Post-communism, liberalism and solidarity in the countries of central and eastern Europe after 1989

Much of the literature on populism, particularly in contemporary advanced democracies, focuses on its disruptive power to shake up mainstream party systems, to criticize the functioning of democratic institutions, and to mobilize critical citizens against elites. This chapter considers how populists construct regimes when they have established themselves in power, taking cases from post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe as examples. We identify specific governmental policies, ideological tenets, institutional designs, and discursive practices that enable populists to stabilize their rule and forge representational linkages with large blocks of the population. The chapter questions, however, whether the success of populists in power in these cases provides an indication of how populists might succeed in advanced democracies or whether it is a result of the peculiar political conditions of post-Communism, the absence of which suggests limiting conditions in other contexts.

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Post-communism Elections as a Theoretical Challenge

The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville ◽

10.3138/ttr.22.1.173 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 173-188

Author(s):

Antoine Roger

Keyword(s):

Eastern Europe ◽

General Framework ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Electoral Behavior ◽

Western Countries ◽

Post Communism

The specialists of electoral behavior find a new and stimulating field in post-communist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. They could be tempted to use the models which were built for interpreting the vote in western countries but they must be cautious as a simple transposition is not possible. Several adaptations have been tried during the last decade. Because specialists have not bothered setting up a general framework, the results have been disappointing. It is time to cast a retrospective look on them so as to set down some landmarks.

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The Aesthetic Post-Communist Subject and the Differend of Rosia Montana

Studies in Social Justice ◽

10.26522/ssj.v6i1.1072 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 125-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Irina Velicu

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Social Movements ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Discursive Practice ◽

Alternative Possibilities ◽

Capitalist Economy ◽

Post Communism ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Rosia Montana

By challenging the state and corporate prerogatives to distinguish between “good” and “bad” development, social movements by and in support of inhabitants of Rosia Montana (Transylvania) are subverting prevailing perceptions about Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)’s liberal path of development illustrating its injustice in several ways that will be detailed in this article under the heading “inhibitions of political economy” or Balkanism. The significance of the “Save Rosia Montana” movement for post-communism is that it invites post-communist subjects to reflect and revise their perception about issues such as communism, capitalism and development and to raise questions of global significance about the fragile edifice of justice within the neo-liberal capitalist economy. However, resistance to injustice (and implicitly affirmations of other senses of justice) is an ambiguous discursive practice through which Rosieni make sense as well as partake their sense of Rosia Montana. The movement brings about a public dispute which may be compared with a differend: (in Lyotard’s words), a conflict that cannot be confined to the rules of “cognitive phrases,” of truth and falsehood. This article argues that while post-communist events of “subjectification” are unstable and thus, are to be viewed aesthetically, this same ambiguous multiplication of political subjectivity may facilitate the creation of social spaces for imagining alternative possibilities of development.

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Three Generations of Research on Post Communist Politics—A Sketch

East European Politics and Societies and Cultures ◽

10.1177/0888325414559052 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 323-337 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Grzegorz Ekiert

Keyword(s):

Eastern Europe ◽

Comparative Politics ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Cultural Contexts ◽

The Third ◽

Three Generations ◽

Great Transformation ◽

Communist Past ◽

Post Communism

This essay outlines theoretical visions or paradigms that have underpinned empirical and historical work on the great transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Such paradigms shaped “sociological imaginations” and analytical lenses through which scholars generated important questions and developed their research interests and projects. The study of post-communism was influenced by three such paradigms: the first focused on the immediate communist past as the main constraint on post-1989 transformations; the second attempted to transcend the specificities of post-communism and integrate the study of the region with the general comparative politics enterprise; and finally, the third signified the return to a disciplined exploration of historical and cultural contexts and their role in shaping the outcomes of transformations.

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Stemming the tide of illiberalism? Legal mobilization and adversarial legalism in Central and Eastern Europe

Communist and Post-Communist Studies ◽

10.1016/j.postcomstud.2018.06.001 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 177-188

Author(s):

Mihaela Şerban

Keyword(s):

Eastern Europe ◽

Distinctive Feature ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Legal Culture ◽

Selective Adaptation ◽

Legal Mobilization ◽

Eastern European ◽

Quarter Century ◽

Post Communism ◽

Rights Consciousness

This paper explores the rise of rights-based regulation through litigation as a distinctive feature of legal culture in Central and Eastern Europe post-1989. This type of adversarial legalism was born at the intersection of post-communist, European integration, and neoliberal discourses, and is characterized by legal mobilization at national and supranational levels, selective adaptation of adversarial mechanisms, and the growth of rights consciousness. The paper distinguishes Eastern European developments from both American and Western European types of adversarial legalism, assesses the first quarter century of post-communism and represents a first step towards constructing a genealogy of the region’s legal culture post-1989.

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