Political Party Building in Eastern Europe

Abstract

In the years following the Velvet Revolution, Eastern European countries have been engaged in the endeavour of building democracy and its inherent values. Many political organisations and parties have contributed to the development of democratic systems in the region, supporting local parties in the process of democracy building. This article emphasises the value of such contributions, especially in terms of ideology and building trust. In describing different approaches to party assistance, the author analyses the main challenges in the development of political parties in Eastern Europe, highlighting some cases of successful cooperation.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a great deal of the European continent opened its borders to democracy. This was also the starting point for many organisations to provide training towards the development of democracy and politics in Eastern Europe and to contribute to the establishment of a functioning democracy. It is extremely stimulating to be invited by political partners to cooperate with them in their work, practices and beliefs. It is rewarding to observe that so many of the Eastern European countries have joined the European Union, changed their institutions that were formerly based on communist ideology, and built their political parties. I will argue in this article that support for political parties has been and still is essential in the overall process of building democracy in Eastern Europe.

Democracy as a demanding system

The long period of peace that we currently enjoy and the long period of prosperity that we have witnessed in the European Union since the Second World War are based on democracy, stable institutions and checks and balances. Welfare and security have been built on the political foundations of democracy. Some argue that democracy can be applied only when a country has achieved a certain stage of (economic) development. ‘Throughout the nineteenth century, theorists of democracy found it quite natural to discuss whether one country or another was “fit for democracy”. This thinking was only changed in the twentieth century, with the recognition that the question itself was wrong: a country does not have to be deemed fit for democracy; rather, it has to become fit through democracy’ [1, p. 4]. This is what Amartya Sen argues in an article in which he examines democracy as a universal value. The former Dutch Minister of International Development, Ms. Van Ardenne (CDA), defended the same point of view in her policies. As she stated, ‘Generally speaking, democracy is a precondition for development, not the other way around’ [2, p.1]. Mostly, these statements refer to up and coming democracies in Africa or Asia, where ‘advocates of democracy … had to argue for democracy with their backs to the wall’ [1, p. 5]. Sen's article is interesting with respect to the virtues that he regards as an essential product of democracy. These virtues, he argues, make democracy valuable and bring with it the capacity to generate a positive effect on society. But these virtues also make democracy a demanding system.

I therefore want to highlight them briefly, as I regard these aspects essential to the work of political foundations and to the training of political parties in Eastern Europe. Sen distinguishes three virtues: ‘[F]irst, the intrinsic importance of political participation and freedom in human life; second, the instrumental importance of political incentives in keeping governments responsible and accountable; and third, the constructive role of democracy in the formation of values and in the understanding of needs, rights, and duties’ [1, p. 11]. These elements also undergird current Dutch foreign policy with its strong emphasis on human rights. Hence, it is this belief that is common to our political foundations and that we take as a starting point in our work. In practical terms, this means that we provide both skills training and seminars dealing with political ideology and actual political issues to strengthen political parties, develop their ideology and thus work towards stable and reliable political institutions through which society and the economy can flourish. Much of the training is about capacity building to address those elements. Capacity building means the training of party activists; the people that may get representative positions in the future. Capacity building is also about strengthening the connections of party activists amongst themselves. And, finally, capacity building is about improving the working methods of the party at all levels so that they are what they should be in a democratic system. Through this capacity building, we envisage contributing to stable and trustworthy politics, and the notion that politicians are accountable to their voters and that people know whom they can count on.

In this light, and looking back on practical experiences obtained in the work that we have done since the beginning of the 1990s, I see some challenges in the development of political parties in Eastern Europe.

Challenges

In general, we find working with political parties in Eastern Europe highly encouraging, and we perceive our work as being fruitful. Nevertheless, we see some challenges with regard to the content of our programme activities, the political landscape in the countries we are active in and the ideology of the parties we work with.

The first challenge regards the requests from applicants for the sponsoring of training or events. We highly appreciate when we can observe that the programme for an activity is developed by our partner based on the needs that exist. We strongly believe that because of the different political and societal systems in countries, cooperation and the work of both partners is most successful if it is initiated by the partner within the country itself. A demand-driven approach is essential, therefore, to our working method.

