The Helping Hand: The Role of the EU in the Democratization of Post-Communist Europe (Report‪)‬

Introduction The Huntingtonian third wave of democratization following the collapse of the Soviet Union represents an important area of study for many political scientists. It concerns a political transition from autocracy to democracy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC) and rests on a premise that a regression to the political status quo ante is unlikely (Schmitter and Schneider 2004). The mere fact of such paradigmatic shift however is not always synonymous with successful democratization across the CEEC. One can identify four distinct categories of the former Communist states according to their level of democratization: (1) states that democratized, (2) states that returned to the former regime, (3) states that chose a different type of an authoritarian regime than before, and (4) states that did not clearly define their course.