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Transition, constitution-making and separation in Czechoslovakia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jon Elster
Jon Elster
Affiliation:
University of Chicago(Chicago).
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Abstract

This article discusses political developments in Czechoslovakia and the two successor states from November 1989 to the end of 1992. Three main topics are explored: the failure to write a new constitution for Czechoslovakia, the breakup of the country, and the making of new constitutions in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The author argues against the view that the breakup of the Czechoslovak federation was analogous to the breakup of the Yugoslav or Soviet federations. Instead he suggests the inherent instability of any two-member federation as the structural cause, and economic conflicts as the triggering cause, of the breakup.

Cet article traite des développements politiques en Tchécoslovaquie et dans les deux états issus de sa scission ultérieure, entre novembre 1989 et fin 1992. Trois principaux points sont examinés : l'impossibilité d'aboutir à une nouvelle constitution pour la Tchécoslovaquie, la scission du pays et l'établissement de nouvelles constitutions dans les républiques tchéque et slovaque. L'auteur réfute l'idée selon laquelle l'éclatement de la fédération tchécoslovaque serait comparable à celles des fédérations yougoslave et soviétique. Il suggére, au contraire, que l'instabilité inhérente à toute fédération de deux membres est la cause structurelle et que les difficultés économiques n'on été que les déclencheurs.

Dieser Aufsatz analysiert die politischen Entwicklungen in der Tschechoslowakei und den beiden, aus der späteren Trennung hervotgegangenen Staaten (zwischen November 1989 und Ende 1992). Drei bedeutende Aspekte werden untersucht: das Scheitern, eine neue Verfassung für die Tschecheslowakei zu formulieren, die Trennung der beiden Staaten und die Entstehung neuer Verfassungen für die Republiken Tschechiens und Slowakei. Für den Autor ist das Auseinanderbrechen des tschechoslowakischen Staatenbundes nicht vergleichbar mit dem Jugoslawiens und der Sowietunion. Er legt vielmehr nahe, die jeglicher aus zwei Staaten bestehende Föderation innewohnende Unsicherheit als strukturelle Ursache zu begreifen, die wirtschaftlichen Schwierigkeiten seien nur der Auslöser.

Type
Threats and bluffs in East European transitions
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1995 , pp. 105 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1995

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References

(1) To avoid burdening the text with this long name, however, I shall use ‘Czechoslovakia’ to refer to the country before the break-up.

(2) Or languages: although Czechs and Slovaks understand each other without difficulty, the two languages are different enough to create a potential for conflict, notably in the organization of the state-owned media.

(3) I rely heavily on the articles in the weekly survey published by Radio Free Europe from 1989 to the present. Up to the end of 1991 this publication was called ‘Report on Eastern Europe’, from 1992 onwards ‘RFE/RL Research Report’. In the text I refer simply to RFE followed by the date. I should also acknowledge my debt to a valuable book by Leff, Carol Skalnik, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia (Princeton University Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Excellent surveys of constitutional developments from 1920 to 1993 are found in Jicinsky, Zdenek and Mikule, Vladimir, Das Ende der Tschechoslovakei 1992 in verfassungsrechtlicher Sicht, Parts I and II (Köln: Bundesinstitut für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, 1944)Google Scholar. A useful collection of essays about the end of Czechoslovakia is Kipke, Rüdiger and Vodicka, Karel, Abschied von der Tschechoslovakei (Köln: Nottbeck, 1993).Google Scholar

(4) Constitution-making in Eastern Europe: Rebuilding the boat in the open sea, Public Administration 71 (1993), 169–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(5) I have studied the constitution-making process at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia (1787) and the first French Assemblée Constituante (1789–91) in my: Argumenter et négocier dans deux assemblées constituantes, Revue Française de Science Politique, 44 (1994), 187–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(6) A final proviso: my interviews, as well as comments on an earlier draft of this article, show that many participants and close observers disagree not only on matters of interpretation, but also on the facts to be interpreted. The historical record has not yet been established. Sometimes I have had to trust my intuitions, which are obviously fallible, about which account sounded more plausible.

(7) Leff, National Conflicts, p. 136.

(8) Later, I argue that a federation with two member states is an anomaly; even more so, a federation with only one member!

(9) Leff, National Conflict, p. 98 ff; Tocqueville, , The Old Regime and the Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1955), 176–177.Google Scholar

(10) Leff, id., p. 124.

(11) It is significant in this connection that because of what was perceived as the ‘right-wing opportunism’ of the Czechs, the USSR vetoed the establishment of a Czech Communist Party.

(12) See the essays in Elster, J. (ed.), The Round Table Talks in Eastern Europe, forthcoming from the University of Chicago PressGoogle Scholar. In this volume, M. Calda deals in detail with the Round Table Talks in Czechoslovakia.

