Identifying consolidation-causing patterns in disparate states:
Comparing Timor-Leste and Serbia
Rebecca Jones
Widener University
Laura Bailey
Fragile and Conflict-Affected States Group, The World Bank
Predrag Cvetičanin
University of Niš, Serbia
Previous comparisons with Southern Europe and Latin America have led theorists and practitioners to draw up what amount to laundry lists of conditions for transitioning states to check off in order to insure a successful outcome and consolidation. Because there are so many lists, conditions, and theories regarding democratization, the answer to the question “how does a state become democratic?” is often “it depends.” In an attempt to discover a generalizable pattern of democratic transition and consolidation, we utilize a combination of Fish’s (1999) political constructivist approach and Linz and Stepan’s (1996) five arenas of democratic transition and consolidation. This paper examines two “most different” cases, Serbia and Timor-Leste (formally East Timor) and compares their paths towards democracy and potential for successfully implementing and consolidating a democratic political system. We find that it is possible to determine a general pattern of transition and consolidation in civil and political society.
Introduction
The study of democratic transition and consolidation has led to a number of discussions, such as those regarding requirements, patterns, necessary and/or sufficient conditions, histories, and legacies. As Grugel writes “[t]he creation of democracy is a radical and challenging business” (Grugel 2002, 1). Because there are so many lists, conditions, and theories regarding democratization, the answer to the question “how does a state become democratic?” is often “it depends.” What are the factors that can insure at least steady progress towards democratic consolidation? How do transitioning states utilize these factors to successfully conclude a transition to democracy? A combination of approaches appears to provide the most useful method for determining a generalizable pattern of democratization. This paper will look at two “most different” cases, Serbia and Timor-Leste (formally East Timor) and compare their paths towards democracy and potential for successfully implementing and consolidating a democratic political system.
Previous comparisons of states in Southern Europe and Latin America have led theorists and practitioners to draw up what amount to laundry lists of conditions for transitioning states to check off in order to insure a successful outcome and consolidation. Transitioning states are compared to a check list of institutions and activities such as free and fair elections, choice of candidates, active NGOs, etc. Others, however, have identified broad areas within which democratic institutions, norms and cultures are established. There is less of a check list and more of a discussion of overall type and level of activity within these areas.
In their comparison of democratic transitions and consolidation in southern Europe, Latin American, and East-Central Europe, Linz and Stepan (1996) identify five arenas of consolidated democracy and argue that the creation and growth of these arenas is necessary to a consolidated democracy. The five arenas are (1) a civil society which enjoys the support of (2) the rule of law, and (3) a functioning, usable state bureaucracy, in addition to (4) a political society which crafts laws supporting the functioning of (5) economic society. “In a consolidated democracy, therefore, there are constant mediations between the arenas, each of which is correctly in the ‘field’ of forces emanating from the other arenas” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 15). Thus, the interactions of the five arenas affect one another and at the same time demonstrate state capacity and strength.
Recent studies have suggested that the state, and its capacity and strength, is a key to insuring a successful transition towards a democratic political system. A primary concern among those working to democratize transitioning states has been to limit the scope of the state. This concern is a response to the overwhelming presence and repression of the previous, usually non-democratic political system. Limiting the scope of the state has been viewed as the primary means for insuring that democratic values, institutions and functions will take root. However, there is evidence to suggest that this limitation has created a number of dangerously weakened newly democratic states. Macedonia, Liberia, Nigeria, and South Africa are examples of states that are reluctant to bring force to bear in facilitating peace and stability after a transition; they fear being viewed as oppressive (Chickering and Haley 2007).
How to create a state strong enough to pass and implement the necessary reforms while at the same time insuring transparency and accountability is the main problem. Fukuyama argues that it is necessary to “distinguish between the scope of state activities which refers to the different functions and goals taken on by governments, and the strength of state power, or the ability of states to plan and execute policies and to enforce laws cleanly and transparently – what is now commonly referred to as state or institutional capacity” (Fukuyama 2004, 7). This may be where a number of the problems in Serbia, and to a degree in Timor, can be found. Under Tito and Milosevic, Serbs had come to expect a strong state in the first meaning (scope), while the Timorese had similar experiences with an oppressive state under Indonesian rule. Both governments were effective at oppressing opposition and creating a lack of political freedom, but failed to deliver necessary goods and services.
