DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: THE INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The changes that took place in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries were marked by a number of qualitative transformations in the political life of Central and Eastern Europe. The expansion of the European Union to the east, common to all countries in the region, is the acceleration of the process of transformation of power from a nation-state to transnational megastructures, political centers and supranational bodies. Integration and democratization processes have led to a change in a number of domestic political attributes, the creation of new postmaterial sociopolitical divisions, the formation of more effective institutionalized party and electoral systems, the construction of coordinated mechanisms for the practical implementation of constitutional engineering. executive power, government, court, parliament, parliamentarism. The transition from an authoritarian / post-totalitarian communist (or socialist) society to the regime from which the political transformation of Central and Eastern Europe began to a market and democratic society was difficult. This, in turn, has left its mark on the political processes in the region. The transformation of the political systems of the CEE states is influenced by the processes of globalization and regionalization. There is no single point of view in the scientific community on the causes of globalization. Economists argue that globalization is the result of the transnationalization of financial markets. Culturologists believe that globalization is linked to the westernization of culture. According to political scientists, the reason is the expansion of "democratic values". Only the recognition of globalization as an objective process that has a systemic character and covers all spheres of public life is indisputable. As a result of globalization, the world becomes more connected and more dependent on all its subjects.