Three Political Cultures of Europe

Interpretations, Evidence and Theories

 Krzysztof Ostrowski, Center for Comparative Research, Warsaw  

Henry Teune, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Paper prepared for the Theory Confrontation Symposium,
Moscow, June 17-21, 1996
 

   This paper begins with interpretations of present-day Europe, in particular with those of two historians now receiving attention in identifying Central, East-Central, Central-Eastern, Middle Europe, or Western Russia:  Oskar Halecki (1891-1973) of Poland whose work, The Limits and Divisions of European History was published in London in 1950; and the Hungarian Jeno Szucs (1928-1988), who published his, "Three Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline," in 1983. 1   Then, data and analysis from the Democracy and Local Governance research program will be presented with five Maps of an "enlarged" Europe.  Finally, some theoretical comments will be made in the social ecological tradition of sociology and about democracy and civic society and the implications for Central Europe for its future.  The viewpoint of Istvana Bibo (1911-1979), a democratic activist, will be briefly noted.

   The evidence from the research presented is that there are "three political cultures of Europe" and that what was identified as having evolved decades, indeed, a century or more ago, appears to have endured despite the cataclysms of the 20th century.
 

I. Interpretations

    Interpretations are accounts of what is or was in terms of theoretically informed, incomplete stories of events.  The cultures of Europe have been generally described as the result of the commingling of peoples and their cultures using one or two as starting points in the interpretation, often Athenian Greece and the Roman Empire, at its various endings.  The most important parts of the stories are what happened after great events of invasions and wars.  More mundane perspectives are those of slow processes of diffusion from centers with special skills and energies.

   Most general interpretations of Europe are informed by a theoretical framework of dynamic cultures extending outward through ecological processes of invasion, occupation/displacement, dominance, settlement, and assimilation.  Contemporary scholarship on social change is unwittingly informed by the "ecological paradigm" that evolved from Malthus to Darwin and Haeckel, to whom so much scholarship is indebted or enslaved.

   Europe by  the 18th century was being formed into a variety of strong nation-state niches in the West up against several polyethnic empires in the East, an older form of human political organization.  This development began around A.D. 1000 with the emergence of urban and commercial activity and achieved full ideological standing around 1650. 2   A hallmark of the "historic" break of the 1990's is the extension of the nation-state to an enlarged Europe.  Although its strengths derive from technology, trade, and near total loyalty of its peoples at the same time it is now being weakened by new migrations of peoples with different loyalties and global organizations for the development of technologies and the control of trade.  Whether an enlarged Europe will have extensive development of strong nation-states or whether the collapse of the last empire will be an interlude with a period of uncertainty until the re-assertion of impulsively expanding civilizations re-constituted as empires is a question about the future not only of Europe but of the world.
 

Oskar Halecki

   For Halecki Europe is an idea rather than a place that originated in Europe, flourished there as a dynamic cultural force, and spread eastward in Europe as a unifying force, indeed, world-wide, taking root in North America, as it died in Europe during the Second European war.  The core idea of Europe is freedom with its celebration of the individual.  It took form as a powerful creative force in an expanding Europe after the First European War, bringing Europe together as a unity.  The aftermath of the Second European War was a division of Europe into two.

   Two streams of ideology find their way into Central Europe after Europe becomes open to invasions after A. D. 453 and the transformation of the Roman Empire: a West, the inheritors of Mediterranean Rome in Charlemagne and Eurasia, centered in Moscow. Russia is the inheritor of totalitarian Asia and its values are incompatible with those of concept of Europe.  Two geographical Europes are defined by the points of clash between Russia and the West, creating the Eastern border of Europe and Western one of Russia.

   The survival of Europe as the idea of freedom depends on its trans-Atlantic home.  If Europe is to be re-vitalized and to extend eastward, then it will come through the establishment of an Atlantic Community and its global status.  Halecki was influenced by Arnold Toynbee and western historians as well as by the visible operations of North Americans in the establishment of NATO and the  design the institutions of a European Community, to re-create a Europe re-vitalized by the value of freedom.

   Looking at the data which follow, it is possible to draw an East-West line in Europe, a divide, allowing for boundaries made fuzzy by the imposition of national boundaries and the movements of peoples after 1945.  Seeing the role of the U.S. in Europe it is possible to make a case that the force of the West toward Central and Eastern is significantly fueled by North America.
 

Jeno Szucs
 
   As Halecki's perspective from the United States was influenced by the Atlantic so Szucs' was by the Hapsburg Empire.  His interpretation is more complex, the explanations use different concepts, yet the conclusions about the mystery of the "middle" of Europe were not radically different.