Mueller (2003) `suggests that criminal elements that tend to wage a type of low-level war against the government in weak states and argues that a strong, but not oppressive state is necessary in order to support effective police and military forces. He suggests that such criminal groups do not like to deal with organized, effective opposition and “[t]herefore, a sufficiently large, impressively armed, and well-disciplined policing force can be effective in pacifying those conflicts which are thug-dominated” (Mueller 2003, 510). Mueller uses Serbia under Milosevic and East Timor (Indonesia) as examples of weak states that essentially overreacted and pushed the civilian populations into the opposition. He argues that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was not widely supported by ethnic Albanians until the Serbian crackdown in the late 1990s, which was mainly done through the use of paramilitaries, while in Timor, the horrific violence perpetrated by the Indonesian militias pushed most of the Timorese into siding with the guerilla forces. In the case of Timor, Mueller points out that “when the Portuguese controlled East Timor, they did so with a military force of no more than 1,500, while the Indonesians needed forces in the tens of thousands” (Mueller 2003, 87). These past actions leave a level of distrust among citizens with regard to the institutions and coercive apparatus of any government.
Both Mueller and Fukuyama argue that economic factors and prosperity, while beneficial, are not a necessary or sufficient condition for a stable, competent government and, indeed, Linz and Stepan place it fifth out of five in their discussion of arenas of activity. Fukuyama notes broadly that institutions and politics are the core requirements and says that state-building must occur before a democratic transition can be successful because “[a]t the core of state-building is the creation of a government that has a monopoly of legitimate power and that is capable of enforcing rules throughout the state’s territory” (Fukuyama 2005, 87) while Mueller (2003) is a bit more detailed and suggests that inclusive policies that protect minority rights and give the state the necessary strength to enforce those policies are more necessary. State capacity to pass and implement policies supporting a transition while protecting minority rights and providing security to citizens is another key to the successful transition to and consolidation of democracy.
Fukuyama (2004) suggests that in order to discuss stateness as institutional capacity there are four nested concepts that need to be addressed. The first of these is organizational design and management, which involves properly training individuals in the fields of public administration and management studies. Institutions cannot function if the people running them do not know what they are doing. Second is the design of the political system at the level of the state as a whole rather than at the level of individual institutions within the state. Thirdly, state institutions have to work together as a whole administratively as well as being perceived as legitimate by society. Finally, strong cultural factors must support the new political system because while having formal checks and balances is good, “ultimately, it is the people whom government supposedly serves who are responsible for monitoring its performance and demanding responsive behavior” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 30).
Fish has suggested that civil society and its organizations is the primary explanatory variable for differences in democratic trajectories among transitioning states. He argues that the “strength of society serves as a cause rather than a mere effect of democratization” (Fish 2003, 800). This argument dovetails with both Mueller and Fukuyama, suggesting as it does that a strong civil society could demand protection from state institutions and at the same time give them the capacity to provide such protection without becoming oppressive or returning to practices and norms endorsed by the previous regime. It also supports the description of the arena of civil society laid out by Linz and Stepan. Fish terms his approach the “political constructivist approach” and also suggests that economic development does not play a strong part in the development and consolidation of a democratic state. Political constructivism, as put forward by Fish, “emphasizes the autonomous importance of actors themselves and does not assume their behavior to be predetermined” by history or extrapolitical preconditions (Fish 1999, 799).
