Suddenly a new political landscape made the region open to new views of national life and new solutions to lingering problems. .
Eastern Europe had become a region populated by various ethnicities; some were concentrated in small areas, whilst others spread over large and expansive territories. According to the principle of national self-determination, the redrawn borders of Eastern Europe attempted to grant as many ethnic groups as possible self-government. However, politics and longstanding beliefs and resentments with the reorganizing process meant that these borders were often drawn without regard for the possible consequences. In Czechoslovakia, one of the most stable of the Eastern European states, only 65 percent of the inhabitants were Czechs or Slovaks, who were themselves two groups that had bonded together more out of necessity than mutual affection. The recognized minorities in Czechoslovakia consisted of 3 million Germans and 700,000 Hungarians , who combined to form over twenty percent of the total population. Neither of the two groups enjoyed losing their identities, maintaining close ties to their original nations. Both clusters disassociated themselves with their new national identity, importing their own traditions, ideology and forming their own parties. Ethnic minorities remained an impenetrable problem for the interwar Balkans. Balkan efforts to imitate Western-style parliamentary governments and capitalist economies also failed during the interwar period, again because of the discrepancy between assumptions and realities. This was not a climate for an effective system or stability. There was no spirit of cooperation, making successful democracy difficult, As influential elements in Balkan societies grew impatient with moderate ideologies, the Balkan states experienced a political drift to the Right. Authoritarian regimes came to power because liberal and parliamentary approaches failed to solve the problems of national minorities and economic backwardness.