Are Transitions Transitory? Two Types of Political Change in Eastern Europe Since 1989
Are Transitions Transitory? Two Types of Political Change in Eastern Europe Since 1989

Summary/Abstract: Unlike the revolutions of 1776, 1789, and 1917, the revolutions of 1989 were not the bearers of new political ideas. Instead, their shared ideology was one of restored normalcy, of a return to Europe. The scholarly discussion of Eastern Europe was bound to change in the wake of revolution, but the revolutions themselves offered academics few concepts with which to begin. In this sense, it is not surprising that academic description of the consequences of these revolutions initially followed the political idea of a return to Europe, and was organized around the idea of the "transition" of the (non-Soviet) Warsaw Pact states. The organizing concept of a "transition," which by definition assumes a common end point as well as a shared beginning, smuggled the normative political goals of the return to Europe into the scholarly literature. [...]

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