WORKSHOP Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts and the Legacy of 1989

Liberal
Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts and the Legacy of 1989

 Comparative workshop on the recent history of
political and social thought in East Central Europe

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

 Prague, May 20-22, 2011

 

Mission Statement

Two decades after the fall of
state socialist regimes in East Central Europe most of the important features
of the so-called transition period seem to be accomplished. Furthermore, it
seems that the very concept of ‘transition’ has lost its explanatory force,
both as an analytical tool and as a political term structuring the public
discourse and the temporal self-perception of political actors. What was once called
the ‘transition period’ thus requires a thorough historicization. 

In recent years, we have
witnessed the questioning of not only the ‘transition paradigm’ as a viable
analytical concept in the academic sphere, but also several transformations in
the political structures that dominated the first decades after the regime
changes: the rise of populist and radical political movements in the political
sphere challenging the fundamental ‘liberal consensus’ of the 1990s and the
early 2000s; the re-negotiation of post-war peace settlements in the Balkans;
the rise of new political themes; and last but not least, the emergence of a
new generation into the public sphere which lacks direct experience with communist
rule. Despite different temporalities in the individual countries and
sub-regions, all these features seem to delineate the post-communist period in
the history of East Central Europe as a specific historical era.

Adopting the perspective of
intellectual history, the Prague
workshop aims to contribute to a more complex reflection of the post-socialist
‘transition period’ in East Central Europe and its historicization. History of
political and social thought, especially with regard to the post-89/91 period,
has so far been a neglected discipline whose subject is diffused into several
expert fields including political sociology, philosophy, political theory, political
science, and historiography. Moreover, its subject has been treated mostly
pragmatically, thus lacking the necessary distance of a historically informed
approach.  Therefore, the main aim of the
workshop is to gather those working in and on the broadly defined region of
East Central and South East Europe to create a network of scholars engaged in
the research of recent intellectual history in one way or another. An additional
intended result of the workshop is a first collective volume of the
contemporary history of political and social thought of East Central Europe
based on the presented papers and discussions.

To encourage a comparative as
well as interdisciplinary perspective, the panels and debates shall not be
organized according to national or geographic logic. Instead, a combination of
two main axes forming the analytical focus of the individual papers should help
to facilitate the common discussion. They are the following:

a) The development of
political and ideological traditions with emphasis on their longer-term
(pre-)history and the impact of path-breaking ‘great texts’ or specific debates
in the evolution of the political traditions after 1989/91.

b) The major public political
debates and controversies shaping the character of the political discourses and
delimitating the borders of specific political languages.

 

The organizers, therefore,
encourage the future participants to suggest a paper for one of the following
possible panel sections. Topics going beyond the suggested scheme,
nevertheless, shall also be considered.

 

The
development of major political traditions:

–       
Reconstitution of liberalism in the post-socialist era

–       
Varieties and metamorphoses of conservatism

–       
In search of the Left

–       
Populism and democracy in East Central Europe

–       
Alternative politics and challengers of the ‘liberal
consensus’

 

Major
debates and controversies

–       
Key political debates/concepts of the ‘transition
period’ (civil society, antipolitics, nation and nationalism, gender as
political category, church and politics, Europeanization vs. national interest
etc.)

–       
‘Democratic transition’ paradigm and its challengers
(critique of neo-liberal economic transition, transition politics vs.
historical parties, etc.)

–       
Politics of memory and political divisions
(post-opposition political spectrum, lustrations, de-communization policies, ‘wars
over history’ and legalization of the past, etc.)

–       
‘We and Europe’ (‘Comeback to Europe’
discourse and its implications, EU- and NATO integration and its critiques, the
de-politization and ‘democratic deficit’ of integration process, etc.)

 

The abstract of the suggested
presentation along with a short CV should be sent to Michal Kopecek (Institute
of Contemporary History, Prague), kopecek@usd.cas.cz,
and Luka Lisjak Gabrijelcic (CEU, Budapest), lisjak-gabrijelcic_luka@ceu-budapest.edu,
not later than January 10, 2011

 

Please, indicate your
potential need of travel allowance as only limited amount of travel subsidies
could be provided.

The workshop working language
is English. In order to facilitate the discussion the participants will be
asked to send the paper in advance. 

The workshop is organized by
the Institute of Contemporary
History in Prague
and supported by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Simultaneously it is part of
broader comparative regional research project ‘Negotiating Modernity. History
of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe’ organized by CAS, Sofia and CEU, Budapest
and funded by the European Research Council. For details see http://negotiating.cas.bg/