The rise and fall of the civil society project
The rise and fall of the civil society project

Summary/Abstract: Sociology and social sciences in general failed to predict the imminent collapse of the socialist regimes in Central Europe, but they nevertheless played an important role in paving the way for these changes. This role cannot be ascribed to all social sciences but primarily to a "civil society approach" in social sciences This approach implied that the socialist societies were characterised by a zero-sum game between the civil society and the authoritarian state; the broader were the prerogatives of the state the more limited or even totally suppressed were the faculties of the civil society. It provided a cognitive framework in which the opponents of the regime defined the motives and aims of their activities; they perceived themselves as advocates of societal potentials in front of authoritarian state . This ideology, which was highly operative in the preparatory stage of democratisation, lost much of its influence in the period, lost much of its influence in the period of the institutionalisation of democracy. The fall of civil society project also signalled the decline of influence of nonconformist intellectuals, the main proponents of the project. The democratisation, which was fostered by dissenting intellectuals, as developments in Slovenia show paradigmatically, thus has not brought the most benefits to its most ardent supporters.

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