Referee Report 1: THE GREAT DIVIDE - Literacy, Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse, by Keith

Darden and Anna Grzymala-Busse*

Author of the Report: Filip Lazarevic

Date: 13/12/2017

1. Brief summary of the main research question, the main argument, and the types of
evidence that the author presents to defend their position

With a large number of papers dealing with the issue of the “communist exit” relying on high-correlation
variables, but with weak causal chains, this paper aims to create a more structured approach which will
provide such a causal chain, and hence help articulate the previous findings into a coherent narrative of
the issue. The “communist exit”, as understood in this paper, refers to the ratio in which the communist
party was elected out of the office during the first open elections in communist states. The causal chain,
this paper argues, of the communist exist is based upon nationalism as a driving force of the post-
breakup USSR and Yugoslavia republics in changing, or maintaining a communist government. The main
argument is structured around pre-communist literacy rates in the target countries as the independent
variable, affecting the ‘share of seats to non communist parties in the first free post-communist
elections’as the dependent variable. Using an OLS regression, with bootstrapped standard errors and 50
replications, the results are analyzed in terms of statistics, and then situated into broader theory of
nationalism, historical context, and institutional analysis (e.g. national identity practices and anti-
communist opposition groups).

2. An evaluation of the argument and the evidence

To measure pre-communist nationalism, the authors use national literacy rates. This jump from
nationalism to literacy rates is a logical leap, and the authors understand this. As such, a significant
portion of the discussion is devoted to this leap, in section IV, where they elaborate three mechanisms
by which literacy is connected to nationalism:
“In short, mass schooling explains a critical element in the supply of nationalist ideas. A considerable
institutional apparatus is required to convey an abstract, shared idea like common nationhood to
masses of people who have little or no face-to-face interaction with one another. The rise of formal
schooling accomplished this (1) by bringing a shift from oral, informal socialization to general training
based on the written word and school texts, (2) by introducing nationalist content into school curricula,
and (3) by disseminating this nationalist cultural message through titular-language teachers and
standardized statewide institutions”1. This theory make a leap, by asserting that literacy rates were
directly connected to the three mechanisms described above. A closer look at the content of the
education in the countries is needed, in order to strengthen this argument. A qualitative look at the
content of book and other study material, of values represented by teachers, etc. is needed to reduce
the logical stretching between literacy and rise of nationalism.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that this is in line with the historical model of nationalism as
proposed by Anderson, who stipulates that the printing press, the creation of national languages (as
opposed to Latin, or local dialects), and education in national languages, are the primary pre-requisites
for nationalist ideas to flourish. Furthermore, this is also in line with his claims that the 19th century

1
p. 100
Europe saw a significant and deliberate effort of nationalism promotion through the education system.2
Anderson furthermore argues that the importing of nationalism through colonialism (such as the use of
English as an official language in India) do not diminish the rise of nationalism in the colonies. As such,
the importing of communism into the states with low literacy would make a critical link between the rise
of nationalism and communism being a central idea around which this nationalism is built. Therefore,
the argument by Darden and Grzymala-Busse that states with low literacy in at the time of communists
taking power is in line with Andersons argument that nationalism arises as a cultural appropriation of
shared ideas (in this case communism), and their spread through time and space through a common
educational system. However, Anderson argues that vernacular ideas of independent nationhood
spread more rapidly that those imposed from the outside. For Anderson, this is the key mechanism
through which anti-colonial nationalism flourished, as for example Indians felt more Indian, than British.
This is a rift between the two theories, and they need to be reconciled. In other words, how come
communism was able to be deeply engrained into the sense of nationhood in the communist states with
low literacy rates? One proposal could be that vernacular nationalisms appropriated the idea of
communism, and as this nationalism was developed around the ideas of communism, and not in
opposition to it. As the authors claim, the lack of pre-communism national narratives in such states
meant that these states had to build nationalism and independence narratives within the idea of
communism, not in spite of it. Nevertheless, a closer comparison between colonial nationalism and
communist nationalism may be beneficial, to deepen both Andersons theory and that of Darden and
Grzymala-Busse.

