Влияние траекторий распада коммунистической системы на переход к новым политическим режимам в Восточной ЕвропеThe effect of the patterns in the dissolution of communism on the transition to new systems in Eastern Europe

This dissertation brings together two areas of study, the study of the demise of communist regimes and the study of post communist transitions, which are related but typically approached separately. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between the demise of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the quality of democracy in the post-communist regime, asking the research question of how the differing types of demise of communism affect the quality of democracy in the post communist system. In answering this question, the dissertation creates a unique and innovative typology, provides a type of demise to a broad selection of cases, measures the quality of democracy in the post-communist regimes and explores the mechanisms and processes of two cases in depth, so as to better understand the results. Evidence is found that there is merit in connecting the demise of communist regimes with the transitions which followed. However, the enhanced typology did not allow for the acceptance of the hypothesis that power exchanged in a top-down manner resulted in higher quality democracies, instead bottom-up demises saw the highest quality of democracies, seemingly reflecting the importance of an active and strong civil society in a strong democracy. This dissertation’s approach, which considers the type of demise, is potentially exportable to other scenarios and locations in a way which other focuses may not be. Thus, there is future potential to develop this approach in other contexts, locations and outcomes.