20 Years On: Social Democracy in Macedonia - Summary (5/5)

Social democracy in Macedonia is a unique example of how an internationalist movement can be defined by differing values, policies, organizational features, experiences and legacies because it is set within the boundaries of one state. The branches do travel far and wide. Yet, in order to be defined as social democracy, certain identifiers are needed to reaffirm its identity. According to Coppieters and Deschouwer, the movement is meant to encompass the wider organized working class, but the focus of the movement in Macedonia is the SDUM. Ideologically, the social democratic family has a variety of branches, with the Socialist International conferring recognition through membership, which the SDUM has; but the application of policies spanning from the transition to the present day have appeared to have left the SDUM ideologically incoherent. So defining social democracy as a movement and ideology has proved complicated because the analytical tools of comparison have been unfairly weighted to the Western experience. So other, regionally focused and historically relevant markers are required.

By utilizing Bozoki and Ishiyama’s typologies to identify strategies that the successor parties adopted, one can clearly see that the SDUM still fit the modernization/social democratic model as they have reformed and are non-transmuted. However, this tool is of its time, and now the focus should look beyond post-communist strategies and towards ‘social democratization’. However, again the problem of comparison emerges. Progressive currents within the party are recognized and applauded by non-SDUM observers, yet they look to Europe for inspiration. Some do recognize that processes and ideas may not apply to Macedonia, therefore look to those whom they have shared a recent history with. These links are crucial for this process to occur at a pace which is comfortable for the party, both the leadership and members, to accept. 

However, voters still view the SDUM as the shadow of the communist party, for better or worse. The ‘paternal communism’ characterization of the SDUM by Kitschelt may still have degrees of similarity in regards to the centralization of internal party power, electoral support levels, its present attempt at ideological cohesiveness and undercurrents of clientelistic links. But ‘social democratization’ will alter this and is in part thanks to the efforts of the Progres Institut and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Additionally, the prospects of politicians and exogenous shocks, such as electoral defeat, may be the reasons why reform is taking place because debates can now occur. This is evident in reforms to the structure of the party and internal party democracy enacted by Radmila Sekerinska. Policy councils, input from academics and businesses, and an altered campaigning focus has allowed the party to modernize to appeal to a wider pool of people. However a disengaged membership, indirect democratic mechanisms and no strategic attempt to recruit members of ethnic minorities offset positive steps such as quotas for women and young members to be candidates.

The legacies of nation-building and state formation also have their relevance today. The rapid development of Macedonian national identity, vis-à-vis external threats, by SFRY after World War II accelerated the ethnic differentiation in the newly formed republic. This conforms to Gellner, Hobsbawm and Anderson’s ideas of the state creating the nation. Externally, relations with neighbouring sister parties suffered due to clashes over shared historical narratives, as Roudometof and Danforth mention; and internally clashes appeared in the early debates on citizenship and the constitution, and continue today with the creation of monuments and buildings to reaffirm Macedonian national identity.

Democratization also has its legacies. Parrott’s definition of democracy provides ample flexibility in its application in Macedonia, even if it sought not to compare democratization processes in areas of different experiences. The operation of consociational democracy, kept alive by an electoral system of proportional representation and a party system that reifies the mono-ethnicity of political parties (including the SDUM), institutionalizes a ‘separate, but equal’ situation in the political functioning of the system. However, as Lijphart mentions, the intent is to provide stability and this is what some of my interviewees mentioned. This can further highlight the inclusion/exclusion nature of ethnic division that Horowitz assigns to democracy. However, any future attempts to move away from this ethnic party system to an ideological one is hampered on the one side by possible electoral suicide should the SDUM practice multi-ethnic electioneering, and on the other by the straight-jacketed electoral system that fixes voting to regions with ethnic concentrations. The impact is thus felt on the attitudes of those within the SDUM who idealistically want a multi-ethnic Macedonia but remain pessimistic about its eventuality. However, limitations are expressed by the incomprehension of accepting defeat in a democratic system, and the limits of civil society to sustain itself and expand considerably.

Fundamentally, as Waller and Coppieters stated, it is unfair to assess the nature of social democracy in Macedonia with that of the West, or even with that of its regional neighbours or the states of the former Yugoslavia. To compare the evolution of a political tradition that in the West is one hundred and fifty years on from its inception, to one barely twenty years on its journey is to undermine the progress made by those new movements. As Kitschelt wrote, the causal chain of how legacies can shape the present originated in the era of World War I. The nature of the precommunist regime, the evolution of the communist regimes within states, the nature of transition, along with the early transformation of the communist successor parties, all led to the different trajectories of these parties. But I add to this with two points. Since independence, new factors have made these trajectories even more divergent such as Kosovo, internal ethnic conflict, the rise of new leaders and a change in international discourses related to the global economy. But also nation building prior to, and the creation of the state after, World War II, provided alternative legacies that impress upon the movement today.

Social democracy in Macedonia therefore should, and must, only be judged within the widest possible parameters set for the social democratic family that all other movements across the world and over time have allowed themselves to navigate within.

Social Democracy in Post-Communist States (3/5)

Defining Social Democracy

Social democracy in its present form is the result of over hundred and fifty years of evolution, and breaks from its Marxist origins. Its ties to Marxism were broken after the October Revolution in 1917 in Russia because socialists disagreed on the means to reach socialism. There were those who sided with the revolutionary socialists in the ilk of the October Revolution, and there were those who preferred the democratic means to achieve similar goals. After this split, the former began to call themselves ‘communist’ whereas the latter became known as ‘democratic socialists’. This further evolved to become social democracy, as we know today (Andrew Heywood, and Bruno Coppieters and Kris Deschouwer).  Andrew Heywood states that ‘The social democratic tradition has therefore come to stand for a broad balance between the market economy on the one hand, and state intervention on the other.’ Although this is a theoretical development of social democracy, I seek to work with the definition of social democracy, advocated by Bruno Coppieters and Kris Deschouwer, in its practice as a social movement, an ideology and a type of society. I will focus specifically on the first two criteria.

