Actors without Society

Contents

Part 1: Postcommunist “revolutions”: making their own foundation

1.1 What was the change about?

• The end of postcommunism?
• Delimiting areas and a comparative view
• The source of change – revolution?
• “Revolution” and implosion

1.2 We have democracy, we (still) don’t have society

• The retroactive creation of one’s own foundation
• Together in the “third” pot: the incomparable destruction of society in the communist regime
• Transition and democracy as ideology
• The communist (de)construction of society
• Democratic potentials?
• Democratic defects

1.3 Projections and reality

• The “natural” necessity of democracy
• The “problem” of the sequence and coordination of reforms
• The “Western” optics and the “Eastern” transformation
• The meaning of social rights: society under a constitutional umbrella or society in action
• Privatization and around it

Part 2: The new communities

2.1 The subaltern, politically passive society

• What was left from the society?
• The internalized domination
• The deficit of civilization

2.2 Post-Yugoslav states and nationalist revolutions

• The two faces of power “withering away”
• The politics go ethnic
• Decentralization instead of democratization
• “Narod” instead of demos
• (Re)active nationalism
• Democratic nationalism?
• Defective democracies with nationalist legitimacy

Part 3: Civil society and the self-established actors

3.1 Civic/civil society – from autonomy to political activism

• The late-communist “awakening” and the postcommunist “disappearance” of civil society
• A genesis, rather than a definition
• The new social responses
• Two approaches to civil society
• A “definition,” anyway

3.2 The space for civil attitude in the post-Yugoslav countries

• Out of a swamp by their own hair
• The social reality of civil society

3.3 Actors without society

Instead of a conclusion

Literature

Preface

Twenty years after the epoch-making change in 1989, which affected the post- Yugoslavian space in a way entirely different from other former “real-socialist” European countries, this study is an effort toward an analytical view on the past two decades of development of civil society in the western Balkans. The author, Srđan Dvornik from Croatia, is among those who know the subject well. Therefore, I am proud that I also played a part in motivating him and, with support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, can make possible the realization of the study.

My connection with Srđan Dvornik comes from 10 years of professional cooperation and friendship during my work as the director of the Regional Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation for south-eastern Europe and after. For the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a German political foundation, relations with civil society are of particular importance. Owing to its close ties with the Alliance 90 / Green Party, the Foundation has deep roots in the area of civil society; the attitude of active and responsible citizenship is also the cornerstone of its self-understanding. The cooperation with civil actors and support for civil society are central to the Foundation’s activities all over the world, where we cooperate in political education and development. My work in the Foundation’s office for south-eastern Europe is aimed at achieving a harmony between the concerns and approaches of a German foundation and the involvement in local relations, in order to create a fruitful relationship that would contribute to a stable peace and democratization of the region.

Srđan Dvornik represented the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Croatia from 1999 to 2004 as the head of its office there; he was an ideal, so to speak natural partner for that venture. In his person he connected knowledge of theory and practice of civil society, including internal and external factors of its emergence and development in the last two decades, both in Croatia and in the wider region of southern Europe. He is a sociologist and activist from the earliest days of civil society in Croatia, continuously concerned with reflection of society and politics, as well as socio-political position and meaning of one’s own activism.

In the late 1980s he took part in the early steps of the civil political commitment; he was among the founders of the Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative (UJDI). When the war broke out in the early 1990s, he took part in founding the Anti-War Campaign in Croatia. He followed the transformation of organizations of civil society from civil activism to professionalization. He worked for the Soros Foundation in Croatia, where he also ran the activities of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in his country. After that he returned to the “civil society” side, this time as the director of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for human rights. Throughout this period, he was also active as a translator of literature in philosophy and social science.

Therefore, it is not an accident that theory and practice – together with the internal and external relations of the development of civil society – are intermingled throughout the content and structure of this publication. From the standpoint of activities of the civil society actors and their effects, the principal question is that of the social context wherein those activities have been unfolding in the last twenty years. As Dvornik argues in the first part of the study, this is the first question that needs to be answered.