This said, the OLS regression table shows that the primary variable was literacy rate, yet the discussion
of the literacy’s link to nationalism stresses the importance of nationalist content in the curricula. As
such, this opens the question if nationalist curricula are a better fit to explain the nationalist sentiments,
rather than simple literacy rates. In other words, it could be stipulated that a weighted variable is
necessary, which takes into account the nationalist content (i.e. the intensity of nationalist content), and
the number of people reached (i.e. literacy rate). In the coding schema (Apendix II), the national content
of the curricula is said to the coded as a dichotomous variable, but there is no discussion on how, and if,
this affects the weighting of the other variables. By not explaining the weighting of the variables with
national content, the authors reduce the believability of their regression methodology, which needs to
be taken into account in order to evaluate the overall methodology of the research paper.

Furthermore, the paper fails to discuss outliers to a full extent. In the discussion on the wider academic
literature on the topic, they use the argument that outliers often are not explained, like in the case of
‘proximity to the West’, where Belarus is closer to Europe than the Baltic states, yet did not have a
communist exit. However, two outliers were not fully discussed in this paper either – the cases of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and Macedonia. The authors note in footnote 22, that Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Macedonia are outliers, as they had low pre-communist literacy, but high rate of communist exit, but
only note that this requires further study3. If the case of Belarus is the main problem with the geography
argument criticized by the authors, then the outliers of BiH and Macedonia need to be explained, as
they are the outliers for this study.

As was noted by Michael Parenti, exogenous factors also could have played a role: “In November 1990,
the Bush administration pressured Congress into passing the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations

2
Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London:
Verso, 1991.
3
p. 91
Act, which provided that any part of Yugoslavia failing to declare independence within six months would
lose U.S. financial support.”4 The act itself stipulates that no funding can be provided to the federal
government, but also that “this section shall not apply to assistance intended to support democratic
parties or movements”, at the level of “all six of the individual Republics”5, which can only mean that
national groups could receive US support. This could mean that the BiH and Macedonian outliers
represented a reaction to exogenous factors (i.e. public fear of losing foreign aid, or disproportionate
access to funding for nationalist-separatist oppositions). This access to funding, which was only available
to separatist faction of the Yugoslav republics, means that external pressures existed, and need to be
further understood. Furthermore, the US supported the communist exit in Mongolia as well, as outlined
in Marcetic’s essay6. Such external influences can be seen as being an important factor in the communist
exit, and the effect of it needs to me measured, as to control for it as a variable. In other words, could
the communist exit be a result of other factors, which were not taken into account?

Finally, I would like to note that the “precommunist urbanization” variable shows 9.3% urbanization for
all 6 republics of Yugoslavia, which indicates that the data was not disaggregated by republic. This brings
into question the results under Model 2, which includes urbanization as a factor in the analysis. The
Yugoslav case shows a large variation between the republics, and having lumped data may skew the
results. However, it is understandable that such data may not be available, and as this is not a centeal
part of the argument of the authors, the impact on the overall soundness of the argument is likely to be
limited.

3. An overall opinion on the piece. Do you find the argument convincing? Why or why
not?

Overall, the arguments presented in the paper seem convincing, despite some stretching of the link
between literacy and nationalism. A more careful construction of the dependent variable should be
considered, or the principle of weighting of variables should be more explicit. Exogenous factors were
not considered, and this may or may not be an important factor, but it does require evaluation. Finally,
the, the use of lumped data in urbanization requires some further discussion as well, to evaluate its
impact on the results. Nevertheless, such shortcomings could make the paper stronger if addressed,
rather than to weaken the overall argument. This paper seems to give an overall strong empirical and
theoretical model for the importance of nationalism in the communist exit. This model should be
applied to the cases on other Communist states, in order to test its external validity. Other non-
nationalist states and their transition to nationalism may be of interest as well (such as religious based
authoritarian states).

This is an excellent first review. Most of my issues with it are very specific, so please look over my
comments above. The one general point I would make is that you need to relate the problems you
identify to the broader issue of the believability, generality, and/or interpretation of the piece in keeping
with the assignment. That is, what are the stakes of the issues you raise?

8/10

4
See article for quote at http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html; further elaborated in: Michael Parenti,
Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader, City Lights Books, 2007
5
Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1991(Enrolled Bill [Final as
Passed Both House and Senate] -ENR)., (p. Section 599A)
6
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/11/mongolia-elections-mccain-international-republican-institute