Eastern Europe after 30 years of transition
Our Institute was invited to participate in this workshop organized by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Prague) and Transnational Institute (Amsterdam) in collaboration with Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Prague).
The workshop took place on the 25th and 26th of October 2019 in Prague.
The questions we were asked to address are the following:
CAPITAL, GLOBAL INTEGRATION AND CLASS – what forms of capitalist reconstruction and integration took place in the countries since 1989/91, and how did they shape social and political relations? How does local analysis place different trajectories of integration in a European and global context? What are the main elements local new anti-capitalist left analysis sees as relevant for periodization of integration trajectories? What comes after “post-socialism”? Can we somehow periodize three post-socialist decades? What would be milestone years/events in this periodization?
AGENCY AND IDEOLOGY – what were the key social and political ideologies after the fall of socialism? What kind of historical blocks did they connect to, and how did they change along local trajectories of integration? (We do not ask for a detailed review of political development, but rather an analytical description of basic ideological trends, and the positions and class/power dimension associated with them. E.g. what was the development and transformation of (neo) liberalism locally? What was the role played by the left? What was the role of anti-Communism? How did the position and content of nationalism, xenophobia, and far-right change? How was the EU perceived and how did this perception change?) How does periodization of three post-socialist decades relate to changes in ideology?
EXPERIENCES AND PROSPECTS FOR EMANCIPATORY POLITICS – what was the role of left anti-capitalist actors during the integration process and how did it change during the three post-socialist decades? Who were those actors in the local context? How were such positions produced, how did they change, what were the barriers and challenges they faced? What kind of social positions, ideologies, and forms of analysis were associated with this process? How did these milieus reflect their experience, and how did they contribute to international debates?
What prospects we can await now? Are contemporary hegemonic historical blocs solid, or can we await their crises? What can be the new forms and role of emancipatory politics?
All the materials gathered during this workshop are now being revised and will be published in the first trimester of 2020. We are looking forward to share with you the outcomes, in the meantime you are welcomed to leave your answers on the subjects in the comment section.
