Comparative Development of Post-Communist Civil Societies

A. Main Hypotheses of Relevance to PDT

Civil Society

Green confirms the PDT hypotheses that "a vibrant civil society is of central importance in building a strong democratic polity". However, Green emphasizes the importance of certain legislative measures in ensuring the success of civic groups.

Supportive "institutional features enacted by the state to shape the nature and activities of the non-profit sector" are strongly associated with democratic development.

The four main roles of the state in promoting civil society are:

• allowing for diverse organizations,
• minimizing obstacles to legal registration,
• offering favorable tax treatment and
• allowing for political advocacy.

There are stark differences within the post-communist states in terms of successful civil society promotion and this is reflected in the disparate levels of democratic development.

Further research is required to fully understand the role of civil society in policy-making.

External Factors

Western foreign policy in support of democracy must place more emphasis on institutional features which are supportive towards civil society. Non-profit sector legislation "should be given much more urgency in democratizing states".

B. Article Summary

Green puts forth the results of his study of civil society in 20 post-communist states. This study is based upon an indicator of “best practice" guidelines that are used specifically to determine how successful the state has been in promoting various non-profit sectors. His findings indicate that the differing states have had varying degrees of success in promoting civil society. These disparities are reflected in the differing levels of democratic development within these states. States with more supportive institutional features tend to be more democratically developed.

Conceptualizing Civil Society

Despite the ubiquitous presence of the concept of civil society in the democratization literature and the general consensus that it contributes significantly to democratic development, Green finds that a detailed conception of civil society is lacking. He believes that a common thread running through many modern conceptions of civil society is the anti-statist philosophy that originated with Thomas Paine. This notion of state vs. society was popular among East European dissidents, but is clearly unacceptable in the framework of democratization. Green argues that we must look for conceptions which emphasize cooperation and co-existence. This notion is embodied in two modern conceptions: the sociological conception that focuses on collective actors such as trade unions, and a political conception that emphasizes broader civic associations within the context of democratic institutions.

These differing conceptions share three main commonalities - all of which Green believes to be "problematic". Both assume that groups will form, that groups will be pro-democracy and that they will effectively communicate the interests of society to state leaders. These assumptions ignore many possible conditions in the post-communist states, particularly the obstacles to organization that will likely exist prior to full democratization.

Measuring Civil Society

Measuring the level of civil society development is in itself very problematic. The most obvious measurement would be to simply count the number of non-profit organizations in existence. However, Green asserts that this is almost impossible to do because of poor record-keeping and the difficulty in assessing whether or not recorded groups are actually active.

Putnam’s study of civil society in Italy focuses on the number of civic associations per capita as well as the values advocated by these groups. Again, this presents the problem of counting groups and it ignores the obstacles to organization, but it is insightful in its consideration of societal values as represented by civic organizations.

Ekiert and Kubik’s work focuses on social mobilization in the form of protest behavior in four post-communist states. This study adds another insight in its analysis of specific events as indicators of social mobilization, but it again ignores obstacles to organization.

Green’s own study focuses on the legal and regulatory frameworks within which the non-profit sectors operated in 20 post-communist states in the years 1991-1998. By studying explicit state policies concerning non-profits, Green believes he can effectively measure the extent to which various states have actively promoted the development of civil society. The legal and regulatory frameworks are evaluated for four main aspects-organizational diversity, registration procedures, favorable tax treatment and political advocacy.

Organizational diversity is important because a wide variety of organizations most effectively represents the multitude of society. Most non-CIS countries were quick to establish laws allowing for a variety of associations and foundations. However, it was not until the late 1990s that the CIS states began allowing for foundations, public benefit groups and similar non-profits.

Green argues that registration procedures are important because official registration tends to entail political protection and economic advantages. Therefore, states with many obstacles to legal registration are deterring the development of non-profit organizations. Such obstacles include long waiting periods, high fees and frequent rejection of applications. In Green’s analysis, the Czech Republic is the only nation which stands out for having exceptionally few obstacles to registration. Groups in Estonia face moderate obstacles, while groups in Romania, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and most of Central Asia face many obstacles. In Uzbekistan, groups are considered to face extreme obstacles and Green goes as far as to say that the state blatantly wishes to control civil society.

