The topic of democratization is an important aspect of the world's contemporary political environment as much discussion evolves around its evolution and spread as a universal value around the globe. It is a political process that has started its third wave in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. (McFaul, 2002) This was followed by a very significant phase in the progression of democratization, when most of the countries that were part of the Soviet Union started to move away from authoritarianism and entered what today is called, the transition period. The transition paradigm assumed that all transitions from previous political regimes will be towards democracy. Yet, as some cases of the fourth wave of democratization show- as named by Mcfaul (2002), outcomes differ from state to state and today not all qualify as full or partial poliarchies. Given this new phenomena, a vast number of new research is conducted on these countries to determine what the reasons are for different outcomes of democratization. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the democratic performance of three countries- Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland- of the post-communist region of Central Eastern Europe, to lay the ground for further research into why their performance scores where it does on our scale. By defining democratization in the first section, focusing on the two variables- inclusion and governmental accountability- a comparative democratization scale to measure the level of this democratization achieved in the countries being studied will be established. The case selection will be in the second and the case summary in the third sections explained, followed by a conclusion.
In order to be able to place the three countries on the comparative democratization scale accordingly, the expectations of democratization have to be established.