All of these authors agree that state strength (defined as capacity) is necessary to create and support a democratic transition and consolidation. The political constructivist approach of Fish, which argues that actors and decisions are the primary motivators in a democratic transition, together with Linz and Stepan’s (1996) five arenas, provide a good structure with which we can observe and analyze processes and progress in our two case studies, Serbia and Timor. These arenas are not designed as lists of requirements but rather provide a framework within which we can examine the actions and choices of actors and see how those activities affect the other arenas, all of which are in each other’s “field of forces.” A strong civil society capable of monitoring government behavior and demanding accountability supports and requires a state with a high level of capability and the capacity for implementing and enforcing policies, which in turn requires a usable state bureaucracy. The requirements within the political arena demand a distribution of power, which requires support for the rule of law, as Fish (2003) , Fukuyama (2005) and Mueller (2003) argue, in order to insure that corruption and mismanagement do not undermine the political system and destroy the rule of law. Finally, the economic arena, seen as useful, but not necessary by Fish, Mueller, and Fukuyama, plays a role for Linz and Stepan, but is not the primary source of democratic strength. Linz and Stepan’s (1996) arenas offer a flexible lens through which researchers are able to consider progress towards democratic consolidation. We find that the processes outlined by them, together with the theoretical context of the political constructivist approach, do help to explain the paths and processes of democratization in Serbia and Timor-Leste and assist in discerning a generalizable pattern.
Linz and Stepan suggest that a democracy is fully consolidated when behaviorally there are no significant actors spending significant resources in an attempt to create a non-democratic state. Attitudinally, a regime is consolidated when “a strong majority of public opinion holds the belief that democratic procedures and institutions are the most appropriate way to govern” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 7). Finally, consolidation requires a constitutional government, limited in its scope and all actors have “become subjected to, and habituated to” conflict resolution within the specific rules laid out in the constitution. Progress towards consolidation as defined above can be observed through the functioning and integration of the five arenas of consolidation. If these five arenas are fully functioning and integrated with one another, then behaviorally, attitudinally, and constitutionally, there is a consolidated democratic government and a strong capable state (Linz and Stepan 1996).
We examine the particulars of both states through a discussion of the five arenas. Actions and choices of actors, their consequences and the effect on actions within each of the other arenas are analyzed in search of some generalizable pattern of democratization. The remainder of this paper briefly examines each of the five arenas in turn, comparing the situation and status of Serbia and Timor Leste. This is followed by a discussion of the implications of these comparisons and the conclusions.
Civil society
Linz and Stepan’s first arena is defined as the “arena of the polity where self-organizing groups, movements, and individuals, relatively autonomous from the state, attempt to articulate values, create associations and solidarities, and advance their interests. Civil society can include manifold social movements (women’s groups, neighborhood associations, religious groupings, and intellectual organizations) and civic associations from all social strata (such as trade unions, entrepreneurial groups, journalists, or lawyers)” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 7). Civil society provides the space and organizations for citizens to participate in and monitor their government.
In the 1990s observers in Serbia spoke of a suppressed civil society, but one could also call it a divided civil society (Pavlovic 1995). The bloc that united to oppose the communist dictatorship in Poland in the 1980s (the church, trade unions, non-governmental organizations, the media) was essentially divided in Serbia in the 1990s into groups “for” and “against” the regime. The Serbian Orthodox Church had an ambivalent attitude toward the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. It condemned it as a communist regime, and demanded the return of church estates nationalized after WWII, but it also supported the regime’s awakening of nationalism in Serbia and the wars that were waged in the former Yugoslavia. Of the three central trade unions of the 1990s, the Alliance of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia was Milosevic’s “transmission belt organization,” while the United Branch Trade Union “Independence” and the Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions were more engaged in the fight against the regime than in protection of laborers’ rights (Pavlovic 1995). A form of civil society existed, but it was tightly controlled by the state and many organizations were actually state-run.
