Hans-Georg Heinrich - Political Culture in Vienna and Warsaw

Hans-Georg Heinrich and Slawomir Wiatr

First published 1991 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heinrich, Hans-Georg, Univ. Doz. Dr.
Political culture in Vienna and Warsaw/Hans-Georg Heinrich and Slawomir Wiatr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8133-7818-4
1. Vienna (Austria)Politics and government. 2. Warsaw (Poland)Politics and government. 3. Political cultureAustriaVienna. History20th century. 4. Political culturePolandWarsawHistory20th century. I. Wiatr, Slawomir, 1960- . II. Title.
DB885.H45 1991
320.9436'13dc20

90-41701
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28342-1 (hbk)

When we began writing this book, the traditional European political order was still largely intact. By the time we finished the manuscript, such pillars of real Socialism as the GDR and Czechoslovakia had disintegrated, within a few weeks Romania was in turmoil, and the first signs of unrest were appearing in Albania.

Nevertheless, we did not have to rewrite our manuscript. Poland's transition from hegemonial Party rule to political pluralism has been accepted as a fact of life, and the situation appears to be stable until the next elections. The traditional economic and social problems of Poland and Austria are not likely to change in the near future. However, we are optimistic about the future of both societies. The new insecurity that goes hand in hand with the crisis in Eastern Europe brings with it both anxieties and hopes, pitfalls and opportunities.

We are indebted to all those who assisted our research by granting interviews, offering valuable advice, and eliminating bureaucratic obstacles. Needless to say, the responsibility for faults and omissions is entirely our own.

Hans-Georg Heinrich, Vienna
Slawomir Wiatr, Warsaw

In the beginning are assumptions. In the social sciences, we have to make up our minds about what is to be considered "normal behavior", we have to decide on what is equal or similar to what and what is not. We have to arrange the social universe in a meaningful way. The network of categories that is cast over the research objects and that molds opaque processes into identifiable social facts is in turn determined by our research interests. In a comparison of political cultures, we are interested in the parallels between cultures under study, and in whether they are moving in the same or different directions. We therefore have to make assumptions about the evolution of a political culture and the factors that cause specific patterns of evolution. Our study is based on specific assumptions about convergence, political and social modernization, and the interaction of groups and organizations.

The virtue of comparison lies in its ability to reveal and to give more precise contours to features that would otherwise have escaped the attention of the observer. Only comparison can break the "tyranny of normalcy". Comparing Vienna or Austria to East European cities or societies is a venture that holds much ambivalence for Austrians. Austria can boast a proud economic record but sometimes gets into dangerous vicinity to its East European neighbors when it comes to political conduct and methods of government. The ubiquity of parties and political camps is an accepted fact of life in Austria". Until very recently, the major difference between Austrian and East European systems lay in the choice for the governed: in Austria, one can do little without a party connection, but the party menu carries several items instead of just one.

The emergence of Socialism as a social and political system posed a challenge not only to Western democracy but also to Western political theory. Western and Eastern intellectuals have displayed a remarkable predilection for ideological images and a persistent tendency to work with value labels to the detriment of a more comprehensive and impartial analysis of both systems. Scientific infighting has reflected the struggle between the competing systems for global influence. The real topic of scientific endeavour was the relative attractivity of Capitalism or Socialism. For a long time this crude juxtaposition obfuscated the fact that intra-system variety was greater than perceived under the imperatives of the Cold War and that the two main world systems may be subject to certain laws of development that bring the two rivals closer together. Under the impact of Gorbachev's New Thinking, the idea that the evolution of both East and West are two sides of the same global coin is gaining ground.

Marxism postulates theory of unilateral convergence, it claims that the universal laws of societal development will sooner or later lead all systems to Socialism. Capitalism will be unable to handle its internal contradictions at a certain point, and the transition to Socialism will be inevitable.

The Marxist claim is reversed in mainstream Western comparative analysis. Now it is Communism that is no longer able to cope with its own economic problems. In order to handle an increasingly sophisticated economy, all Socialist societies must sooner or later adopt political pluralism and a market economy. Still under the pervasive impression of the Cold War, Brezinski and Huntington wrote Political Power USA/ USSR,

The era of detente in global politics corresponded to a new era of convergence in systems comparison. Capitalism and Socialism were now seen to converge bilaterally towards a mixed system. With the benefit of hindsight we can state today that the theory of bilateral convergence was too crude in its assumption that the two systems would mutually complement their economic and social institutions. Now that the prototype of Socialism, the Soviet Union, has officially confirmed the West's prejudices, bilateral convergence seems entirely out of place. To all appearances, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are ready to catapult themselves from Socialism straight into 19th-century Capitalism. The revival of unilateral convergence towards global Capitalism puts the advances of convergence theory under jeopardy. Today, the yardstick of comparison is again the proximity to an idealized model of Capitalism.