The social movement is the unity of the wider, organised working class in political parties and trade unions. As a process it has its origins in the emergence of social cleavages as a result of the industrial revolution, and has developed and become institutionalised over the course of a hundred and fifty years advancing its causes slowly. However, this did not occur in the East. Reform was rapid and cleavages were blurry - hampered by other divisions, such as ethnicity, so as to weaken the movement. Ideologically, social democracy advocated a classless society like the communists, but this then altered after World War II to advocate an expansion of the welfare state within a liberal capitalist framework. Yet in the East, ‘socialism’ became discredited even when the ideological content was capitalist and populist. The transition saw a clash of principles where marketisation and economic liberalism rolled back the role of the state, especially in social welfare.   So social democracy developed into two different concepts between East and West based on its experiences of development, although they both face similar challenges today. These two defining features of social democracy will enable me to address its current form in Macedonia. Primarily, the point here is that one cannot directly or fairly compare the nature of social democracy in the East with that of the West.

The Socialist International experienced this problem of definition after the collapse of communism, when admitting members to the social democratic family. This is because the fluidity of the transition hasn’t harboured an environment to make lasting decisions, the concept of ‘left’ is defined differently in the East in ideological/policy terms, the differences between new and successor social democrats within a state make a decision difficult as to the trajectory of the party in the future, as well as a general inability by the populations to differentiate between revolutionary and democratic socialism. Hence a decision upon successor parties is based on the way they have structurally changed. This is evident in who these parties appeal to for support, the composition of their membership, and an experience of internal ideological splits due to democratisation. But the effects of these could lead to nationalist tendencies, the emergence of a small social democratic group within the parties led by individuals who are younger, and a pull to a strong party centre to maintain unity. However one observation by Heinz Timmerman is that successor parties retained a conservative approach to the economy during transition, albeit this may have altered since. Therefore, ‘social democratisation’ as a process of change within the successor parties can allow me to judge how far along this process the SDUM is at present.

Communist Successor Parties and their Legacies

Building on this issue of communist successor parties, as it is highly relevant given the SDUMs heritage, I look to arguments developed in Bozoki and Ishiyama’s ‘The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe’. In their opening chapter, they look at the transformation of political identities that these parties undertook during democratisation through the strategies they employed. The typology of four party positions comes from whether the party is still Marxist or not, and whether it is transmuted or not. Factors that impact on the strategy that is followed are either environmental or internal organisational. The former rests on the reaction a party has to certain stimuli such as election results or vying to dominate political space on the left from similar contenders. The latter, on the other hand, depends on whether the party is a mass or cadre party (as to whom can change its identity), the attitude of the former regime whilst in power, and events during the transition including the carry over of party personnel and internal ideological struggles. Therefore, Bozoki and Ishiyama write, ‘the evolution of the adaptation strategies of the successor parties can be seen as both the product of the interaction between political performance on the one hand and the internal organizational characteristics of the successor parties, on the other.’ These points will allow me to re-evaluate the party within the typology outlined to assess its current strategy.

Yet, it is the existence of legacies which allow me to return to the period prior to independence because ‘If epistemological criteria for causal explanation require a minimum of temporal causal depth, only institutions, structures, processes, and actions that antedate the “proximate” events of the transition qualify as the ultimate causal variables of regime change.’ (Herbert Kitschelt) Yet these legacies do not overcome exogenous ‘shocks’ and internal party maneuverings of ambitious politicians. Understanding the impact of legacies, in their variety, upon the party today helps to assess the extent to which the SDUM are hostages to their legacies, if at all. Kitschelt’s typology of predicting the strategies and organisations of communist successor parties starts his causal chain from the era around World War I. The variables include: the strength of precommunist political society, the professionalization of the state apparatus, whether it was a newly independent country seeking Western support, if the party strategy was programmatic or clientelistic, its ideological clarity, its electoral support, the ratio of members to voters and citizens, as well as the extent of internal party centralization. He describes Macedonia’s typology as ‘paternal communism’, a group marked different because of their association with independence movements.

The impact of legacies on the strategies of the Macedonian successor party show that because they emerged from dominant ethnic rulers, the regional leaders turned to independence, democratisation and reform. Because of weak precommunist political society and a weak state apparatus there was no mobilisation in opposition to communism, and the party was partial to promote clientelistic practices. This may have stymied the ideological renewal of the party. Yet a consociational form of governance possibly cut across these legacies because of internal ethnic divisions, external threats and international instability.

Those in the three-tiered hierarchy of the party may have felt the impact of legacies in the organization of the Macedonian successor party. The leaders (first tier) in newly independent states could expect support for politico-economic reform. The middle ranking bureaucracy (second tier) could lose out, so some may leave parties governed by reformists, as was the case in Macedonia. The members’ (third tier) incentives to remain would be reduced, but sentimental and clientelistic factors play a role in their staying.  The parties in newly independent states may lose members who lose out to reform and clientelist links, but nationalist-minded supporters will join. This was a consistency in membership during transition. The distribution of power within the organisation is also impacted by legacies because differences in political outlooks of the three tiers of the party may increase or decrease internal democracy. In Macedonia, centralisation has occurred, but wholesale purging of the old guard was avoided by a new membership intake. The link to trade unions is tenuous as they tended to be present in those industries that would lose out from reform, and thus proved problematic to parties who pursued economic liberalization such as Macedonia. But to what extent is this typology assigned to the Macedonian case still relevant today?