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Post-Communist Democratization and the Practice of in Central and Eastern Europe1

Janusz Mucha and Mike F. Keen

INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CENTRAL be that it did not anticipate the collapse of AND EASTERN EUROPE AND ITS the Communist system. However, generally SOCIOLOGY speaking, political restrictions on the topics addressed and on the publication of find- For a little more than a decade now, since the ings were very strong, although sometimes very beginning of the post-Communist era in applied in an uneven manner. Therefore, it Europe, we have been systematically inves- was very difficult, and in many countries tigating the transformations of sociology in virtually impossible, to study empirically and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our own theoretically the phenomena which would approach has been a combination of the ‘emic’ lead to such a transformation. It was impossi- and ‘etic’ (insider’s and outsider’s observa- ble to freely publish the findings and to start a tions). We have been interested in the ways public discussion on actual social processes. sociology in individual countries and in the What is perhaps more interesting is that even whole region was shaped by structural condi- free Western political sciences and sociology tions and in the ways sociology tried to influ- did not anticipate the collapse. ence the development of individual societies. We would like to make two qualifications In the early 1990s, we began a research before continuing. First, in this paper we project on the of the region do not intend to deal in depth with compari- starting with the so-called ‘Khrushchev’s sons between Western and Eastern European thaw’, to the beginnings of the post-1988 sociology, then and now. Second, we do not transformations. The results were published believe that sociology, and particularly macro- in the US in 1994 (Keen and Mucha, 1994), sociology, is a ‘natural science’ that could pre- and in Poland in 1995, in Polish. One of cisely predict future events. We believe that only the ‘failures’ of sociology of the region some trends can be extrapolated. What we mean prior to the transformation is considered to by the ‘failure’ to anticipate transformations is

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that the sociology of 1956–89 was not able to Historically, some countries had developed recognize the tensions within the European fully, very complex social structures and Communist societies and their potential for national cultures, and some were rural and radical social change. peasant societies. In the eighteenth and nine- Many structural and often dramatic changes teenth centuries, some were dominated by took place during this period. Some political autocratic orthodox Russia, some by equally units ceased to exist, i.e., the German Democ- autocratic Islamic Turkey, others by politi- ratic Republic, , Yugoslavia, and cally and culturally tolerant Roman Catholic the Soviet Union. New nation-states emerged Austria–Hungary. Still others were parti- out of the ruins of old ones, and even now the tioned between the then superpowers. Some nation-building processes are not complete in had more, some less developed economies. the region. The futures of Bosnia Hercegovina In some, the dominant religious organization and Serbia’s historic province of Kosovo, supported political organizations of foreign populated overwhelmingly by Albanians and origin, in others, it opposed them and rather now practically a UN protectorate, of Albania, supported the national culture. Macedonia, and even of Ukraine (with her still After 1948, not only the level of economic strong division between the Russian-speaking growth but also the character of economic eastern part and the Ukrainian-speaking west- structure differentiated these societies. In ern part) are not clear. Other dramatic changes particular, the presence of small-scale private have occurred within individual Eastern and economic activity in agriculture, manufac- Central European nations. These include rapid turing, and the service sector seems to have and often superficial political liberalization been important. In some, religious culture and democratization, economic transforma- and institutions opposing the Communist tion, an increasing role of market mechanisms ideology were strong, in others they were and free competition, as well as their conse- not. In some, terror played an important role quences: very high unemployment and the in public life until 1989, in others politi- growing visibility of poverty. We have wit- cal domination was exercised using milder nessed rapid Westernization (and particularly means. Americanization) of the popular culture, and In Poland, sociology had a very long and a reappearance of strong ethnic tensions and rich, non-Marxist intellectual and institu- overt ethnic conflicts. tional tradition. In other countries of the We must also recognize changes result- region sociology actually emerged from ing from world transformations: cultural and Marxist historical materialism.2 Even in economic globalization with its positive and Poland, however, where it was possible to negative aspects, the Internet and the commu- continue non-Marxist traditions in purely nications ‘revolution’, and most recently the theoretical social sciences, it was difficult to war against terrorism with all its ramifications, engage in public discussion with Marxism including new answers to the old dilemma and with Communism. ‘security versus freedom’ and the redefinition of During the period from 1948 to 1989, some ethnic groups’ struggle for sovereignty. to some extent the situation in CEE resem- bled that of countries under colonial and authoritarian rule. Whether they had the internationally recognized ‘political sover- HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY IN CENTRAL eignty’, as in the case of Bulgaria, Hungary AND EASTERN EUROPE POST-WORLD or Czechoslovakia, or did not, as in Estonia WAR II and Latvia, most societies in this region were totally dependent on the Soviet metropolis Societies and sociologies of CEE dif- in the areas of domestic and international fered from each other in many respects. politics, economy, and culture. Exceptions were