   The point of departure for Szucs is the Middle Ages and the splits between the East and the West.  In the West small local groups prevailed and the state was built on top them; in fact, central authority, even under the conditions of the "Absolutistic" states of the 17th century sought to free these groups from local tyrannies--the alliances with commercial-city groups and the kings against the local lords.  Russia, in contrast, built state institutions by impoverishing the local.  One allowed for the evolution of civic society; the other, for the formation of a powerful bureaucratic state.  The West nurtured the enrichment of the society; Russia enhanced the wealth of the state.

   The Hapsburg Empire was made up of a mixture of the two principles of state formation--state apparatus with tolerance for civil society and the Asiatic top-down despotism with concessions to local groups.  Both Russia and the Hapsburg Empire were expansionistic, but developed in separate ways, both different from the West.  Poland vacillated on these two principles but eventually the autonomy of local groups was crushed with the invasion of three foreign powers.

   For Szucs the three distinguishing elements that made for the difference between East and West and the contradictory co-existence of both principles in a distinctive in Central Europe were the relationships of the state with the organization of the economy, political life, and the identities of the people.  In Russia, the goal was the incorporation of all three in the state; in the West, independent domains of activity of the society, polity, and the economy.

  Whatever the reasoning behind this interpretation of three Europes, the pictures to be drawn on the basis of data about local political cultures without regard to current national boundaries, fit the images of Szucs more closely than those of Halecki.  Whatever the persuasive character of the analysis, his ideas found translation into the Foundation for Democracy established by Istvana Bibo.

   Bibo believed that democracy based on a civic culture, as described by Alex de Tocqueville as existing in America did not required centuries to evolve.  Although Bibo believed that democratic practices could be assured only with a solid civic society, a central authority could institute a "democratic revolution" from the top down and become actively engaged in building a civic foundation. Szucs' ideas and Bibo's program are consonant as were the "velvet" revolutions of 1989.

   There is some evidence that civic society can be promoted and form quickly, but perhaps not without some elements of it already in place, a characteristic of the remnants of the Hapsburg Empire, distinguishing them from the political culture to the east.
 

Other Interpretations

   Interpretations by the sane intended to account and describe rather than fantasize always ring true.  Among the more serious is the well-known western perspectives of Stein Rokkan as expressed in his eclectic maps of Europe, focusing on the City Belt, running roughly from Hamburg on the Baltic to Genoa and Trieste on the Mediterranean and following the rivers of Europe and their extensions by canals. 3  Rokkan added to these maps the great events of Europe of the split of the Roman Empire, the schism of the Church, the rise of the state and its wars, culminating in the patterns of industrialization and the rise of great cities in the 1920's.  His maps became more complicated with the conquest of the oceans by European ships, the spread of vernacular languages, and the Reformation, all of which are part of the puzzle of the  configuration of Europe today and its future.

   A simpler historical account is the traditions of peoples and their cultures and patterns of settlement and domination.  The patterns of European local governance, and, indeed, its structures, reflect the political cultures of the Germans, election and accountability of authority; the Latin (French) with legal recognition of the rights of people but the principle of central government being the only authority to give rights; and the Asiatic modality of no local rights other than the power of central authority (the principle of rulership).  In recent centuries the first was spread by Germanization of Europe; the second by Napoleon; and the third by the Russian and Ottoman Empires.

   Finally, with the re-opening of Central Asia, the importance of Asiatic influences on Europe are being re-evaluated. 4  Most of the European accounts are those of horror--Genghis Kahn and Tamberlane, and others depending on locality.  Yet until the 16th century the world was one of land rather than sea routes transporting silk and spices and conveying art and ideas from Asia to Europe.  It was not only Russia through which Asia influenced Europe and those legacies on the political cultures of Europe will probably be re-interpreted as the Silk routes become useable again for Asian-European traffic.
 

I. The Data

   Beginning in 1991 and continuing until 1996, interviews were taken with local political leaders in national samples of cities and communes in "Eurasia".  (Research has been completed in Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. and is being organized in Brazil, Canada, England, India, Japan, and South Africa.)   The national sample target was 30 localities and 15 political leaders selected in each.  These samples were reduced for small or sparsely populated countries--Lithuania, Slovenia or increased for large ones or those with political-legal or divisions--Germany, Russia, Switzerland.  The leaders selected were Mayors, Deputy Mayors, elected members of councils, political party leaders, and key administrators (financial officers), where appropriate.

