The return to Europe or the crisis of civilization (original) (raw)
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The lecture starts from the ‘de-Europeanization’ of East-Central Europe by the Soviet Union and the ‘European Revolution of 1989’ in order first to review the diverse interpretations of these countries’ ‘return to Europe’. Taking cues from authors like Ralf Dahrendorf and Jürgen Habermas, the review covers the Stalinist, the Leninist, the reform-Communist, the postmodern, the anti-communist, the Liberal and the radical democratic interpretations. The more convincing of these interpretations in one way or another presuppose the significance of the European cultural heritage of autonomy, freedom and association as having made the revolution possible, and thus suggest that the concept of ‘civil society’ shared by Europe and the East-Central European countries would play a key role in bringing the two together. Second, the lecture considers the critical literature of authors like Claus Offe and Johannes Berger that drew attention to the prospect that the unified Europe would not only continue to face its old ‘first order problem of integration’ caused by differentiation, but would also be challenged by the serious ‘second order problem of incompatibility’ given rise to by modern society’s erosion and destruction of its own sociocultural fabric and ecological foundations. The problem common to Europe and the East-Central European countries in the wake of the latter’s return to the former thus turns out to far outstrip the hope pinned on the unifying potential of civil society. Not only would ‘the really existing democracy of the West’ have to be transformed, but a new way for society to relate to nature would also have to be found. Herein lies the unique opportunity of the East-Central European countries upon their return to Europe.
Eastern Europe: The International Context
Journal of Democracy, 2000
The democratic revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe have been described as the culmination of the "third wave" of global democratization that began in Spain and Portugal in the mid-1970s. It is indeed tempting to see the disintegration of the Soviet empire as part of a worldwide crumbling of dictatorships. This view certainly influenced how the democratic transition in East-Central Europe has been perceived in the West (as the "end of history") as well as by some of its protagonists. Ten years later, however, despite extensive Western efforts at democracy promotion, the democratic tide has somewhat retreated, leaving a picture of successes in Central Europe (as well as in Latin America and parts of Asia) offset by setbacks in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans (but also in China and most of Africa). In no other region of the world has the impact of international factors on democratization been as apparent as in Central and Eastern Europe. The revolutions of 1989 were characterized by two important features: First, they were made possible by the lifting of the Soviet imperial constraint. The Soviet bloc imploded, rapidly and peacefully. The falling dominoes of Soviet hegemony in East-Central Europe seemed to complete the triumph of the periphery over the center of the empire. To be sure, the roots of the ideological, political, and economic decay of Jacques Rupnik, senior fellow and professor at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris, is author of The Other Europe: The Rise and Fall of Communism in East-Central Europe (1989) and Le Déchirement des nations (1995) and editor of International Perspectives on the Balkans (forthcoming).
After Twenty Years – Reasons and Consequences of the Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe
The Majority of the papers in the present volume are the result of a series of seminars which took place between autumn 2007 and spring 2009 at the Department of the History of Eastern Europe at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, headed by Dr. Tamás Krausz, under the auspices of the doctoral programme entitled ‘The History of Eastern Europe first in a wider historical context and then concentrating on the processes of the past twenty years. "The project helps young researchers to join in with the international debate on their subject matter and to foster the emergence of a common discourse. We believe it is important that the young generation of historians born around or after the transition who did not live through the pre-1989 period as children or young contemporaries should come to play an increasing role in this discourse. A certain distance in time is an important condition for a deeper understanding of the events and processes of the time. Not only do we gain access to the sources for this exciting sequence of historical phenomena – a distance in time also allows the subject matter to shift from the boundary zone between political sciences and history clearly into the sphere of the latter, thus becoming free of daily political interests. We trust that the authors of the present volume will become active participants in shaping this process."