The strength and determination of Serbian civil society did manifest itself in a variety of small ways during the Milosevic regime. The journals Republika and Vreme, the dailies Nasa borba, and Danas, and the broadcasts by the radio station B92 all served as opposition voices during that time. The full strength of Serbian civil society was brought to bear in the political arena for the first time in October 2000 when opposition to the attempted manipulation of the federal presidential election outcomes resulted in mass protests throughout the country. The response to the call for protests from the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) and the resulting protests forced Milosevic to concede the election and step aside. The opposition called for parliamentary elections in the Republic of Serbia immediately following the October defeat of Milosevic, and those elections were followed shortly thereafter by federal parliamentary elections, which gave the DOS coalition 70% of the seats. The actions taken within the civil society arena had a positive effect on the political arena and appeared to move Serbia along the trajectory towards democratic consolidation. However, the recent protests and riots against the independence of Kosovo have served to highlight the fragility of civil society in Serbia. The speed with which nationalism returned and was embraced by a large segment of the population, including the prime minister, provides one indicator of the shallowness of democratic norms and culture.
Timorese civil society had to make the difficult transition from resistance against the Indonesian occupation to effective participation in the nation-building process. A number of Timorese NGOs undertake useful monitoring, advocacy, education, and advisory services in the areas of human rights, justice, gender issues, the environment, and international assistance. However, the presence of national NGOs in the districts and rural areas is minimal. There are also mass organizations for women and youth, which constitute important conduits for communication, but true dialogue with the government is limited. The Catholic Church is very influential, and historically played an active role in supporting the resistance; the bishop of Dili, Carlos Ximenes Belo was co-recipient in 1996 of the Nobel Peace Price, with Jose Ramos-Horta, the newly elected president. Despite financial fragility and inexperience, the media are expanding and maintain editorial independence. The print media includes four daily papers with a circulation of approximately 1,000 each and a number of weekly tabloids. These papers provide information and foster dialogue in the capital, albeit struggling financially with a narrow consumer base and high production costs. The national radio is arguably the most important media entity in the country as it reaches the widest audience (national television only reaches the capitol, Dili). The government’s relationship with media has been stormy, with little outreach by government and limited sophistication on the part of local print coverage; in early 2005 the government announced a boycott of the largest daily newspaper, Suara Timor Lorosae, in protest over what it labeled as biased reporting.
One of the notable achievements of the post-independence state was its handling of disenchantment among veterans of the resistance. Recognizing the potentially destabilizing effect of disillusionment among veterans and the broad community demand for the recognition of veterans, the President appointed two commissions to register veterans of the armed resistance. A follow-on commission undertook a similar process for the veterans of the civilian clandestinos resistance, which includes many women. On the basis of the work of the Commissions, Parliament drafted a law with recognition measures and limited assistance (World Bank 2005).
However, that achievement suffered a grave setback in May 2006 in the wake of violence perpetrated by former rebel soldiers fired for desertion in March 2006, and in June 2006 a UN Special Envoy began planning a re-entry of the international community under UN leadership (Houlahan 2006; Reuters 2006). Unfortunately, the government is reticent in collaborations with civil society, and has succeeded neither in engaging constructive critics nor in maintaining an effective dialogue with communities. Civil society in both states has experienced a rocky relationship with the respective governments.
Political society, rule of law and a usable state bureaucracy
Political society is defined by Linz and Stepan as “that arena in which the polity specifically arranges itself to contest the legitimate right to exercise control over public power and the state apparatus” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 8). This arena is most closely tied with the rule of law and the creation of a usable state bureaucracy. Actions in one arena are guaranteed to produce noticeable and almost immediate effects in the other two. In Timor, the decision by Indonesian president Habibie to hold a referendum on Timor’s status immediately impacted the political society within Timor, and Indonesia for that matter. In the Serbian case, actors in the political arena utilized non-system actors from the coercive apparatus to achieve their goals and exercise power.
While the defeat of Milosevic was significant, it did not signal an end to contentions among actors with different basic goals. New actors in the political and civil society arenas appeared from within existing groups to challenge the direction of Serbia. The two primary actors to emerge from the defeat of Milosevic were the Democratic Party (DP) led by Zoran Djindjic, and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DPS) led by Kostunica. The goals of both shifted regarding the correct Serbian response to demands from the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague and the necessity of rapid privatization in order to repair the infrastructure. The DP pushed for full political and economic democratization for Serbia, while Kostunica preferred a strict interpretation and adherence to the letter of the law, thereby proving to the international community that Serbia not only was not a problem state but, indeed, was a state.
