Sample of Abstracts from the Papers given at the CSWE/IARCEES Conference (NUIM, 8-9th May 2009)
Published: Thu 6th August
Below is a selection of abstracts taken from the papers given by this year's participants of the annual IARCEES Conference which was hosted by the Centre. The Conference, which took place in NUI Maynooth on 8-9th May 2009, drew together a large variety of specialists that facilitated a superb academic discussion of the pivotal events that subsumed most of Wider Europe in 1989 and beyond.
The Conference Programme can still be viewed on the HomePage of the Centre's website (www.widereurope.ie).
Professor Martin Dangerfield, University of Wolverhampton
Intra-CMEA Foreign Economic Policy Debates During the 1980s: Where The Transition Blueprint Really Came From
Despite the claims to be made in the very early 1990s, by certain western politicians and policy advisors alike, the real architects of systemic transformation came from inside the socialist world and from Hungary in particular. Fierce debates over the future of CMEA countries’ economic relations with the West were played out in the early 1980s as Hungarian ‘ultra-radical’ economists challenged the preferred Soviet strategy of ‘turning inwards’ from the global economy. It was a highly significant time, not only because of the fact that the Hungarian position clearly influenced the Soviet policy change on external economic relations which came under Gorbachev, but also because the futility of partial reform was intellectually established during this time. Hungarian economists elaborated a manifesto for a genuine integration into the global economy, revitalisation of regional integration and shift to a full-blown market economy. The final missing link they were unable to openly elaborate was, of course, the necessity of political reform to underwrite the key economic policy changes. After the 1989 political revolutions, the key strategies of transition to capitalism, the westward reorientation of trade and prioritisation of closer integration with the EU followed automatically.
Dr Neil Robinson, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University ofLimerick, Limerick, Ireland
Debt, trade, the end of communism and beyond
Success in democratization and economic reform are strongly correlated in the post-communist world. Most explanations for this have focused on the importance of institutional design. Whilst institutional choice is important our focus on it has meant that the influence of international economic factors on the outcome of post-communist transitions to market and democracy has not been adequately explored. This paper argues that the degree and pattern of integration with the global economy prior to collapse of communism is an important influence on post-communist reform outcomes. Where economies had both high levels of debt and diverse trade relations with the non-communist world prior to the end of communism they have been more successful in democratization. The paper develops argues that diversity in trade structure worked with factors such as high debt levels to prevent state capture by anti-reform forces. It did this by creating constituencies for reform and creating incentives for state elites to draw on globalization to support domestic change. As a result, globalization and democratization became mutually reinforcing in some cases. Elsewhere, however, where there were different patterns external economic relations at the end of communism attempts to use aspects of globalization to support political change failed.
Dr Lavinia Stan, St. Francis Xavier University, Department of Political Science, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
Justice and Memory in Post-Communism
Since 1989, Eastern Europe has engaged in de-communization by adopting a wide repertoire of transitional justice methods ranging from lustration, court trials, and official apologies to property restitution, rehabilitation of political prisoners and access to secret archives. This presentation summarizes the progress to date of post-communist countries, reviews explanatory theories, and then proposes several factors accounting for country differences. Other authors have discussed only countries that engaged in de-communization, but I argue that the experience of "non-cases" is equally important for understanding the determinants of post-communist transitional justice. While others have looked primarily at lustration - the governmental policy banning former communist decision-makers and secret full-time and part-time agents from post-communist politics - I examine lustration, court trials and access to secret files. As I argue, neither scholars who focused on the nature of the communist regime and exit from communism nor those who looked at the "politics of the present" can explain country differences. Rather, a link must be drawn between the past and the present, as evidenced in the levels of legitimacy of late communism and early post-communism, in order to fully account for differences in lustration, file access and court trials.
Andreas Langenohl, Universität Konstanz
Social Sciences’ Myths about Memory in Post-Socialist Countries
Social scientists have repeatedly highlighted the importance of collective memory in post-Socialist countries. It is, in particular, the prescriptive argument that those countries must come to terms with their Socialist past that keeps surfacing in those contributions, regardless of whether they originate in transition theory, social psychology, or trauma studies. That discourse is characterized by a set of assumptions about the role of memory in democratic transition and consolidation. The present paper deconstructs these assumptions, referring to post-Soviet Russia as an empirical test site that complicates the picture that research in memory tends to draw.
In particular the paper raises the following questions: How does the activist model of political participation that features in memory studies relate to the fundamental argument that you firstly need an inactive majority in order to achieve trust in democratic institutions? Why is the macro-criminal past studied if it is rather the glorious past that puts obstacles to democratization? And why are eyewitnesses so central for that type of research while nobody has yet provided a theory of where their authority comes from and what it entails?
Aziliz Gouez (Notre Europe)
“We shall bring you our vices”. Shifting forms and meanings of being European in Romania and Italy
This paper investigates the complex movements and exchanges, but also the tensions and asymmetries, which diffuse the transnational space that has emerged over the last decade as a result of the intense relations between the Romanian Banat and Italy’s North-East. Nicknamed “Trevişoara” (a contraction of Treviso and Timişoara), this is a space within which Romanian emigrants who move over into Italy cross paths with the small Italian entrepreneurs now operating in the west of Romania. Although it does not feature on any official map of the EU, this new territory is a true laboratory of European integration. Indeed the small businessmen who operate in Romania are often the very same ones who adhere to the stance of the Northern League, a party which does not hide its aversion towards Italy’s Romanian immigrants. Why such a discrepancy between the actual level of economic interdependence between the two countries and the political awareness of these entrepreneurs? Why do Europeans still fall short in representing the new transcultural spaces emerging conjointly with the extension of the Common Market? Thus Aziliz Gouez raises the question of the new forms of belonging in Europe, in the aftermath of the collapse of ideologies and in the more open and unstable context created by globalisation.
