Thinking through Transition
Thinking through Transition

Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts, and Intellectual History in East Central Europe After 1989

Contributor(s): Michal Kopeček (Editor), Piotr Wciślik (Editor)
Subject(s): History, Social Sciences, Sociology, Political history, Social history, Recent History (1900 till today), Social development, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
Published by: Central European University Press
Keywords: Politics and government; Eastern European countries; 1989-; Intellectual life; Post-communism; Social change
Summary/Abstract: Thinking through Transition is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-socialism can be understood as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy (as well as the older political traditions), and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.

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