The choice of the peoples or the choice of elites? To the question about the socio-political system of East-Central European states after WWI

Abstract

It is known the WWI has drastically altered the map of Central and Eastern Europe. The peoples of the newly formed states had to choose the most optimum way of their social development and political system. The direction of their subsequent historical development substantially depended on the solution of this task. 

We know that the new independent states of the Central and Eastern Europe made a choice in favor the Western socio-political model. It is represented to analyse an actual scientific problem: how natural and justified there was this choice, and whose choice it was - of the peoples or of the elites?

The democratic reforms along Western lines began in the countries of this region. However, the period of democratization and modernization was minimized by a number of reasons such as monarchism, government centralism, tough social control, corporativism, clericalism, commitment to social stability and order, negative attitude to innovations, traditionalism. Nationalism also had negative and destructive impact on the fate of democracy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The idea of my paper is to show that imperial legacy (in fact, the legacy of agrarian, or traditional, society) and nationalism were the major reasons that have caused the evolution of their political system from democracy to authoritarian dictatorships in the interwar period.

Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe,  elites, modernization, democratization, nationalism, ethnic minorities, authoritarian dictatorships.