   The interviews, except for bureaucratically oriented local officialdom countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland) were  face-to-face, often lasting nearly two hours.  Among the questions were about 45 "value" items, eliciting responses of agree-disagree.  Most of these items were used in 1966 and in the intervening years and were found to be robust measures of values.   Others were added.  The items were evaluated in a variety of ways in terms of their scalability.  This report is based on those value items, although there were several other measures of values and many questions about foreign influences, autonomy, decision-making, politically organized groups, political parties, among other questions, including standard ones about age, religion, sex, etc.

   Data have been gathered for nine communist countries at two points in time, 1991-1992 and 1995-1996.  The most recent data are presented for Belarus, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Russia (enhanced sample), Slovakia, and Ukraine (1996 data for Hungary and Kazakstan have just been received for coding; 1995 data from Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are not presented).  The most recent data for the established democracies are from Germany (1995) and Spain (1996).  The findings presented here would not be different if the earlier data were used, although there are significant differences in most of these countries after a four year period and after an election or two.

   In almost every country the location of the city or commune is "exact".  In a few countries, with the exceptions of Germany and Switzerland noted below, the localities are close approximations to their "real location", for reasons of confidentiality.
 

Democratic Score  MAP 1

   The most complex analytical efforts focused on a multi-dimensional global measure of the democratic values of local political leaders.  Several criteria were used.  First, the measure should have face validity, that is, not show radical anomalies, such as leaders from Kazakstan being more democratic than those from Sweden.  Second, the measure should differentiate leaders within each country.  Third, the measure should cohere in the sense of consistency of responses.  Because of practical constraints and the decision to move quickly into the field after the first "democratic revolutions", the items were pre-tested on a limited basis, although almost all had proven robust in nearly 25 years of cross-national research on local political leaders.

   All of the items were analyzed together, pooled for all countries, analyzed by each country, factor analyzed in various ways.  After all of these analyzes, a decision was reach to have a nine item scale, comprised of three items from the values scales for acceptance of conflict, political equality, and minority (vs. majority) rights. ((See Appendix for this and other items in the scales.)  The nine item scale is the "meat cleaver" scale: it distinguishes local political leaders on democratic value dimensions both within and across countries.  Although a similar scale would have different items in each country to maximize "homogeneity" and other properties of scales, this nine item, democratic score is the best, that is, most efficient multi-dimensional scale for macro comparisons, even if it cuts crudely in some countries and regions.  More analysis is being done using multi-dimensional scaling techniques, but at the moment, probably little can be improved, certainly nothing sufficient to change the basic picture in MAP 1.

   The dots are localities, either a circle (red), democratic, or a triangle (blue), non-democratic.  The score for each is based on whether more leaders accepted or rejected at least five of these nine items.  Again, a variety of scoring procedures were used and evaluated and the simple categorization shows the macro patterns as efficiently as the alternatives.  This scoring procedure also allows for differences in the number of communities in each country (a high of 73 in Russia and a low of 18 in Lithuania).  If the goal was to rank localities from the most to the least, then weights each response, of course, would be used and means calculated.  MAP 1 divides the localities into democratic and non-democratic.

   Germany is treated differently in MAP 1 and the subsequent ones (MAPS 2-5).  It is divided into four regions and each is shaded either darkly or lightly (colors, shades of red).  A sample of 20 localities was taken in each region, for a total of 80 (which were stratified by Lande and Kries).  The two eastern regions, divided into north and south were in the former East Germany. (Western Germany is also divided into north south.)  When either or both of the eastern regions areas shaded lightly, it means that they are like the circles (democratic) but statistically significantly, based on mean (average) scores, less so than the other regions.  This was done for two reasons, one substantive and one practical.  All German localities would clearly be scored as part of the western political culture, but the eastern regions or region are significantly different than the western regions, more like those in Central Europe.  The practical reason is that the geographical location of the localities are masked for reasons of confidentiality.

  Switzerland is also coded into two regions, the French and German, for similar reasons, including having 59 communes in the sample.  The German communes are significantly higher on the Democratic score than the French.  This is also done on the following MAPS.

Conflict  MAP 2

   Of all the value scales, the one that is the most generally predictive of other variables both across and within countries is that on conflict.  Other measures of conflict--perceived conflict, cleavages based on political conflicts--tend to be less predictively powerful than the value scale, but still among the most predictive of all the variables derived from the questionnaire (over 400 variables provided for in the international data file, but not all assessed in all countries).

  The conflict value scale is redundant with the items in the Democratic Score MAP but adds two other items presented in the Appendix.  Most values were measured by five value items to allow for scaling flexibility to increase validity by combining cross-national (for all or any combination of countries) with nationally "validated" items.  For crude comparisons, the scores on five items for each community again are a majority of leaders either accepting or rejecting a majority of the items.  This pattern of scoring and comparisons is followed for the remaining MAPS. 3-5.