It is easy and it is tempting to be patronising and ‘tell the other what to do’. For example, one of the successful elements in the Netherlands is the poldermodel, the system in which the trade unions, the employers’ associations and the government work together for solutions to solve urgent economic problems. It led to a successful economic revival in the Netherlands in the 1980s and to success in a variety of issues since. It would be easy to think that such a model can easily be copied by any other country to shape its democratic institutions. However, postulating this, one should not forget that the Netherlands have a long history of making decisions through dialogue and that this fits the realities of coalition government. Hence, it would be wrong to think that this model should be copied straightforwardly. Instead, describing our best practices and failures may lead to a process of assessment, of accepting certain elements and rejecting others, which in turn may lead to usable instruments for a partner that has to work in a situation that is almost completely different from that found in the Netherlands. The same is true for other systems like the health care, social security or education systems. These are systems that profoundly mirror the cultural and social development history of peoples. They are developed over many years and are unique to each and every country. Transplanting a system from the Netherlands into any other country would not only be unrealistic but would almost certainly lead to failure. People, political parties or civil society should, therefore, establish and adapt their own systems. From what we can offer from our expertise and experience, the usable elements can be chosen and the rest rejected, depending on the different situations. Thus it is necessary that political parties open themselves to society and learn from other groups what societal necessities exist. In that sense, democracy plays an important constructive role.

The second challenge is the difference in the political landscape that we usually encounter. What complicates cooperation with a political party is the often-changing political landscape in some countries of Southern and Eastern Europe. Parties that we successfully supported in the last years of the twentieth century, which could win elections convincingly and take leading positions in government may be marginalised in the political landscape in less than a decade. For example, there is the UDF (Union of Democratic Forces) with its successful Prime Minister Ivan Kostov in Bulgaria, or the PNTCD (Christian Democratic National Peasants’ Party) with Victor Ciorbea in Romania, who both convincingly won elections and formed governments. However, in both countries the political scene has dramatically changed over the past few years and the parties in this example are virtually nonexistent as a political force. Examples such as the Polish Freedom Union or some of the Hungarian parties could also be given. It is this volatility in the political system that on the one hand proves the need for the work that we do; on the other hand it shows the vulnerability of what we believe we have established.

The third and last challenge is the differences in ideological foundations between the political parties in Southern and Eastern Europe and those in countries where many political foundations originate. In the Netherlands, to mention just one example, parties are based on clearly articulated ideology, which is written down in manifestos that are widely accepted within that party. The leaders are important as carriers of this ideology, but people tend to have a broader sense of what kind of politics the party advocates than they do of who the leader is. This, by the way, is changing more and more, but it is still safe to say that the leader follows the ideology and not the other way around. We also have a rather clearly divided political mainstream, with the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Liberals, the Greens and other, sometimes smaller, ideological representatives. This clear division of ideologies is still seldom found in Southern and Eastern Europe. Christian Democrats in the true sense of the term are sometimes not present, or the title is claimed by more than one party. The neo-communists can show their face in many ways. It is therefore not easy for a relatively small political foundation to choose a party to work with. However, we rely in our work on the European People's Party and see if a potential party is registered there as a member or observer. European political parties are therefore helpful in shaping a context in which alliances between national parties in different countries can be formed. Secondly, cooperation with political foundations that have regional offices allows us to follow the identities of political parties and the changes in the political landscape.

A word about political ideology itself: in Southern and Eastern Europe the tradition is much more that the ideology follows the leader rather than the other way around. Parties are much more concentrated around a strong leading personality then around an ideology. To deal with this difference in political culture is a challenge. Therefore, it is ideology that we keep addressing in our activities. Moreover, it is also important to address, in training sessions, how ideology can be translated into politics that people understand and that will have an impact on daily circumstances. Too often we notice that politics is perceived rather as winning or gaining power. That is a pity, because there is much more to politics than that. Democracy demands more; therefore it is essential that political parties legitimise their views, and take account of and show responsibility for their actions.

To deal with some of these challenges, we often focus our activities on the new and younger generations of political activists. We do so, first of all, because the younger generation has grown up in times in which regimes, often communist-influenced, have collapsed and new institutions must be built up again. They also have received a free education and are eager to learn. But this also has a welcome side effect, in the sense that the younger activists can strengthen their position within the party. This is necessary because in certain cases, the inclusion of groups such as women or young people is low in a party, whereas they can contribute to the party's functioning and help sustain it in the long run.

Different approaches to party assistance

By the end of the 1980s, a number of organisations had been founded to provide political party training. Van Wersch and De Zeeuw [3, p. 35] concluded that the investment of European foundations working in the field of political party aid ‘totalled some €400 million in 2004’. They did research on 32 European foundations active in the field of democracy and political party aid. Most of these foundations were founded after 1989, with the exception of the German foundations [3].

