A Socio-Political Overview of Post-Socialist Southeastern Europe Today.

• Author: Ramet, Sabrina P.
• Position: ARTICLE - Balkan countries - Report

Between 1989 and 1991, the states of Southeastern Europe, together with other states abandoning communism, opened a new chapter in their history. (1) For the states, which emerged out of socialist Yugoslavia, this meant, in the short run, war. Indeed, of Yugoslavia's six republics and two autonomous provinces, one escaped with just ten days of fighting (Slovenia), while four were involved to a greater or lesser extent in the War of Yugoslav Succession from 1991 to 1995 (in alphabetical order: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, though the latter two were joined in a common state at the time). Kosovo, which declared its independence in 2008, saw fighting between the Kosovo Liberation Army, made up of Albanians, and the Yugoslav Army, during 1998-1999, while Macedonia escaped the war of 1991-1995 only to experience an insurrection of Albanians over a period of six months in 2001. Even while the fighting continued, the Yugoslav successor states took up the same tasks undertaken by the other states of Southeastern Europe, specifically to de-monopolize politics and the media, to organize multi-party elections, to privatize the economy (delayed in Serbia), and to rehabilitate the economy after the erosion just preceding, and typically also following, the collapse of communism. Whether one wishes to call the period since 1989-1991 a transition, by which one would think of transition to membership in the European Union and NATO, or a transformation, by which one would mean simply change without specifying any preconceived notion of a goal (however unlikely that would seem), the question emerges: just how successful have the states in Southeastern Europe been in their transition/transformation?

Ranking the Countries

There are two standard ways to measure political and economic progress in any given society. The first is in absolute terms, usually involving assessments by area specialists. The annual reports from Freedom House reflect this methodology. The second approach is to offer relative rankings, showing, thus, Slovenia, for example, as more democratic than the other states in Southeastern Europe, while corruption, according to local subjective perceptions as recorded by Transparency International, is reported as most serious in Albania, again within Southeastern Europe. Both of these approaches are useful and may be used in combination.

Thus, to start with the assessments reported by Freedom House, we find that Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria--all members of the European Union--are rated as "free," while the other states in the region, none of which are EU members, are rated as "partly free." Slovenia and Croatia received the highest marks from Freedom House in 2019 (94 and 85 respectively, out of 100), followed by Romania (81) and Bulgaria (80). Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo received the lowest scores in the region (53 and 54 respectively). Within the post-Yugoslav area, these scores reflect steady improvement since 1998 on the part of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro, slight improvement in Macedonia/North Macedonia, and Montenegro, and stagnation in Kosovo.

The most recent rankings by the Economist Intelligence Unit offer a somewhat different picture. In the view of The Economist, while Slovenia is ranked the highest in the region (#3 in Eastern Europe, #36 globally), Bulgaria is ranked as more democratic than Croatia, and Serbia is ranked as somewhat more democratic than Romania. Kosovo is not ranked in the Economist listing (see Table 1).

Where ordinary citizens are concerned, however, the most important issues are corruption, poverty, and unemployment, all of which affect quality of life directly. In fact, corruption is arguably the single most important challenge for politics not only in Southeastern Europe but in much of the world; the only other challenge which can rival corruption in its impact on the functioning of democratic institutions is organized crime. However, while organized crime is present in Southeastern Europe, corruption is the larger problem here. A glance at Table 2 shows a rough correlation between Freedom House's assessments of democratic attainment and local perceptions of corruption, with Slovenia, Croatia, and Romania in first, second, and third place respectively on each list. Bulgaria and Serbia are ranked in fifth and sixth place in terms of corruption, among the 10 states of the region, but in second and fourth place in The Economist's scores for democratic attainment. Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Montenegro finish in the bottom places on both lists.

Corruption can take various forms. In Kosovo, for example, corruption is manifested, amongst other ways, in the proliferation of ministries to which the relatives and friends of power-holders are appointed. In 2012, the government of Kosovo had on its staff, in addition to the prime minister, six deputy prime ministers, 19 ministers, 33 deputy ministers, and 162 advisers. (4) By comparison, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, with roughly 40 times the population of Kosovo, is assisted by one deputy chancellor and 15 ministers. It should be recalled, however, that Kosovo is a very young state and that both the United States and West Germany got off to a somewhat rocky start--in the former case as manifested in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Nepotism and cronyism are not the only forms of corruption in the region. Already at the start of the process of post-communist transformation, privatization offered ample opportunities for corruption. In Croatia, then under the political hegemony of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), when the Rukotvorine Company, manufacturing women's leather accessories, was put up for sale, there were offers of 5 million Deutschmarks (DM) from the company's managerial board, 8 million DM from an Italian businessman, and 3.5 million "from two inexperienced businessmen, both members of the HDZ: one a former football player, the other a veteran." (5) The sale went to the HDZ insiders. Looking more broadly, corruption in the economic sphere in the war zone in Bosnia-Herzegovina has gone through two phases. During the War of Yugoslav Succession, enterprises were either penetrated by the ethno-nationalist parties or simply seized. After the war ended, the new owners came to enjoy impunity guaranteed by law. The second, post-war phase in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been characterized by "inconsistent and weak implementation mechanisms and a consequent lack of positive results... [leading] to a continuous decrease in public trust in the country's institutions." (6) It was also during these years that a parallel process of state capture of enterprises unfolded in Serbia, with political elites gaining ownership of valuable economic resources. (7)

Given the importance of the media in shaping the publics' understanding of issues under discussion, it is not surprising that this sector has been vulnerable to corruption. As Peter Gross has pointed out, in some cases, media oligarchs co-opt the state, while, in other cases, the dominant political party or the state takes control of the key media, whether directly or indirectly. (8) Serbia affords an example of direct...