Since financial stability is a major obstacle for most non-profits, favorable tax treatment is an essential step in state promotion of civil society. This includes establishing tax exempt status for non-profits as well as allowing for tax-deductible donations to these organizations. A third aspect of economic regulation that is often overlooked concerns revenue-generating activities that are essentially unrelated to the mission of the non-profit (i.e. selling pins and t-shirts bearing the organization’s logo). There is suspicion that supposed non-profits may be fraudulently trying to make profits through these activities. Therefore, these practices are often prohibited even though they are essential in funding legitimate civic groups.

Green argues that states should establish tax exemptions and allow at least some revenue-generating activities. Hungary has the most progressive policies in this respect, allowing taxpayers to earmark 1% of their income taxes for a non-profit of their choice. On the other hand, Russian policies exemplify the excess restrictions which Green believes to be a major obstacle to the development of civil society.

Lastly, Green argues against state imposition of explicit or implicit bans on political advocacy on the part of non-profits. While direct campaigning for parties or candidates should not necessarily be permitted, excessive restrictions on lobbying and advocacy will prevent civic groups from effectively pursuing societal interests. Green notes that Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan have always permitted political activities, while most of the other CIS states have implicit bans on political involvement.

Green rates each state in his study on a scale from 0 to 1 in each of the four established categories. A 1 is given to states whose policies effectively encourage the development of civil society within the given category and a rating of 0 indicates policies that restrict such development. A rating of 4 would therefore indicate effective promotion in all four aspects while a rating of 0 would demonstrate restrictive policies in all four categories. The most recent ratings are from 1998 and are given below.

• Rating of 4/4: Armenia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland
• Rating of 3/4: Romania, Slovenia
• Rating of 2/4: Russia, Ukraine
• Rating of 1/4: Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Bulgaria, Croatia
• Rating of 0/4: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Analyzing Post-Communist Trends

Green states that statistical analyses demonstrate that his indicator is a reliable measure of institutional promotion of the non-profit sector and further demonstrate that it is strongly associated with democratic development. The average rating for all of the states studied has been steadily increasing since 1991, but there is clear difference between CIS and Non-CIS states in terms of progress in the non-profit sector. Furthermore, there are moderate to strong inter-item correlations among the four items.

In analyzing the association between his indicator and democratic development, Green utilizes the Freedom House and Polity ratings as well as Vanhanen’s Index of Democracy. He finds the association between his NPS index and each of the three indicators to be quite strong. In graphical terms, there is a positive curvilinear association between non-profit sector legislation and democratic ratings.

Comparisons between regions reveal that the non-CIS countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltics have improved steadily in terms of their NPS rating and received an average rating of about 3 in the most recent evaluation. On the other hand, CIS countries have enacted minimal institutional features to support non-profits and received an average rating of about 1. Obstacles to registration and political activity are particularly prevalent in the CIS states. Comparisons within regions demonstrate that Armenia stands out as the most institutionally supportive state among the CIS states, followed by Russia and Ukraine. Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia stand out as the most unsupportive states among the non-CIS states.

Overall, the study indicates that "examining civil society more explicitly could provide valuable insights in the study of democratization". Green makes suggestions regarding future civil society development research. First, he suggests that trade unions be included as civic organizations in future studies. He further argues for future research to take into consideration the fact that some civic groups may be actively anti-democratic. Lastly, he suggests that future assessment of the extent to which government represents society should focus on actual policy making rather than elections alone, for it is in the realm of policy making “that societal interests and preferences meet the state’s capacity for action”.

C. Comments

I believe that it is worth considering a possible addition to our hypotheses based upon this study. The points Green raises concerning legislative frameworks for civil society development address an aspect of the issue that is mostly unrepresented in our hypotheses.

Summarized by Rafael Zuidema, November 2006