Back to the Future in Eastern Europe--A Comparison of Post-1989 with Post-1918 Tendencies
Acta Slavica Iaponica, 1995
Twice in this century, Eastern Europe has been liberated from foreign rule, and new indigenous elites have taken power, promising democracy and a more equitable division of the wealth. In 1918, the end of World War One saw the tumbling of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties, the final disintegration of the long crumbling Ottoman empire, and the withdrawal of Russia from Finland and the Baltic States, and, for a brief period, also from Belorussia (as it was commonly called then) and Ukraine. In 1989, the sudden collapse of the communist political order in Eastern Europe, accompanied by the rapid shrinkage of Soviet power, swept virtually all the region's communist elites out of power-everywhere except in Serbia and Montenegro, although many consider Romania a hybrid case. The purpose of this essay is to assess points of comparison between the two historical situations, to consider the similarity in the challenges and complications confronted and in the responses devised, and to examine some mitigating factors which, in spite of all the commonalities, might enable at least some of the states in the area to chart a different course. The argument unfolds over the four succeeding sections. In sections 2-4, I explore seven aspects in which there are some significant parallels between the two historical periods, closing section 4 with a brief listing of some additional factors in which there may also be a comparison. In these sections, I develop the argument that there are some respects in which Eastern Europe's leaders are returning to tasks undertaken before, in the interwar period, noting the ways in which the outlook and assumptions of present-day elites reproduce, albeit with variations, those of the interwar elites. The argument casts doubt on the prospects for democracy and stability in the region. Section 5 is devoted to exploring certain significant differences between Eastern Europe in the interwar period and Eastern Europe today, and makes an effort to assess what these differences will mean in political terms. The article closes by identifying certain crucial policy tasks which analysts should watch closely to obtain a gauge on the overall political tendencies. In part, the question of the potential for the political recapitulation of the past is conjoined to an ineluctable choice of one view of history over others. There are, as far as I am aware, at most four alternative views of history, two of ancient vintage, and two of them more modern in origin. The ancient approaches, developed and articulated in Greece some 2,400 years ago, are the cyclical view of history (associated with Parmenides and Plato), and the linear-dialectical view of history (associated with Heraclitus, and, more recently, with Hegel). The birth of the liberal tradition with Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke gave rise to two further possibilities: the linear
20 Years After the Collapse of Communism. Expectations, achievements and disillusions of 1989
2011
Obviously, the Europeanization process has not yet brought the expected “common house of Europe” with all the freedoms and values linked to the symbol of 1989. It is true that Europe has been able to give important support to the transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe. But it is equally true that the underlying ideas of Europe have not found their way to almost all countries of the former Soviet Union. In this regard Russia stands for an ideologically and power oriented regime, contrasting its authoritarian “model” to the Europeanization process and particularly to all the “coloured” democratic experiments in its neighbourhood. The eastwards movement of experiments with democracy, as it could be observed in the “colour revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia, is challenged by a westwards movement of the quasiauthoritarian Russian model. The recent repressions in Belarus followed by the rigged elections in December 2010 obviously stand for the westwards move of the Russian model. And it remains to be seen to what extent the achievements of the “colour revolutions” can be at least partially maintained in Ukraine and in Georgia. Freedom is not an uncontested value in the post-Soviet space. But it has been claimed at its periphery where a lot of hybrid and transitional situations can still be observed. Typically countries characterised by transitional or hybrid regimes are oscillating somewhere in a grey zone between the democratic and the authoritarian poles. They may have halted, delayed or impeded their transformation process. In order to prevent the risk of an authoritarian backlash, an European democracy promotion strategy would make sense in those countries that show unclear prospects for democracy. This would be in line with what 1989 was about: overcoming the division of Europe and avoiding new division lines between East and West. It is precisely the challenges of ambiguous transitions that the contributions to the volume try to address from their various regional and disciplinary perspectives. The book is organized into three larger parts, respectively, (1) covering ambiguities of unfinished transformations, (2) attempting to make sense of the past and its implications for the present, and (3) deliberating over values and meanings in changing contexts. They do not assemble the countries regionally, but rather attempt to organize various narratives around problems, as there seem to be three large areas of difficulties experienced along the different paths of transformation.
The Uncertain Revival of Central Europe
Politeja, 2019
The recent crisis the European Union had to face raised the question it there still exists a cleavage that divides the "old Europe" from the Eastern regions. The phenomenon, Central Europe can be examined from the historical, cultural, geographic and political perspective searching for the answer, how many parts the European continent can be divided into. Accepting the tripartite division, this "middle" position had various roles in the historical context. The aim of the paper is to investigate the changes in the perception of this special position based mostly on the works of Hungarian researchers. Analysing their thoughts, it is also our intention to examine the Central European concept and to point how this region was searching for its position during the system change, and what additional meaning was given to this region from the 1980s to nowadays. In order to extend the investigation, this paper also focuses on the problem whether Central Europe serves as a historical reference point losing its importance with the European integration, or if it can serve as an obstacle in the deepening of the European integration.