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Albania, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Individual 2. What changes had occurred in the teaching freedom was not respected. There was no par- of sociology, including new curricula and text- liamentary democracy in the Western sense of books? the term. Although the region differed from 3. What were the relations between academic those of African or Asian colonies, the popula- sociology on the one hand and public and pri- vate research centers on the other? tion and culture (including social sciences) in 4. Which aspects of the socioeconomic transforma- the socialist ‘metropolis’ of the Soviet Union tion were considered to be the most important was as politically suppressed as those of the research problems? peripheries or semi-colonies. 5. Was nationalism and ethnicity an important Terror, indoctrination, and very strict polit- research problem? ical control made it barely possible either 6. What happened to the former research and in the Soviet Union or in the rest of CEE to teaching cooperation with other CEE scholars? develop free culture, including freedom in the 7. What did research and teaching cooperation teaching of sociology, uncensored research with Western sociology look like? projects, and uncensored publications. Quite 8. Were sociologists involved in local and national a few sociologists were jailed or expelled politics? 9. Were sociologists considered and consulted as from their countries, and the social sci- experts by the governing bodies at local and ences were placed under very strict surveil- national levels? lance. Political authorities needed descriptive 10. How was research and teaching financed? social science and the information it might provide. Occasionally, they used this infor- We believe that the ‘sociological transfor- mation in public administration. But they did mation’ was not only a reaction to recent not allow sociology to serve as a conscience structural changes in the whole region and of society and to play reflexive and critical in individual societies, but also influenced functions other than revealing to the rulers, by the different historically rooted cultures, but not to the public, the consequences of the economic systems that existed before their policies. Sociology, therefore, influ- Communism and during the period 1948– enced public life, and was respected by some 88, and the ways in which the Communist representatives of the political authorities; system was actually administered in indi- but free research teaching, and publication vidual countries. were forbidden. It was not possible in the reports we even- tually received to devote as much attention to each of these issues that they deserved. In addition, we cannot adequately address SOCIOLOGY IN CENTRAL AND all of those here, in a paper as short as this. EASTERN EUROPE SINCE 1989 Therefore, in this presentation, we concen- trate on only three aspects of the post-1989 In the year 2000, we began a second phase transformation of sociology in the region. of our project, to investigate the achieve- Other issues are discussed in Keen and ments and failures of sociology in CEE Mucha, 2004.4 during the decade that had passed since the The first of the three aspects is the political systemic transformation (Keen and Mucha, and intellectual milieu of post-1988 soci- 2003). In this new phase, we asked our ology. From our understanding, the post- collaborators from sixteen countries of 1988 political and intellectual milieu was East-Central Europe3 to address the follow- determined by two factors: the hypothetical ing questions: presence of a political atmosphere ‘demand- ing’ de-Communization of the public sphere, 1. Was ‘de-Communization’ of sociology an impor- including sociology; and the decreasing tant issue in the internal politics of sociology? role, and even condemnation, of Marxism