As in the period between 1987 and 2000, contending actors divided Serbian society along non-traditional political cleavages based on inwardly focused nationalism (Kostunica) and outwardly focused Europeanism (Djindjic). A third major actor also entered the picture at this point, and its goals stood in stark contrast to those of Kostunica and Djindjic. Organized crime and paramilitary groups had been used by Milosevic to control the civilian population through bribery and terror tactics. Their entry into the political and civil society arenas severely hampered efforts to build systematic support for democracy. Indeed, Djindjic’s attempt to control two of the stronger criminal groups led to his assassination in March 2003.
Significantly, and disappointingly, the two-thirds majority in parliament and overwhelming public support were not used to introduce a new democratic Serbian constitution. The constitution in force for most of 2006 was the same one passed in 1990 by Milosevic’s single-party parliament. All changes in the rule of law from 2000 to 2005, such as the introduction of numerous important systemic laws and the suspension of the repressive laws of the 1990s, were overshadowed by the failure of Serbian democratic forces to revise the constitution. It was not until the end of October 2006 that Serbians were given a new constitution to adopt. Problematically, the now current constitution contains language in its preamble declaring the Province of Kosovo and Metohija to be “an integral part of the territory of Serbia, that it has the status of a substantial autonomy within the sovereign state of Serbia” (Constitution of the Republic of Serbia 2006).
The war on organized crime which followed the assassination of Djindjic was the first attempt to clean up and stabilize the bureaucracy and the institutions in the political arena. Only after this operation, which did indeed approach a true war, do we see the emergence of a usable state bureaucracy. After the October 2000 democratic changes, the political arena broke free of the corrupt Milosevic-controlled party system of the 1990s, and began to act in a more truly pluralist manner (Goati 2004). While dissolution of the DOS coalition prevented the proclamation of the new Constitution and many other tasks of the newly-elected democratic government, it still enabled a true differentiation of political parties and development of political society. This was also accomplished through the introduction of the proportionate electoral system with a 5% threshold, the adoption of the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament in 2000, the Law on the Financing of Political Parties in 2003, and the liberalization of the media. At present there are about 50 active political parties in Serbia, with six holding seats in parliament (Goati 2004).
In Timor-Leste, the primary actor until 1998 was the Indonesian military and political establishment led by Suharto, both of which considered Timor to be Indonesia’s 27th province. Their goals included maintaining the status quo (including substantial financial benefits from monopolies on trading activities such as Timor coffee exports) and eliminating the opposition guerilla forces. The second actor at this juncture was the Timorese guerilla forces, whose goals included an end to Indonesian occupation and full independence for East Timor. Notable in this context was the change in Indonesia’s goals over time; for 23 out of the 24 years of occupation, the Indonesian government refused to recognize any viable political opposition group as speaking for the people of Timor. Over time, international recognition of and support for Timorese resistance fractured the previously unanimous Indonesian actors. In 1998, after weeks of protests by university students and threats of removal from the speaker of parliament, Suharto resigned as president of Indonesia, and his vice-president, Habibie, took over.
The 1999 decision by an embattled President Habibie to allow the Timorese to vote in a referendum on autonomy versus independence came as a shock to both the Timorese resistance and the Indonesian army. Habibie and the diverse but newly vocal reformasi movement increasingly viewed Timor as a liability, while the army (who benefited both in status and materially from the continued occupation in Timor) wanted to retain control and resisted change.
The Habibie referendum decision launched a series of negotiations involving the UN, Indonesia, and Portugal (the latter having remained the legal representative of East Timor at the UN during the occupation). On May 5, 1999 an agreement was reached, allowing the UN to conduct a popular referendum in which the people of East Timor would be asked to either accept or reject the Indonesian offer of autonomy within Indonesia. Controversially, Article 3 of the agreement placed security in the hands of the Indonesian security forces. UN Security Council resolution 1246 established the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), which supervised the ballot on August 30, 1999 in which 78% of voters opted for independence (Taylor 1999).
