ВЗАЄМОВІДНОСИНИ ВЛАДИ ТА ОПОЗИЦІЇ В КОНТЕКСТІ ДЕМОКРАТИЗАЦІЇ ПОЛІТИЧНИХ СИСТЕМ. Дисертація

Abstract

A thesis submitted to obtain an ScD degree in political science according to a specialty 23.00.02 “Political institutions and processes”. – Vasyl’ Stus Donetsk National University, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. – Vinnytsia, 2020. The thesis researches particularity and nature of the pattern interrelations between the political opposition and the power and defines their impact on the democratization of the political systems of the Visegrad Group countries. The combination of theories of social capital conversion, synergetics, fluctuation, institutionalism and neo-institutionalism were defined as the most relevant methodological approach. Due to the theory of social capital conversion, we have substantiated individual and group strategies of social capital conversion clarified the dynamics of the objective structure of the political field, the commensurability of dispositions between the power and the opposition, and the change of their boundaries during repositioning in each of the studied countries. The the interrelationship between the power and the opposition is studied as a process of accumulation, conversion, and exchange of capital in the struggle for the metal capital of the state. The synergetic approach was applied to analyze the role of power and opposition as determinants of fluctuation and bifurcation, qualitative change in the state of the system in the range between chaos and order, and the the ability of nonlinear dynamic systems to self-organize. Synergetics has helped to establish the involvement of both the opposition and the power in the emergence of regular and strange attractors and their use as a resource for the accumulation of political capital. The application of this approach as a methodological tool also helped to determine the relevant link between the application of the emergence principle and the establishment of pattern interrelationship between the power and the opposition. To determine the influence of power-opposition relations on the fluctuation of the political system during the substitution of one political force by another, we have applied the fluctuation theorem, developed by P. Sorokin as a component of his theory of social stratification. This approach additionally allowed to substantiate the relationship between the opposition and the power as a struggle of deterrence and stratification forces, to better understand the causes of fluctuations in the profile of social stratification and to establish the determinants of bringing the system to equilibrium. Institutional and neo-institutional approaches have been useful to define the role of institutionalized and non-institutionalized, formal and informal political actors in the development of specific "game rules" regarding the distribution of state metal capital. The theory of rational choice has helped to discover strategies of the power and the opposition in the creation of institutions of constructive interaction in the transition period. The research has ascertained strategies for the accumulation and conversion of social capitals of the power and the opposition that help to understand the differences between democratization processes; revealed the specificity of their interrelations in each studied country, in consideration of the starting conditions, products of democratization, practices of democratic transition, and their indicators; the research as well identified the defining points as bifurcation conditions for the democratization of political systems of the Visegrad Group countries, which separate the phases of growth and decline of mutual influence and have a decisive impact on democratization indicators. Patterns in the interrelations between the power and the opposition as a determinant of a system's self-organization have been identified and their influence on the dynamics of democratization processes found. Such patterns include loyalty/disloyalty, cooperation, compromise, constructive criticism, and so on. One of the products of such relations is the emergence of temporary spatial integrated structures - institutions of constructive interaction between the power and the opposition in the form of round tables, a specific type of self-organization of the system at the transitional stage. Round tables are considered ordinary attractors, which determine the change of the system's transition from a chaotic to an ordered state while changing certain parameters of the system. Their gradual disintegration in the bifurcation phase occurred after the choice of one of the agreed vectors of democratization development and bringing the system into a balanced state. Further democratization of the political system was carried out against the background of the influence of small attractors, which were generated by imbalance, instability, and accumulation of fluctuations. It has been proved that the patterns are products of strategies for the accumulation and conversion of public capital, the coordinated fixation of dispositions within the political field and habitus, implemented by political actors. They are commensurable with the force of the poles and the conditional distance between them. Therefore, the alteration of poles of the political field during the repositioning provoked insignificant changes in the interrelations between the power and the opposition. However, as for the democratization prospects, this factor plays a significant role. Maintaining a distance that estranges the two poles and the reproduction of political practices contributes to the emergence and fixation of institutions of constructive interaction as forms of self-organization in the political space, which makes it possible to predict the behavior of political players and the political system prevents chaos and the emergence of strange attractors and accidental fluctuations alleviate the political consequences of the convergence of democratization processes. Thus, the democratization of the the political system, without losing its dissipation features, is exposed to less significant fluctuations, and, in some cases, resembles a linear process. Pattern interrelations have manifested themselves in the reproduction of political practices and models of political behavior in the actions of political agents, which was accompanied by the carry-over of such phenomena as political corruption, malpractice, clientelism, and others. Suchlike associated capital allowed the ruling elite to quickly compensate for the costs of the election campaign and convert political capital into economic capital as the ultimate goal of the strategies of major social agents. By applying a neo-institutional approach and the theory of social capital conversion, we have proved that formal and informal rules of the "game" established in the process of interaction between the power and opposition are aimed mainly at preserving the ratio of political forces, disposition between the two poles and preventing other agents from redistributing the political field, which is achieved by artificially reducing the level of inter-party competition and negatively affects the qualitative characteristics of democratization. Choosing a synergetic approach as a research tool, we came to the conclusion that this strategy is based on the principle of emergence. That is, the cumulative social capital of two parties is always bigger than the amount of capital belonging to each of them. Based on the analysis of starting conditions, products, and practices of democratic transition, institutions of constructive interaction between the power and the opposition, and indicators, the author has developed and conceptualized a a dynamic model of democratization of Visegrad countries with phases of fluctuations and bifurcations, which is typical for post-communist countries. It has been established that the processes of democratization in the Visegrad Group countries have cycles of undirected non-periodic fluctuations conditioned by regular and strange attractors, which emergence is to some extent stimulated by the power and opposition and which, in turn, determines the struggle of equalization and stratification forces. The dynamics of democratization have non-linear nature and are resulted by the implementation of a specific conversion strategy not only by the ruling but the opposition elite as well. To confirm this hypothesis, the study has determined the level of democracy in each of the studied countries in the temporal dimension, made a cross-regional comparison and highlighted the bifurcation points of the democratization process of the Visegrad political systems, establishing their dependence on the distribution of state metal capital between the power and the opposition. The determinants that diagnose changes in the trajectory of democratic development has been defined. It has been substantiated that the deflection from the state of equilibrium, which in ideal conditions is accompanied by a short period of chaos, subsequently obtains organized forms and ultimately reproduces the original state of democracy or contributes to its enhancement. Based on this analysis, the functional role of the opposition in the alteration of the qualitative parameters of the political system's democratization and the criteria of effective interaction with the authorities from the standpoint of democratic development has been determined. The study elaborated recommendations for Ukraine to improve national practices of democratization.