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in intellectual discourse. The second aspect the avoidance of theoretical debates under concerns the widespread development of socialism, as a scientific communication teaching sociology in the universities at the strategy used to provide for the protection of undergraduate, as well as at graduate, MA, the sociological community against political and PhD levels. The third aspect is emer- interference; a rapid growth in the demand for gence of new research areas, not available sociology teachers following 1989, allowing before 1989. senior professors in sociology to easily find employment whatever their former politi- cal and ideological orientation; other, more important ideological issues which displaced ‘DE-COMMUNIZATION’ AND the Marxist debate, first and foremost the ‘DE-MARXIZATION’ OF SOCIOLOGY meaning of liberalism after Communism, as well as postmodernism. We are fully aware of the fact that Marxism During the socialist (Communist) period, and Soviet, as well as Romanian and nearly everything, and especially sociology, Yugoslavian, styles of Communism are was subordinated to the political author- analytically two different things. However, ities. Many sociologists belonged to the during the period 1948–88, Marxism was Communist Party, either persuaded by the considered by most of the parties involved, leftist ideology or due to the fact that Party i.e., the ruling elites, the general public, and membership helped in promotion. However, a large number of sociologists, to be one in Poland the proportion of sociologists was and the same as Communist ideology. This much smaller than in other social disciplines, ‘Marxism–Communism identification’ was such as economics and philosophy. In this not deconstructed after 1988, and the criti- country, real Party control over sociology cism of Communism implied a criticism of decreased at the beginning of 1980 (but not Marxism. However, de-Communization and outside the academic centers of Warsaw, de-Marxization of sociology had their pecu- Cracow or Poznan), after the ‘Solidarity’ liarities in individual countries to the extent revolution. In many other countries this con- that Communism and Marxism meant differ- trol decreased in the mid-1980s as a result of ent things in each of them. the ‘perestroika’ effect. In Czechoslovakia, it People who carefully followed the heated only let up in 1989. In many countries, where political debates which took place on over-representation of Marxism was manda- Communism in CEE during late 1980s and tory in university courses and in publications, early 1990s would be surprised to see to what it was institutionally enforced. In Poland, little extent ‘de-Communization’ affected for instance, many works were published on sociology. There were, in our opinion, good Marxism and in the ‘Marxist spirit’; they were reasons why ‘de-Communization’ was not apologetic and not at all critical. Theoretical radical. We believe that the most important research, as well as large empirical research of them were the slow but significant ideo- projects, were politically and financially logical and political transformations in some supported (although not solely in Poland CEE countries which had already taken place or Hungary) above all when they were car- in the mid-1980s (Hungary and Poland), ried out within the Marxist frameworks. before the systemic transformations at the According to our Lithuanian author, in end of the 1980s; the nearly completely that nation Marxist Communist ideology a-theoretical character of the ‘Soviet Marxism’ enforced on sociologists a utopian model of which, in addition to political control, did not man, censorship, and institutionalized lies, stimulate public theoretical and ideological bureaucratic as well as utopian manage- debates and did not encourage scholars to ment of scholarly work, and were neither be loyal to this particular way of thinking; scholarly nor socially significant or relevant