UNTAET moved to create the necessary governmental institutions within the political arena of Timor. Departments were led by UN international staff with vastly differing degrees of involvement by Timorese; early on, UNTAET was challenged to enable Timorese participation in the development of legislation and the administration of the territory. In mid-2000, UNTAET created the National Council, a quasi-parliamentary body consisting of 33 appointed members representing different segments of Timorese society, and established the first transitional government consisting of eight cabinet positions, occupied by four Timorese and four international UN staff. In August 2001, elections were held for a Constituent Assembly. One of the original opposition groups and now leftist political party, Fretilin, gained 55 out of the 88 seats, just short of an absolute majority, and won the elections. Eleven parties won representation, with the Partido Democratico occupying seven seats, and the Partido Social Democratica and Associação Social-Democrata Timorense occupying six seats each (Greenlees and Garan 2002). Still under the ultimate authority of UNTAET, a second transitional government was formed, composed entirely of Timorese. Following the adoption of the Constitution, Presidential elections were held in April 2002, and won by independence leader and Falintil Commander Jose Alexandre (Xanana) Gusmao. Timor-Leste became fully independent on May 20, 2002. The Constituent Assembly became the National Parliament and the government, formed by Fretilin, was sworn in under the leadership of Prime Minister Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri.
To provide ongoing international support for the new State from May 2002 to May 2005, the United Nations Security Council approved a post-independence UN presence under the United Nations Mission in Support of East Timor (UNMISET) (UN Security Council Resolution 1410, 2002). Approximately 900 uniformed and civilian staff focused on a small peacekeeping role and training and support to the Timor-Leste police force, and provision of an important cadre of civilian advisors to Government, Parliament, the Office of the President, and justice system. This injection of international support and aid was not seen in Serbia outside of Kosovo.
As events in the first half of 2006 show, Timor-Leste is still a fragile transitional democracy – credible threats of destabilization exist, and both the democratic empowerment of those who are elected as well as the democratic accountability of political actors is incomplete. The explosion of violence in May 2006 exposed the extent to which tentative commitments to key aspects of consolidated democracy collapsed, both on the part of the government and the governed. Those institutions supporting the rule of law and the creation of a Timorese bureaucracy continue to be supported by external actors.
Both states have considerable problems that need to be solved before we can expect to see “normal” activity within political society, enforcement of the rule of law, and the emergence of a usable state bureaucracy. In Serbia, the return to extreme nationalist rhetoric and the violent protests against independence for Kosovo have sidelined European-leaning actors and created untenable ripple effects throughout the three arenas. In Timor, the recent successful presidential and parliamentary elections are a sign that those arenas have begun to stabilize. These three arenas constitute the most vulnerable areas for both states, and negative activity here will have a profound impact on civil society and economic society.
Economic society
Linz and Stepan (1996) use the term economic society to highlight two claims regarding the economy and a consolidated democracy. The first of these is that a command economy cannot function in a non-wartime democracy and the second is that a modern consolidated economy cannot support a pure market economy. Similar to civil society, which sets up a system of norms and expectations regarding interactions between the state and society, economic society sets up “socio-politically crafted and socio-politically accepted norms, institutions, and regulations, which we call economic society, that mediates between state and market” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 11).
In Serbia, given its starting point of a totally devastated economy, significant yet contradictory results have been achieved. Although the first legal acts on privatization (the federal law of 1989 and the Serbian law of 1991) were primarily oriented towards internal privatization (e.g. shareholding among employees), implementation of the two acts effectively ceased after the passage of the 1994 Law on Audit. The renewal of the process in accordance with the 1997 Law on Property Transformation was mostly used to allow Milosevic’s political elite and war profiteers to complete the transformation of their political capital into economic capital and thus legalize their illegally gained fortunes.
