Introduction

Social democratic parties were active before the onset of communism throughout East Central Europe, some building on the legacy of the Austrian social democrats. After the fall of communism, it was economically right and centre-right movements and parties, many of them rooted in the anti-communist opposition, that won elections in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and laid the foundations for liberal democracy and a market economy. Soon after that, however, social democratic parties won elections – in 1993 in Poland, in 1994 in Hungary and in 1998 in the Czech Republic. Their success was based on two broad appeals. The first was economic. Without questioning the transition to a market economy, social democratic parties promised reforms beneficial to the lower and middle classes while using state programmes to cushion the impact of unemployment and inflation. These promises mattered, even while in some cases social democratic parties were more vigorous in implementing market-friendly reforms than their ‘right-wing’ opponents. The second appeal was social and national. Social democratic parties stood for more liberal social values, such as limiting the influence of the Church in Poland, ratcheting down state-sponsored nationalism in Hungary, and embracing the EU in the Czech Republic. Broadly speaking, they attracted ‘conservative’ left and communist voters – and brought them to accept the market and the West, sometimes promoting tolerance along the way.

The European Union may well be presiding over the most successful democracy-promotion program ever implemented by an international actor. All of the states that have become credible future EU members over the last decade are making progress toward liberal democracy and more transparent market economies. The puzzle is one of causation: Does the EU only accept liberal democracies? Or does the condition of being a credible future EU member create incentives for political actors to make their political agendas compatible with liberal democracy and the state's bid for EU membership?

The convergence that we see toward liberal democracy today is all the more puzzling given the divergence in regimes in the region some fifteen years ago. In some postcommunist states, democratically elected governments began laying the foundations of liberal democracy and implementing comprehensive economic reforms immediately after the collapse of the communist regime. By liberal democracy, I mean a political system where state institutions and democratically elected rulers respect juridical limits on their powers and political liberties. They uphold the rule of law, a separation of powers, and boundaries between the state and the economy. They also uphold basic liberties, such as speech, assembly, religion, and property. Important for our cases, they do not violate the limits on their powers or the political liberties of citizens in order to suppress rival political parties or groups.