(13) One notorious Communist even used this fact to object to the replacement (Jicinsky, Zdenek, Ceskoslovensky Parlament v Polistopadovem Vyvoji [Prague: AFGH, 1993], p. 62).Google Scholar

(14) Using the constituency of one Slovak member as the unit, a Czech member of the House of Nations represented two units and the House of Nations as a whole 225 units. 30 Slovak deputies equal two fifteenths of that total. In itself, this proportion is not remarkable. For instance, a tiny proportion of the American electorate (the voters in the thirteen least populous states) could in theory block any constitutional change. The voters in the small states do not, however, have any common interests (apart from their interest in maintaining their disproportionate power) that would make such a constellation likely.

(15) Zak, Vaclav, The velvet breakup (unpublished manuscript, 1994).Google Scholar

(16) Zak, id.

(17) As in Poland—but unlike Hungary (and there they were proven wrong)—the Communists in Czechoslovakia preferred proportional representation. Puzzlingly, however, part of the opposition to the majority system was due to fears that it would favor the Communists. They were the only well-organized political movement in the country, and some thought that for this reason they might be able to exploit the majority system. I can see no valid reason for this fear, which was probably due mainly to lack of understanding of the properties of the various electoral systems.

(18) Later, with more experience of the political system, he changed his mind. Perhaps one could say that nobody had played the Blum to his de Gaulle, another notorious adversary of the party system. In November 1942 and then again in March 1943, Léon Blum (in prison) wrote to de Gaulle (in London) to warn him against the idea that the resistance movement could substitute for a regular party system. After the liberation, the parties would have to assume their normal place in any democracy (Lacouture, Jean, Léon Blum, Paris: Seuil, 1977, p. 486 ff.)Google Scholar. De Gaulle got the message (Lacouture, Jean, De Gaulle, vol. I, Paris: Seuil, 1990, p. 705).Google Scholar

(19) For a survey see Hylland, Aanund, Proportional representation without party lists, in Malnes, Raino and Underdal, Arild (eds), Rationality and Institutions (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1991).Google Scholar

(20) For two Polish counter-examples, see my ‘Constitution-making in Eastern Europe’, p. 207–8. Next time around, however, Havel was somewhat less non-partisan. In his electoral bill for the 1992 elections, he proposed to divide the country into small electoral districts in which voters would cast their ballots for individual candidates rather than for a party ticket. The proposal was turned down by the Federal Assembly, partly because of a suspicion that it ‘was designed to ensure the reelection of the leading figures of the “velvet revolution”’ (RFE 14.2.1992).

(21) It is a commonplace in the economic theory of Central Banks (i) that to carry out their task properly they need to be independent of the government, and (ii) that a long tenure for the Governor is a necessary condition for independence. See Cukierman, Alex, Central Bank Strategy, Credibility, and Independence (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992).Google Scholar

(22) Zak, op. cit. (Zak was Vice President of the Czech National Council at the time).

(23) For a fuller discussion, see Stein, Eric, Post-Communist constitution-making, New Europe Law Review 1 (1993), 421–475Google Scholar and, especially, his forthcoming book on the break-up of Czechoslovakia.

(24) Meciar's demand for a confederation within which each republic would have virtually all the attributes of an independent state was one of the strange ideas launched in this period. Another was Carnogursky's idea of the ‘federation for ten years’. In my interviews with Slovak politicians who advocated this proposal, I regularly asked the following question : ‘Suppose that in a marriage, one spouse announces to the other that he or she will seek a divorce in ten years. Don't you think that marriage would collapse immediately? And wouldn't the same psychological mechanism of anticipating and immediately consuming the announced divorce hold for the proposal of a federation that is to end in ten years?’ I never got an answer that I could understand. A third convoluted idea that originated in Slovakia was the proposal of a ‘state treaty’ between the two republics (RFE 7.6.1991), a procedure that might have required the momentary dissolution of the federation shortly followed by its reemergence on the basis of an agreement between the two states.

(25) For an assessment, see Jan Obrman, President Havel's diminishing political influence, RFE 13.3.1992.

(26) For a discussion of such ‘reactive devaluation’ see Lee Ross, Reactive devaluation and other barriers to dispute resolution, forthcoming from W.W. Norton in K. Arrow et al. (eds), Barriers to the Negotiated Resolution of Conflicts.

(27) For a detailed account of the post-electoral negotiations, see Karel Vodicka, Koalitionsabsprache: Wir teilen den Staat!, in Kipke and Vodicka (eds), Abschied von der Tscheckoslovakei.

(28) ‘Ironically, most of the parties advocating a referendum, in particular the Czech and Slovak Communists and the Slovak Christian Democrats, had blocked the holding of a referendum in November 1991, when, as Havel remarked, “the referendum still made sense” ’ (RFE 19.11.1992).

(29) Jicinsky and Mikule, Das Ende der Tscheckoslovakei, Part I, p. 25.

(30) See Jicinsky and Mikule, id., Part II for a detailed discussion; also Pavel Mates, The new Slovak constitution, RFE 30.10.1992 and, especially, Holländer, Pavel, The new Slovak constitution: A critique, East European Constitutional Review, Fall 1992.Google Scholar

(31) Jicinsky and Mikule, ibid., Part I, p. 26.