In general, one could say that there are three different approaches to party assistance. First of all, there are direct relationships between sister parties. Foundations that are linked to a political party in Western Europe directly support sister political parties elsewhere. Often, these relations run through international political alliances. A second approach is that between supra-party institutions and political parties. These are inter-party organisations, which are supported by numerous parties, irrespective of political families, and which provide support to a variety of parties in other democracies. A third approach is through relationships between non-party organisations and political parties. There are various (large) international organisations that have started to provide considerable amounts of party aid in the past years.

The first approach, direct relations between sister parties, consists in the institutional strengthening of a sister party, for example, or providing expertise for campaign activities or for programmatic issues. The dominant method of this assistance is often training. Good examples are the German foundations such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation or Friedrich Ebert Foundation, or, for example, the American International Republican Institute. The second approach, inter-party organisations, focuses more on strengthening the legal framework for a multi-party democracy, supporting inter-party dialogue on issues of national interest or providing support for parties to cooperate with civil society. An example of this kind of approach is the Finnish DEMOS or the Dutch NIMD. The latter, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), was founded by seven Dutch political parties and supports the strengthening of democracies elsewhere by providing political parties a forum in which they can come together. In Georgia, NIMD and a large group of Georgian political parties came forward with a website that people can use to find the party that best reflects their ideological interests by answering questions. The last approach, party aid through international organisations, delivers a broad range of support activities to electoral processes, party development, research programmes, regional dialogues, law-making and so on. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance is a good example of this.

It is interesting to observe that some political parties that have received political party aid in the past are now organising training sessions themselves for political parties elsewhere in Europe. For example, the Christian Democratic Party in Lithuania is currently providing activities to support opposition parties in Belarus. Some participants in our activities have even started their own training facilities in their home country. For example, the founder of the Institute for Political Education in Ukraine (belonging to the Our Ukraine bloc) took part in courses at the Robert Schuman Institute and the Eduardo Frei Foundation in 1996-1997. A recent inventory made by the Robert Schuman Institute in Budapest shows that a great number of people who participated on one or more occasions are now members of government or otherwise active in ministries and administrations. Then there are those who are active in leading non-political positions in society.

Cases of successful cooperation

Despite the challenges, remarkable work is being done every day. I would like to name a few successful examples that resulted from cooperation between political parties. The first is the Institute of Political Education (IPE), based in Kiev. This institute has a particular aim. Their training is aimed primarily at local councillors and activists who are involved in local politics. They perceive the formation and development of local self-governance as an indispensable part of strengthening democracy in Ukraine and building civil society. For the past three years, they have organised a series of training sessions for local councillors, and in the total span of their activities they have trained over 500 people. Some of the participants now hold positions such as councillor, deputy mayor, advisor to a governor and so on. The added value of the training is, as one of the participants said, that ‘the specific knowledge we receive during the seminars cannot be received anywhere else, as there is no such profession as a local councillor’. One of the next issues that IPE will tackle is to train local councillor assistants, to improve the skills of those people. One of the programmes that we were very happy to set up together with the IPE is to train the trainers, a programme establishing a group of local trainers that carry out the educational task without assistance from our trainers.

The training set up by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) deliberately brings together youth from the political parties representing the Slavo-Macedonians on the centre-right and the Albanians at the centre-right. Besides the relevant topics that are dealt with according to the programme of the training, the training sessions have had an excellent side effect. They have broken through the barrier that existed between the two parties by bringing people from the two different parties together. This contributes to networking and bringing people from the same region into contact with each other. The second important side effect is to contribute to a shared working method that goes beyond the ethnic issues that such parties might normally stand for.

In the case of Romania and Montenegro, the training in both these countries, organised in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, is aimed at women. Often, women experience serious difficulties in obtaining senior positions within their party, as noted earlier. This is an issue that is widely acknowledged in many countries. Focusing all available resources exclusively on women gives the women an important impetus to sustaining their skills and contributes to their goal of getting a position in their party.

And, finally, there is the example of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. Because of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, the trainings in Serbia as well as in Bosnia-Herzegovina have a specific particularity. Besides the programme that is run by the trainers, the Eduardo Frei Foundation, in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, aims at bringing together young people from all over the region. This allows for a shared understanding of each other's situation and beliefs through group work, debating and sharing thoughts with each other. A yearly event in Bosnia-Herzegovina brings together a big group of young parliamentarians from all over the region to meet and gather for a weekend to discuss relevant issues.

Concluding remarks

The Eduardo Frei Foundation perceives capacity building as an important component in the process of sustaining political parties. This is an ongoing process, in which ideology building is one of the main tasks as well as one of the challenges. This is a continuing process for each party in every country. Political parties are important for creating trust in politics and democracy and therefore it is crucial to focus on them. In doing so, democracy works and delivers an environment in which society and economy can develop.