   The pattern, willingness to accept conflict or the value of pluralism shows a sharper contrast between the three cultures. Two points about the German culture.  Both northern German regions are similar on this value, but the south-eastern region is significantly different from the all the other regions, although still accepting of conflicts.

Political Equality  MAP 3

   The political equality value scale shows a sharper break between the western countries, including Turkey, the mixed pattern in the middle of Europe and the general rejection of it staring in eastern Poland and continuing through Central Asia and Russia.  Local leaders in both regions of the former Democratic Republic of Germany significant differ from those of the western regions.  The German regions of Switzerland are significantly more accepting than the French.

Capitalism  MAP 4

   The capitalism scale is made from four standard statements.  Commitment to capitalism is much higher in the former communist countries in Central Europe, indeed also in Lithuania and Ukraine, compared to democratic values; Turkish leaders, much lower.  Eastern German regions differ from the western ones as do the German from the French regions of Switzerland.

Economic Equality MAP 5

  The local leaders' value of economic equality shows a pattern similar to that of capitalism.  One difference is the defection of many localities in Spain and in all former ccommunist countries to economic equality.  Although the position of the German regions is the same as on capitalism, there is a switch in Switzerland, with the leaders from the German areas being more committed to economic equality than the French.

Democratic Score: A Comparison of Country Means (Chart 1)

   A different, and perhaps clearer, picture of the three cultures of Europe can be seen using country means for all the countries on which data are available as of June 1996.  The darker (blue) part of the histogram represents the first time the data were gathered in that country the lighter (violet) the second time.  The countries with the highest scores included Sweden through Switzerland; a second cluster, Czech Republic through Slovenia, where democratic values are generally accepted; and a third, Ukraine through Kyrgyzstan, where statements reflecting democratic values are rejected.

The MAPS: A Summary

   As defined by local patterns of political values of a local political elite, regardless of specific contemporary national boundaries, there are three political cultures of Europe.  To describe these with geographic and political concepts, the values of local political leaders moves from being almost entirely those described as democratic in West Europe, to a mixed pattern in the middle, to a non-democratic pattern moving eastward to Central Asia and the Pacific.

   This conclusion is difficult to controvert with the kinds of data presented.  They are based on carefully defined and measured values of local leaders, elected, appointed, and party, in localities, cities and communes, randomly selected within each country, ranging roughly in size from 25,000 to 250,000 with adjustments upward or downward, depending the urbanization of the country.

   The distribution of democratic and "market" values of local political leaders has a tight fit on an west-east axis.  There is probably a north-south axis in Europe, running from Scandinavia down to Southern Spain and Italy, and Greece, and, perhaps western Turkey, but the data at this time do not clearly address this.  Preliminary results from Spain indicate that it too can be placed on a west-east axis of democratic and market values.

   One way of thinking about this is as a gradient or with steps.  In a four step case, Sweden and West Germany (former) would be at the top; a small step down would be taken in the East Germany); a relatively large soft step would be western Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, and then another relatively large step somewhere in eastern Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, which levels downward in Central Asia toward the Pacific.

III. Theory

  Foundational theories in the social science address why things and ideas get made; why they are distributed; and why they are used, consumed, and decay.  Human creations are manifest in artifacts of all kinds, which are distributed and communicated, used to make different things and ideas, which in turn are distributed and consumed.  Some of these somehow get settled in a people and place and in their combination and construction somehow become cultures in part de-composable into habits, perceptions, preferences, and values--ways of seeing, doing, and living.  One subset of this culture can be identified as belonging to the domain of the collective, how people ought relate to each other, how goods and services ought be distributed,  what should be the condition of the physical and social space jointly occupied (public goods), and what are the proper collective relationships (justice)--a political culture.

  One way of explaining a specific culture of a population in a particular place is through the dynamics through which it autonomously developed; another, how it got there from other peoples or places.  When explaining the political cultures of Europe, most historical analyses use the ecological theoretical paradigm, primarily, but not entirely with a social-political rather than a physical environment.

  The three basic processes of by which a culture gets distributed is through learning/adaptation, invasion and dominance, and simple diffusion.  All of these processes almost always co-occur, the number of isolated human communities being a trivial set, in any event having acquired language, tool-making, and fire at some time from somewhere.  Most of what has found its way into any human genome can be found in any other, or at least is receptive to the sexual/genetic exchanges.

