Suchergebnisse

Classical images of state-socialism developed in contemporary social sciences were founded on simple presuppositions. State-socialist regimes were considered to be politically stable due to their pervasive institutional and ideological control over the everyday lives of their citizens, impervious to reform and change, and representative of extreme political and economic dependency. Despite their contrasting historical experiences, they have been treated as basically identical in their institutional design, social and economic structures, and policies. Grzegorz Ekiert challenges this notion in

Classical images of state socialism developed in the contemporary social sciences were founded on simple presuppositions. State-socialist regimes were considered to be politically stable due to their repressive capacity and pervasive institutional and ideological control over the everyday lives of their citizens. They were seen as rigid, inert, and impervious to reform and change. Finally, they were considered to be representative of extreme cases of political and economic dependency. Despite their contrasting historical experiences, they have been treated as basically identical in their institutional design, social and economic structures, and policies.

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.

Résumé Depuis 1989, la démocratie polonaise n'a pas réussi à consolider son système partisan, entraînant un vaste mécontentement populaire. Les dernières élections indiquent que la Pologne est en train de connaître un réalignement politique majeur : pour la première fois, la coalition au pouvoir compte extrémistes de droite, nationalistes et populistes opportunistes qui rejettent le programme de réforme, ainsi que les objectifs et stratégies mis en place par les gouvernements précédents. Ce système partisan idiosyncrasique – marqué par une instabilité inhérente, une faiblesse organisationnelle, une tendance croissante à l'extrémisme politique et dont le programme rétrograde risque d'affecter le processus de modernisation amorcé depuis quinze ans – remet sérieusement en question les engagements de la Pologne envers l'UE.