(32) See also Cepl, Vojtech and Franklin, David, Senate, anyone?, East European Constitutional Review, Spring 1993.Google Scholar

(33) See my ‘Constitution-making in Eastern Europe’, 183, 212.

(34) Beard, Charles, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, reprinted with a new Introduction by Forrest McDonald (New York: The Free Press, 1986)Google Scholar, is the classical statement of the view that the framers were moved by their personal self-interest. McGuire, R.A., Constitution making: A rational choice model of the Federal Convention of 1787, American Journal of Political Science, 32 (1988), 483–522CrossRefGoogle Scholar finds that the economic interests of the constituencies of the various delegates have more power to explain voting patterns at the convention than the economic interests of the framers themselves, although the latter are not negligible.

(35) The supporters of the law argued that this provision would prevent the executive branch from harassing lawmakers. In this particular case, the harassing would not amount too much. We know from other countries, though, that harassment of lawmakers by the Internal Revenue Service can be an effective punishment and, presumably, an effective threat. The issue of how to insulate lawmakers from such pressures without encouraging unlawful behavior would be worth studying.

(36) For some general comments on this issue, see my: Bargaining over the presidency, East European Constitutional Review, Fall 1993/Winter 1994.

(37) Similarly, but more successfully the first president of Czechoslovakia, Thomas Masaryk, objected to a draft of the 1920 constitution which would have created a merely ceremonial presidency.

(38) James McGregor, The presidency in East Central Europe, RFE 14.1.1994.

(39) See for instance the chart in Duverger, Maurice, A new political system model: Semi-presidential government, in Lijphart, Arendt (ed.), Parliamentary versus Presidential Government (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 147.Google Scholar

(40) Another list of causes, most of them of a cultural nature, is provided by Vodicka, Koalitionsabsprache: Wir teilen den Staat!

(41) For a brief statement of this explanation, see Stein, Eric, Musings at the grave of a federation, in Essays in Honor of Henry G. Schemers, vol. 3 (The Hague: Kluwer, 1994), 641–649Google Scholar. A fuller statement is made in Stein's forthcoming book on the break-up of Czechoslovakia.

(42) See Petr Prihoda, Tschecken und Slowaken: Sozialpsychologische Aspekte ihres Zusammenlebens, in Kipke and Vodicka, Abschied von der Tschechoslovakei.

(43) On these issues, see Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Ch.5: Political cultures and mutual betrayal.

(44) See also note 51 below for another unwarranted analogy between the break-up of the Yugoslav and Czechoslovak federations.

(45) For a comparison of these three federations (with one another and with other federally organized countries) see Vladimir Kusin, The confederal search, RFE 5.7.1991.

(46) Butorova, Zora, A deliberate ‘yes’ to the dissolution of the CSFR?, Czech Sociological Review 1 (1993), 58–72, at p. 60.Google Scholar

(47) Butora, Martin and Butorova, Zora, Slovakia: The identity challenges of the newly born state, Social Research 60 (1993), 705–736, at p. 721–22.Google Scholar

(48) The Eighteenth Brumaire, in Marx, and Engels, , Collected Works, vol. 11 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1970), p. 166.Google Scholar

(49) This tendency will be reinforced if the fact that (a) is more frequently top-ranked than (b) is perceived as evidence that a majority prefers (a) to (b); if, in other words, (c) is perceived (incorrectly) as implying (b). In an earlier draft of this article I made exactly this erroneous inference, which Aanund Hylland and Claus Offe then pointed out to me. I do not, however, want to cite the flaw in my earlier argument as evidence for the present one.

(50) Butorova, A deliberate ‘yes’ to the dissolution of the CSFR?, p. 62.

(51) I disagree with Eric Hobsbawm, therefore, when he writes that ‘the separatist nationalism of the crisis decades plainly fed on [….] collective egoism. The pressure from breaking up Yugoslavia came from “European” Slovenia and Croatia; and for splitting Czechoslovakia from the vociferously “Western” Czech Republic’. (Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, London: Michael Joseph, 1994, p. 427)Google Scholar. Although one might argue, perhaps, that the Czechs took the last step towards separation, the first nine steps had been taken by the Slovaks.

(52) See my ‘Strategic uses of argument’, forthcoming from W.W. Norton in K. Arrow et al. (eds), Barriers to the Negotiated Resolution of Conflicts.

(53) Marx himself observed that in international trade: ‘the richer country exploits the poorer one, even when the latter gains by the exchange’ (Theories of Surplus-Value, vol. 3, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1972, p. 106).Google Scholar

(54) Eric Stein, Post-Communist constitution-making, p. 449, note 73 quotes a former Czechoslovak ambassador to the US as stating that in 1991 the Czech Republic contributed 93 % of federal expenditures and the Slovak Republic only 7 %.