Civil society, second society and the breakdown of communist regimes in central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania

This thesis proceeds from the premise that the demise of the Communist systems of rule in Eastern Europe is not fully explicable using ''traditional" theories of transition or democratisation. This thesis is, therefore, concerned initially with the limitations of existing theoretical frameworks. It proposes a line of enquiry that accounts for the breakdown of Communism through an analysis of a domestic variable: second society. In particular, it addresses the question of why the former European Communist regimes experienced differing modes of breakdown in 1989. The thesis adopts a comparative approach and focuses on the three different cases of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. By comparing them, it analyses the extent to which variations in the modes of breakdown can be explained by the second society variable. The case studies are divided into three sections. The first considers the historical issues and factors that conditioned the nature of the Communist regime and of emerging opposition. The second analyses the development of second society within each country and the third section considers the impact of second society on the mode of regime breakdown in 1989. The thesis concludes that the case studies , demonstrate a causal relationship between the second society variable and the mode of breakdown experienced by the Communist regimes.