The development here, as a consequence of the Balkan wars that befell the post-Yugoslav region in the 1990s, does not correspond to the theoretical outlines of the democratic transition or transformation. The primary reason lies in the fact that in socialist Yugoslavia, like in other societies of the “real socialism” in the East, the relation between state and society substantially differed from this relation in capitalist societies, where the theories of transition originated. Secondly, the reasons lie in the specific authoritarian-nationalist “transformation” of the relations in the countries that succeeded Yugoslavia.

This difference in the relation between state and society, as Dvornik points out, had a decisive impact on the emerging civil societies; the impact was twofold: Firstly, it had a strong impact on self-understanding of the great number of activists and their activities in their own social environment. Secondly, the difference determines a negative impact of international donors on activities of civil society, as presented by the author’s disillusioning analysis. Many among the “democratizers,” with their programs, orientation on projects, approaches to “empowerment” or “capacity-building,” and other steps in training and education brought also their own normative understanding of civil society from an entirely different, Western social context, including a wrong understanding of – and misguided involvement in – the local relations. That had an indirect impact on the local civil actors. Taking over the external (Western) ways of comprehension and the corresponding mental patterns led, however, to a loss of touch with their own society, which Dvornik shows on several cases. The external supporters thereby unconsciously contributed to a conformist powerlessness of the local actors. They were less able to face the ethno-nationalist ideological homogenization of society in the conditions where the possibilities of action were limited.

What could be added to this analysis – which is central to the publication’s argument – is the thought that the conformist acceptance of western normative ideas of civil society among local civil actors also works as a feedback that supports a schematic perception in the international community about the social and political developments in southern Europe.

These theoretical and empirical insights give a special quality to the summary evaluation of the development of the civil society activism and its socio-political influence in the region. They are not negative, but differentiated, particularly with regard to the political upheavals in Croatia and Serbia at the beginning of the decade; the future outlook seems positive.

Altogether, this study is an important contribution to the hitherto insufficient discussion about the possibilities and limits of the actors of civil society in the (post)authoritarian societies. At the same time, it offers a lesson that instruments of Western politics of democratization still have a long development ahead before the point where their current organizational and political potentials are exhausted, thereby enabling more appropriate responses to the challenges set by the new world (dis)order in the last two decades.

Introductory note

Therefore, the work in its final outcome is mostly dedicated to the very meaning of the basic determinants of the post communist transformation, in order to fathom the civic actors’ place within the newly defined framework. They are not referred to as a “civil society” but as civil actors, because it is they who, together with other factors, develop a society as a complex of autonomous relations and transactions, as well as a field for civic commitment.

It is not possible to list all the people with whom I talked about these issues and who shared with me their activist experiences, their analyses, and theoretical thoughts. If they read the text that follows, many of them will also recognize some of their thoughts. I am deeply indebted and grateful to all of them. What I made out of it all and what is now offered to the reader is, as always, solely a matter of the author’s responsibility.

The research and writing of this study was only made possible by a generous stipend from the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Thanks to this support, I was able to work for one and a half years interviewing activists and getting an insight into at least a part of the very abundant literature, and on this basis write the work that I now put forward. It also allowed me to spend one month on a study visit to Berlin and half a month in Brussels, which provided an opportunity to learn about the views of various international organizations, political institutions, foundations, and other donors, as well as researchers also involved with this field. Apart from this precious material and logistic support, without which this work would not have been possible, it is important to point out that my colleagues in the Heinrich Böll Foundation Regional Offices in south-eastern Europe (in all three cities), in the central office in Berlin, and in the office in Brussels, have always provided a supportive and, more important still, friendly environment, both during my work at the Foundation and afterwards.

Instead of a conclusion

Now they face challenges in which these external helpers, who accept local authorities as partners, are no longer at their disposal. Although it cannot be precisely checked, they have probably succeeded in leaving their mark through those slow and quiet changes in sensitivity and political culture, which can be the basis for more successful mobilization of wider civic support for further advocating the rule of law and more accountable governance.

This account has attempted to wreck the illusions that the “transition” to democracy is something that arrives by necessity and advances naturally, and that formal changes are the first step toward real changes. It is not so, and so defective democracies can last for a long time, without being just in a transitory phase. Without civic engagement, there will be no changes, and the engagement of seemingly marginal actors achieves more than would be expected on the basis of their “systemic” place.