Kataryna Ruban, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
The Concept of ‘RevolutionaryGeneration’ in Contemporary Ukraine
The paper considers the experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union as a starting point for creating a symbolic autobiography of the ‘generation of the revolution’ by the milieu of young intellectuals (particularly, Lviv ones). Their main aim is to demonstrate their distinction towards the other milieus of consecrated cultural producers that, consequently, implies the clear intention to replace the ‘old’ and ‘backward’ despite the postmodern bearings. The young intellectuals were primarily oriented towards Western culture, especially rock music and literature. Considering themselves as ‘alternative’, they defined aims, activities and cultural products as freedom in all possible modes. The autobiographic narrative of the revolutionary generation is based on the general notion of struggle, not only for consecration in the cultural field, but for large-scale political changes. Nowadays in the widespread vision of the collapse of the USSR (especially, in Ukraine) dominates the key dissident figures of the 'sixtiers', but also in late 80s and early 90s the activities of young intellectuals and artists (festivals, poetry readings, concerts, and other cultural events) attracted the interest of the general public, and not only particular youth subcultures. They still associate themselves with the alternative and freedom, and in such a way, they permanently emphasize their collective revolutionary potential to lead future transformations.
Martin Vavra, Academy of Sciences, Prague
Upbringing in (post)communistic society: Did something happen between 1989 and 2008?
This paper presents an analysis of social values in relationship to political and economic transformation. The general question is: Did the communist regime (its ideology, institutions, chance of life changing positions) change something important in values and behavior connected with family? This question is too broad to answer in such a short paper so the concentration is on an analysis of the educational values only as a proxy for values as a whole. Concretely, there is a description of the change in preferences of these educational values during the period 1984-2008 in Czech society and social and demographic characteristics of the Czech population that influence these values. A discursive analysis of expert texts on upbringing is used to indicate changes on the level of educational knowledge as well. An interpretation of results within the framework of transformation in Czech society is also included in this paper.
Analysis from official statistical data, data from sociological surveys and handbooks on upbringing are all utilised in this project.
General answer for my question is: communist regime did not change much; rather we can say that Czech society has been following trends in western countries. But there were modifications to these trends thanks to the regime.
Tamás Kanyó, Assistant Professor of History at the Eszterházy College, Eger, Hungary
Conditions of Liberty: The Challenge to Establish Structures of Civil Society in Postcommunist Hungary
On the way to 1989 and even afterwards creating civil organizations was a big challenge. the decisions of the actors of macro politics we have to deal with the question of intrinsic values which motivated a change from below. Today there are still very few civil organisations where the decisions are based on a transparent and real democratic course. This makes the subjects around civil culture, civil society, civil sphere, relevant also in its historical dimension. The weak point of "soft dictatorship" in transition to a "soft democracy" is the lack of civil culture with sensitivity to social responsibility, trust and ability to communicate. One of the main purposes of the paper was to find the "Spielraum" - the freedom of movement of individuals and independent civil groups (collective civil formation) - in a so called "soft" dictatorship. Where did the borders lie? How did the various sides - the representatives of power, such as the state security, as well as autonomously acting groups and their members - imagine them? What were the circumstances and conditions that created a demand for what Hannah Arendt called "public happiness"? What strategies did the various actors follow?
Rather than only the reconstruction of events, this project also aimed to present the actors' self-conception drawing from various different sources on top of classical archive documents and memories of witnesses.
Dr. Derek S. Hutcheson, University College Dublin
Political Culture in Unified Germany: A microcosm for the new Europe?
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the political cultures of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe continue to differ. Evidence suggests that citizens of the former communist states display lower levels of trust and political engagement with politics than their counterparts in the older EU states. Germany, the state which most epitomised the division of Europe in the post-War era, is usually considered in the comparative literature as a ‘Western’ state but to some extent reflects this dichotomy in microcosm, with the eastern half of the country displaying levels of political trust and engagement that more closely resemble those of its former Warsaw Pact neighbours. Various hypotheses are put forward to examine this, ranging from Politikverdrossenheit, apathy, economic resources and social capital.
Dr Judith Devlin, University College Dublin
A War over Memory’ Stalin’s Afterlife in Post-Soviet Russia.
Recently, attitudes to Stalin and his legacy have attracted renewed controversy. Orlando Figes, writing in The Guardian on 4 March 2009 and in the NYRB on 30 April 2009, has suggested that Stalin and Stalinism are largely being rehabilitated, in an attempt to impose a patriotic narrative that marginalises memory of the terror and, perhaps, to justify Russia’s authoritarian political system. Opinion polls in the last decade have frequently suggested that Stalin enjoys popular esteem. The most notorious recent example is the 2008 Name of Russia internet poll.
This paper argues that although both the Russian public and the authorities have adopted provocative or ambiguous attitudes towards Stalin, this should be understood not so much as an enthusiastic endorsement of the Stalinism but as a reaction to Russia’s loss of power and status in the post-Soviet period and to what are perceived to be renewed threats to Russia’s interests in her traditional sphere of interest, threats believed to be expressed in the symbolic politics of memory in the Ukraine and Estonia.
Degree Courses
A number of degree courses related to the study of wider Europe are available at NUI Maynooth, including:
