Political order in crises discourse (on the example of transitional societies)

Abstract

The article deals with the question of the persuasiveness of the explanation of socio-economic crises in transitional societies in the paradigm of the exclusive responsibility for this of the so-called political order. The analysis of the most well-known concepts about the causes of decline in transitional societies, on the one hand, confirms the dependence of the economic situation on the effectiveness of political governance, but, on the other hand, shows that focusing only on political institutions limits the hermeneutic ability of a one-factor approach. Excessive emphasis on the role of political order leads to ignoring other factors of development — geographical, cultural, ethnic and others. The author of the article assumes that the political order as a mode of functioning of the political system is carried out through the activity of political and administrative institutions filled with a social substrate with a certain identity, including cultural and ethnic, and these identities often guide his actions.On the one hand, the level of public welfare depends on the presence of inclusive political and economic institutions. On the other hand, the development of institutions of this type is restrained by the parochial political culture of the population of transitional countries. Such a culture emerges from the pre-modern culture of social connections and is its rudiment, embedded in social psychology. It became the basis of the neopatrimonial economy, when public resources are distributed by a group of „big men”. The paradigm of the sole role of political order in the economic development of the country is correct in a sense, that order is impossible without national unity. At the same time, the basis of national unity is a much wider range of issues than just the creation of effective political institutions. Even when the explanation of socio-economic decline is reduced only to political rule, the last is formed by the will of the population and is a product of its choice, which is determined not only by political, but also by other identities of people.

Keywords

• political institutions
• political order
• transitional society
• neopatrimonialism
• socio-economic crises