfully tried to reverse the process. Back.

Note 35: On the prejudice of Czechs against Gypsies, see, for example,Christopher H. Smith, "Foreigners in Their Own Land," Christian Science Monitor,July 17, 1996, p. 20. The views Czechs express toward Gypsies are hardly less distortedthan the views that racists in America express toward blacks. Discrimination againstGypsies in housing, employment, and education is illegal but tolerated. On the rise ofhate crimes against Gypsies in Plzen, see "Rasismu a nasili v Plzni neustalepribyva" (Racism and Violence in Plzen Constantly Rising), Plzensky denik, June 14,1997, p. 14. This article notes that since 1990 there have been more than 60 documentedcases of racially motivated attacks against minorities (mostly Gypsies) and the"senseless death of two people." Many racial assaults, both verbal and physical,are never reported to the police. Whether such crimes are always properly investigated oreven entered into the record by police when they are reported is doubtful, given thegeneral climate of hostility toward Gypsies in the Czech Republic. Back.

Note 36: See, for example, "Tourist Blight," The Economist, September6, 1997, p. 53. This article reports that "burly freelance money-changers" inPrague cheat unwitting tourists who spend about $4 billion a year in the Czech Republic byselling them "worthless Yugoslav currency" at supposedly bargain-basementprices. Meanwhile, "the Czech police look on without batting an eyelid." It isno secret that the failure of police to enforce laws fairly and consistently--includinglaws aimed at protecting people from such predators--is a pervasive fact of life in theCzech Republic. Back.

Note 37: For example, see Fontaine, pp. 22-26, 28-35. Back.

Note 38: "How Government Solves Problems in Society," Lidovˇ noviny,May 27, 1997, p. 2. In this poll, respondents rated the government's performance in allcategories relevant to law and law enforcement as "rather bad" or "verybad" by the following percentages: financial criminality, 93 percent; organizedcrime, 79 percent; general crime, 83 percent; and development of the legal system, 65percent. Back.

Note 39: Ibid. Back.

Note 40: Quoted in "The Weight of Learning," Business Central Europe,May 1997, p. 16. Back.

Note 41: Ibid. Back.

Note 42: Ibid., p. 15. Back.

Note 43: Ibid., p. 14. Back.

Note 44: The writer was a Fulbright lecturer at Zapadoceska univerzita (theUniversity of West Bohemia) in Plzen from 1994 to 1996. He owes a special thanks to pastand present CEP lecturers, including Jack Van Doren, John Jennings, and Matt Sumro, formany stimulating conversations about the need for civic rehabilitation in the CzechRepublic. Back.

Note 45: NATO Handbook at http:/xs4all.freenet.kiev.ua/NATO/docu/handbook/hb00100e.htm. See third paragraph under "What Is NATO?" Back.

Note 46: Remarks to reporters on May 14, 1997, Weekly Compilation ofPresidential Documents 33, no. 20 (May 19, 1997): 709-10. Back.

Note 47: See, for example, President Clinton's 1997 state of the union message,Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 33, no. 6 (February 10, 1997): 142; see alsothe president's remarks to reporters on March 18, 1997, Weekly Compilation of PresidentialDocuments 33, no. 12 (March 24, 1997). The president used such phrases as "free anddemocratic" and "undivided and democratic" and "united, democratic,and free" like a mantra in his public pronouncements dealing with Europe, NATO, and,especially, the issue of NATO expansion in 1997. Back.

Note 48: Letter to congressional leaders transmitting a report on theenlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, February 24, 1997, WeeklyCompilation of Presidential Documents 33, no. 9 (March 3, 1997): 236. Back.

Note 49: Quoted in Siegfried Mortkowitz, "Welcome to NATO--Albright,"Prague Post, July 16-22, 1997, p. 1. Secretary of State Albright's remarks were echoed byPetr Necas, chairman of the Chamber of Deputies' Defense and Security Committee, who said,"It will be our duty and task as a candidate and future member of NATO to be a kindof interface between the alliance and countries of Central and Eastern Europe." Back.

Note 50: Remarks at a ceremony honoring the 50th anniversary of the MarshallPlan in the Hague on May 28, 1997, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 33, no. 22(June 2, 1997): 791. Back.

Note 51: For discussions of that issue, see Ted Galen Carpenter, Beyond NATO:Staying Out of Europe's Wars (Washington: Cato Institute, 1994), pp. 109-49; Doug Bandow,"Europe's Unhealthy Security Dependence," in NATO Enlargement: Illusions andReality, ed. Ted Galen Carpenter and Barbara Conry (Washington: Cato Institute, 1998), pp.209-21; and Ronald Steel, "Beyond NATO," in NATO Enlargement, pp. 243-52. Back.

Note 52: "The Strains of Democracy," editorial, Journal of Commerce,November 17, 1997, p. 6A. Back.

Note 53: Ibid. Back.

Note 54: Quoted in Lee Hockstader, "Hopes for a Czech 'Miracle'Evaporate," International Herald-Tribune, December 8, 1997. Back.

Note 55: Reuters, "Poll: Czech Support for NATO Membership Dwindles,"Central Europe Online, December 1, 1997, at http://www.central europe.com/ceo/news/07.html. Back.

Note 56: Quoted in Anatol Lieven, "Hungarian 'Soap' Tackles NATO,"Financial Times, November 5, 1997, p. 3. Emphasis added. Back.

Note 57: Quoted in "NATO Is Sitcom Theme in Hungary's ReferendumCampaign," Central Europe Online, at http://www.central europe.com/ceo/news/03.html. Back.

Note 58: For a discussion of the contrast between the democratic rhetoric ofCentral and East European political leaders and their sometimes authoritarian conduct, seeJane Perlez, "Democracy, Apparatchik Style," New York Times, January 11, 1998,p. E5. Back.

Note 59: Fareed Zakaria, "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy," ForeignAffairs 76, no. 6 (November-December 1997): 22. Back.

Note 60: Zakaria, in fact, concludes that they are part of the liberaldemocratic camp--a judgment that may be premature. Back.