Apart from political capitalism (in Weber’s sense), the system in Serbia in the 1990s mostly resembled the unconstrained primary accumulation of capital, resulting in dramatic gaps between a few extremely rich people and the majority of the population. The transition to a new government after 2000 meant quick macroeconomic stabilization (a fixed dinar exchange rate and rigid monetary policy), liberalization of the foreign trade regime, hard budget limitations at the federal level, tax system reforms, and structural adjustment of the economy. The 2001 Privatization Law defined tender- and auction-based privatization models; by 2003, significant results had been achieved: 1,200 companies were privatized, generating revenue of 1.3 billion Euros and securing 280 million Euros for social programs. Even with such results, the huge trade deficit originating from the liberalization of the foreign trade regime often led to these funds being used for the compensation of the current deficit, rather than for long-term development. A key problem for economic society is political instability, which discourages new investment and capital.
In Timor, the economic picture is restrained by the limits of natural resources and the ability to bring those to market. With a population of about 920,000, Timor-Leste is one of the poorest nations in the world; gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is less than US$500 per annum (World Bank 2005). Approximately 75% of the population lives in rural areas and depends on subsistence agriculture to meet basic needs. The poor soil conditions and unpredictable rains have frequently affected food production significantly. The most valuable resources and main prospect for sustainable economic growth are offshore oil and gas, but managing those revenues to support stable long-term development is a considerable challenge. Infant mortality is high, and literacy levels among older age groups are low. Unemployment in urban areas is very high, especially among youth, and 50% of the population is under 20 years of age (Republica Democratica de Timor-Leste 2004). This has led to an upsurge in membership in martial arts clubs by young people, mostly unemployed men. These clubs have served as flashpoints in demonstrations against government policies. Government reluctance to crack down on such clubs has highlighted the weakness of the state and tended to undermine its effectiveness in other areas as well as economic policy.
Fish (1999) and Linz and Stepan (1996) all suggest that the economy and its functions is important, but its immediate transformation into a market economy is not the necessary nor sufficient condition for insuring a smooth transition to democracy. However, in Timor at least, it does appear that it may play a bigger role than these authors give credit. High unemployment and no immediate prospects have driven many of the youth, men especially, into the martial arts clubs that have formed the basis for a number of the anti-government protests and riots. In Serbia, economic conditions are demonstrably better than during the Milosevic regime, and nationalism, not the economy, was the driving force behind the riots that occurred after Kosovo’s declaration of independence.
Conclusion
The political constructivist approach provides a new way of looking at events in states transitioning to democracy. The five arenas described by Linz and Stepan (1996) allow the researcher to break down the multitude of events that accompany a transition and examine them separately before putting the puzzle back together. In doing so, the researcher is able to discover what, if any, potentially generalizable patterns exist in these transitions. By using our “most different” cases of Timor-Leste and Serbia, we endeavored to discover if two such disparate states had anything in common in the mode and methods of their transitions to democracy.
That civil society is essential to a democratic transition has never been questioned. Where Fish (1999) changes the discussion is to suggest that a vital civil society needs to be in place before a transition begins. In both of our cases rudimentary democratic civil societies existed; opposition groups and organizations in Serbia had always been vocal in their opposition to policies and actions of the Milosevic government. These groups formed the basis of a fundamentally democratic opposition that brought about the end of the Milosevic regime and began to move Serbia towards a more fully democratic political system. The violent response to Kosovo independence has undermined that civil society and shown that it is unable to counteract the nationalist rhetoric and sentiments that have reemerged. This failure suggests that civil society will be unable to usefully oppose any actions that may arise in political society. This becomes especially problematic when political reformers again find themselves, as they did during the Milosevic regime, the target of oppressive policies and actions (Hamilton 2008; Associated Press 2008).
