Call for Papers: Post-Transformation and the Civil Sphere in Central and Eastern Europe

The past three and a half decades have witnessed not only transition and tremendous social change in former socialist and communist countries and their civil spheres, but also the emergence of new political dynamics and societal arrangements in a transformation and post- transformation context. The changes after 1989/91 in the Central and Eastern European region have revealed new politico-social constellations, including new cleavages, different patterns of social solidarity and trust, as well as ambivalent and non-linear dynamics of democratization and de-democratization. What has become clear is that societies and social solidarities embody their own patterns and logics of meaning making in transformation and post-transformation societies, without necessarily embracing any clear cultural role model from Western democracies. In that sense, we understand Central and Eastern Europe as an experimental civil space, in which the communicative (media, public opinion) and regulative (law, office, voting) institutions of the civil sphere reflect changing solidarities and forms of belonging, inclusion and exclusion.

In this book, we want to address the particular genesis and  characteristics of the civil sphere in Central and Eastern Europe that result from enduring and overcoming both socialism/communism and transformation/post-socialism, leading to new civil and social constellations. We therefore invite scholars and researchers to contribute chapters that explore the experimental civil space in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing inter alia.

Contributions should embrace a conceptual-theoretical approach and combine it with comparative case studies of individual countries or regions. We particularly welcome articles that deal with Ukraine, Albania, Moldova, the Caucasus region, and the Baltic countries, either individually or in comparative perspectives.

Themes to be considered might include, but are not limited to:

• Which ambivalent dynamics of social solidarity have unfolded? How have belonging and identity as construction and practice functioned in the civil sphere?

• Ambivalent Europeanization/: How have culture, traditions, and institutions traveled across European civil spheres over the last decade? Which deviations and niches have been filled by CEE societies?

• Transnational vs. local civil spheres: how are transnational bonds and solidarities organized? Do they counteract or complement the local level of civil spheres?

• How are democracy and civil resilience being performed and “staged”? How do arts, culture, and civic entrepreneurship interact with the emergence of civil spheres?

• What has been/will be the role of ties to external actors in the establishment and course of civil spheres? How do external support, funding, programming, and discourse influence the civil sphere? What was and is the ambivalent symbolic value of external actors?

If you have any questions about the suitability of your paper for this special issue, please do not hesitate to contact the editors before making your submission.

Please send your abstract of 500 words or less to the editors. We will hold a paper workshop conference either in Brno or in Frankfurt (Oder) on November 23-24, 2024. Contributors should ensure that they are able to attend on these dates.

Abstract Submission Deadline: MAY 25, 2024

Notification of Accepted Abstract: June 15, 2024

FIRST DRAFT Submission Deadline: October 31, 2024

Editors:

Jeffrey C. Alexander; jeffrey.alexander@yale.edu

Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky; jaworsky@fss.muni.cz

Worschech, Susann; worschech@europa-uni.de