   Dynamic social theories explaining the creation of something that grows and expands are difficult to construct.  It is one thing to use technology to explain economic growth by classical economic theories; quite another to explain technology, which generally receives most of the credit for economic growth.

   The processes of diffusion in its simplest form as the spread of infectious diseases is well understood and it is a powerful model or analogy for the spread of ideas, including jokes and good research ideas.  Those ideas were elaborated by the school of human ecology, later re-formulated as social ecology, in sociology and was a powerful set of ideas in explaining urbanization in market economies at the beginning of the 20th century.  It could not explain, however, the technologies necessary for the industrial city, or, for that matter, did not foresee the decline of the industrial city in the 1920's, when the "science" of human ecology was at its peak intellectually.

   It is clear that the political cultures of whatever Europe it is called between London or Paris and Moscow and beyond has to been seen from ecological perspectives of two or three cultures pressing toward a mixture somewhere in the middle.  That theoretical paradigm, however interpreted with histories, accounts for much of what has been seen on an east-west axis in the data presented.

   Nothing much has been said of the Latin and Germanic political cultures, one in the geographic south and the other in the north of Europe, although participants in European and international organizations informally divide along Latin and Germanic (English) language lines.  This division also can be accounted for by the probability of interaction under conditions that lead to "learning integrative habits", including languages and other behaviors necessary for the benefits of emulation, if not overcome by episodes of hostility.

  Creativity in the social world come from combinations of things, carts and combustion engines, steel and concrete, electricity and chemical reactions.  Ideas fuse into new ideas for political parties, social organization, and new human services.  The fact that Central Europe is an amalgamation of two, three, or more political cultures that at present co-exit there does not preclude new political culture and forms of collective action.

 
Footnotes

1. The original publication of Halecki was, The Limits and Divisions of European History. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1950).     An edited Polish edition is Historia Europy-jej grancice i podzialy. (Lublin: Instytut Europy Srodkowo-Wschodniej, 1994).  The paper by Szucs was published as "The Three Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline," Acta Historica Hungariae: 29 (1983) 131-184.  In French it was published as Les trois Europes. Preface. de Ferdinand Braudel (Paris: 1985).  In Polish, it is Trzy Europy (Lublin: Instytut Europy Srodkows-Wschodniej, 1995).

2. William H. McNeil, "Introductory Historical Comment" in G. Lundestad (ed.). The Fall of Great Powers (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1994).

3.

4.  Historians at the University of Chicago are publishing papers on the impact of Central Asia in Europe.
 

APPENDIX

DEMOCRATIC SCORE

   The nine items are taken as the "best" from the value scale items of acceptance of conflict (pluralism), minority rights (versus the majority), and political equality.  The items are scored according to the direction indicated.  In addition two of scales are presented independently in the MAPS.  The additional items added are noted with an asterisk.

Acceptance of Conflict

1. Public decisions should be made with unanimous consent. (-)
2. Preserving harmony in the community should be considered more important than the achievement of community programs. (-)
3. A good leader should refrain from making proposals that divide the people even if these are important for the community. (-)
*4. A leader should modify his actions to keep consensus (-)
*5. Leaders who are overly concerned about resolving conflicts can never carry out community programs successfully. (-)

Political Equality

1. Few people really know what is in their best interest in the long run. (-)
2. It will always be necessary to have a few strong, able people actually running everything. (-)
3. Certain people are better qualified to run this country due to their traditions and family background. (-)
*4.Participation of the people is not necessary if decision-making is left in the hands of a few trusted competent leaders. (-)

Minority Rights

1. The rights of minorities are so important that the majority should be limited in what it can do. (+)
2. Any individual or organization has the right to organize opposition or resistance to any government initiative. (+)
3. The government has the responsibility to see to it that rights of all minorities are protected. (+)

CAPITALISM

1. Government regulation of business usually does more harm than good. (+)
2. The government has the responsibility to see to it that everyone has a job. (-)
3. When people accumulate wealth, it is only at the expense of others. (-)
4. Competition is often wasteful and destructive. (-)

ECONOMIC EQUALITY

1. Rich people should pay more for the support of community projects than poor people. (+)
2. There should be an upper limit on income so that no one earns very much more than others. (+)
3. The government has the responsibility to see that nobody lives well when others are poor. (+)
4. In every situation poor people should be given more opportunities than rich people. (+)
5. Discrepancies in salaries should be continually reduced. (+)

Please send all questions and comments to either Dr. Henry Teune, University of Pennsylvania or 
Tatiana Iskra, Pultusk School of Humanities, Pultusk, Poland.

This page was last modified on November 28, 2000.