In Timor, the violent and repressive measures taken by the Indonesian government resulted in a large portion of the civilian population, if not directly joining, at least supporting the guerilla resistance. The widespread support for independence over autonomy underscored the general desire to get out from under Indonesian rule. However, aside from the guerilla resistance, civil society as such did not really exist in Timor. It was only after the arrival of the UN and other groups that indigenous organizations began to appear. Some of these organizations, such as the martial arts schools for youth, did not contribute to the growth of civil society and indeed spent a great deal of time undermining policies and government actions that they disagreed with through terrorizing citizens. Other organizations have worked to bring information and services to the rural areas of Timor, but have to find a way around government implemented obstructions. Fish argues that a strong civil society is a cause rather than an effect of democratization and suggests that there is a paradox in the establishment of government accountability and citizen empowerment. “What is so often missing are the institutions that ensure the ‘constant flow of communication’ between the state and civil society” (Fish 1999, 816). A good example of this is the failure of the government to print a majority of its documents in Tetum, the native language spoken by the majority of citizens, as opposed to Portuguese, which is spoken by a small minority.
We can see from this analysis that civil society needs to be present and organized prior to the democratic transition. It provides support for the creation of democratic political and economic institutions. In addition, the new government needs to coordinate its actions with civil society and at the very least provide that flow of communication between a government and its citizens that is required in a democracy.
Regarding political society and the rule of law, Linz and Stepan note that these are the areas where “the polity specifically arranges itself to contest the legitimate right to exercise control over public power and the state apparatus” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 7) and Fish points out that power must be dispersed among the various institutions of the political system in order to insure that all groups within the polity have control over and access to some of that power. Fish (1999) also argues that democracy, contrary to popular belief, relieves ethnic tensions because it allows all groups access to the political system. At first glance, this does not appear to be the case with Serbia. The nationalist rhetoric coming from Serbian leaders has been directed at excluding and disenfranchising ethnic Albanians. However, it could be argued that the government of Serbia is not yet fully democratic and thus its actions towards Kosovo between 1999 and 2008 were reminiscent of the type of actions that Mueller (2003) states will drive citizens away from their government rather than towards it. Independence for Kosovo and riots in Belgrade were not predetermined, but those actions were precipitated by the actions and choices of the government in Belgrade both before and after the transition.
The economic society in both states has suffered from the actions taking place within the other four arenas. Fukuyama (2004) suggests that proper training is needed for public administration officials, and Linz and Stepan’s (1996) usable state bureaucracy cannot come about without properly trained individuals managing that bureaucracy. In Timor the UN is still involved in creating a system for handling and distributing oil revenues, while in Serbia, the renewed surge of nationalism is moving the country further away from one of its primary sources of economic development assistance, the European Union. Again, these situations were not the cause of history or predetermined by external forces, but by the choices of actors within each state. Finally, economic society needs to be protected under the rule of law as well. If certain companies or groups are dominant or receive favored treatment from government agencies, this will hinder full growth within the economic arena. Such protection includes the removal of state dominance from the economic arena.
One of the primary differences between our two cases is the level of international support that has flowed into Timor. This support has come in the form of training for police forces, assistance with infrastructure issues, institution building, etc. Serbia has not been the recipient of such levels of international assistance. UN presence in the region is concerned with Kosovo and its infrastructure and institutions. Given this bias, it is not surprising then that Serbs view the UN and other international organizations with suspicion and as entities that do not have Serbia’s interests on their agenda.
The general pattern that can be derived from this comparison seems to suggest that some level of autonomous organization within civil society is required prior to the transition. During and after the transition, political parties and other political organizations need to be free from state interference in presenting candidates for elections, and disseminating information regarding government proposals and policies. In addition, those organizations cannot be controlled by criminal elements seeking to take advantage of the chaos (e.g. the groups responsible for the assassination of Djindjic); this has weakened Serbian political organization. Governments or states also need to be strong enough and posses the capacity to implement policies and enforce laws in an even-handed, legitimate manner in all areas of governance. State capacity includes the ability and political will to enforce laws with regard to a states’ own bureaucracy and to insure transparency and accountability. This is a very general pattern, but one that is broadly applicable to “most different” transitioning states. As previous analysis has shown, too much detail tends to take us back to “it depends” when discussing what makes a transition successful.
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