OneEurope 1/93 East-West Magazine HOW TO BUILD THE ...

Obviously, western Europe is facing a political credibility crisis: Heaps of corruption scandals from
Italy to Germany are contributing to this impression. We are witnessing a fading political interest
and initiative of the economically satisfied brave-new-world-main-stream-citizen. The best quality
which journalists find about the German chancellor Kohl is his affinity for power (which says a lot
about the journalists, too). More or less, the democratic system is valued for its economic output,
not for its idea. In the case of economic stagnation this inflation of economic expectations towards
democracy will become a danger to the system itself. Especially eastern Germany and other
parts of central Europe might soon make this experience.
The emancipation from traditional moral values has pushed the political class into the spotlight of
expectations for moral leadership, but, of course it has provoked disappointment, since it is the
nature of the western type of democracy that politicians tend to reflect only their social
environment. On the top of this, the cycle of elections makes politicians short term oriented and
thus they are losing their long term credibility. Furthermore, the increasingly professionalism of
politics has contributed to this seeming dependency of politicians on the perceived short term
public opinion. We are dealing with an important default of the democratic system here,
originating from exaggerated expectations towards the state and government. [...]
I want to advertise a sceptic approach towards not just the socialist but also to the western
democratic systems, although for entirely different reasons and to a different degree. The reason
for this is, that a sceptic distance to the institution of the state is a fundamental precondition for
the democratic system of pluralism to work: the democratic system does not generate its
purposes itself. It demands inputs from the outside. Our problem seems to be that the democratic
system itself is in return shaping the society, encouraging mainly the genesis of majority relevant
opinions, which tend to be, of course, short term oriented.
More generally, the western societies, who have -fortunately- left the conflict between oppressors
and oppressed behind, do not generate the tension between the individual and the public which
seems to be necessary for providing strong counterpoise to society. The (only in this indirect
sense positive) distance between the public life and the individual is naturally missing, because
everyone is much more, directly or indirectly through opinion polls part of the political process.
Alternative political approaches usually become part of the political process. [...]
Democracy needs pluralism. Pluralism needs both, deflation of expectations towards the state
and tolerant political activities. It does not need criticism of the political class as a whole.
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Freedom of the press in Eastern Europe
by Sebastian Huebner, Bonn
In the former communist countries, in spite of many common political tendencies, big differences
in the freedom of press, the indicator of freedom and democracy do exist. In some states media
are almost free (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Baltic states), others are faced with clear
restrictions (Russia, Ukraine, Moldavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia) and unfortunately in several
countries freedom of press in not existent (White Russia, Armenia, Georgia).
In the years 1988/89 hundreds, in the USSR thousands, of new newspapers were created,
because there was a great interest in uncensored papers and the political intelligence had a
deep need for publishing their opinions. Low costs of paper and distribution made it easy to
publish a paper. Most of these papers disappeared after some months, and only about 10% of
them survived. Today, nearly all papers, the former communistic and the new ones are fighting
with economical problems, many of them against bankruptcy. Reasons for this are various:
subsidies were shortened or completely erased, the communist party stopped financing, organs
of the party were expropriated and privatized or, like in Russia after the coup in August 1991,
even forbidden. Expenditures for paper, printing, salaries etc. raised extremely. Papers became
more and more expensive. Rivalries, high prices, a decreasing interest in politics and a low
standard of living caused a stagnation of trade and the papers had to reduce the circulations.