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research topics. Other scholars from post- though not at the provincial universities, Soviet Europe underline the fact that in Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia were their pre-1989 empirical sociology, Marxist good examples. In Hungary, it was possible quotations were politically enforced, but in the 1980s (but not earlier) to overtly criti- what really mattered for sociologists was cize Marxist sociology of social structure. It empirical merit, methodological quality, and was also possible to work in the Communist statistical significance. An important conse- Party social research institute if one was quence, say the Estonian authors, was the not a Party member. It was not allowed to complete lack of theoretical debates and criticize the ‘Party line’ in public or abroad. interpretations of research findings. Polish Therefore, some of our collaborators, such scholars stressed that the former system’s as our Hungarian contributors, do not even important consequence was the politically mention Marxism when asked to identify the enforced absence of some topics, such as interesting theoretical approaches. In Poland, systemic change, political organization of after the early 1980s, Marxism was no longer society, and cultural differentiation of society. an issue for students majoring in sociology In Czechoslovakia, it was forbidden even to in the major academic centers mentioned read Western sociological publications. In above. Only after 1989, in the view of Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, the Byelorussian and Bulgarian scholars, many scholars lost their research and teach- was there no longer a necessity to criticize ing jobs when they were officially defined as so-called Western ‘bourgeois science’, and deviating from the ‘Party line’. the theoretical basis of sociology broadened All of this changed in the second half of significantly. the 1980s, although in some countries only On the whole, ‘post-Soviet’ sociology at the very end of this period. The most within Eastern and Central Europe found it significant changes were of an institutional quite easy to get rid of the Marxist labels character. Communist Party academies edu- and quotations. In some post-Yugoslavian cating party functionaries, some of which countries, a bibliometric analysis was car- granted academic degrees in sociology, ried out, which showed that Marxist citations were dissolved and many older professors almost totally disappeared from sociologi- of sociology and other disciplines retired. cal periodicals. In Yugoslavia, however, due Others, however, found teaching jobs in to the famous, very critical Zagreb Praxis newly emerging institutions of higher edu- School in Marxism, active in the 1960s and cation. In Yugoslavia, the ‘Marxist’ centers 1970s (it was later dissolved and the scholars were closed. Communist periodicals that had were either fired or jailed or exiled) Marxism published Marxist oriented analyses were was treated by many intellectuals quite seri- also closed. At the universities, former chairs ously. Therefore, in Serbia, in the 1990s, and institutes of Marxism–Leninism were there was a heated public debate on Marxism renamed into chairs and institutes of phi- (the so-called Marxismus Streit) which losophy and/or sociology. It seems to us that revealed two positions from which Marxism this constituted the most significant actually was criticized: nationalistic and anti- existing ‘de-Communization’ that took place. nationalistic (liberal). According to some The democratization of academic life that participants, however, this was not as much quickly followed disbanded the old institu- a discussion about Marxism, as one on tional system once and for all. Yugoslavian authoritarianism. Marxism was What happened to Marxism? What hap- only a politically accepted guise. In Russia, pened to people who represented it? As we after a few years of complete abandonment, said above, in some countries a public sphere Marxism has begun to return to sociology. for non-Marxist interpretation of social Now, it is one of many theoretical perspectives worlds was allowed prior to 1989. Poland, which inform sociological research. Due to

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the transition to a market economy, many sociology, that Polish scholarly mediocrities scholars are particularly interested in the had not been only of the Marxist character, theory of alienation. and that now many sociological mediocri- In Poland, today’s mainstream sociologi- ties represented clearly anti-Marxist views cal community accepts many sociologists and could be found in the right-wing and who were active in the Communist Party pro-Church intellectual circles. They under- until its dissolution in 1990. Several sociolo- lined the fact that ideological ‘conversions’ gists who had been academic teachers of a were natural consequences of deep social more or less apologetic Marxism continue to transformations and did not have to mean participate very actively in public discourse. opportunism. It seems that not only in Poland Almost none of them continue his/her former but also in other CEE countries the full ‘de- Marxist interests. Many of them, in their Communization’ and ‘de-Marxization’ will research programs and university lectures, come only with generational transition. Most now stress the merits of Weberian theory, probably, Marxism will reappear within the the virtues of economic liberalism, and of general spectrum of sociological theoretical the ‘social teaching’ of the Roman Catholic and methodological orientations in Eastern Church. Only exceptionally do these former and Central Europe. Marxists belong to the post-Communist party Alliance of Democratic Left. Nowadays, some of them have strong political connec- tions with post-Solidarity, right-wing politi- NEW EDUCATION IN SOCIOLOGY cal parties. Today, some senior professors of sociology who used to be strongly allied to Sociology has been a university major in the senior Communist Party apparatus carry several CEE countries for decades. Until out very interesting and fruitful analyses of recently, the Soviet Union was an exception the processes of political democratization and it was only possible to study sociol- in Poland. They deal well with democ- ogy there at the doctoral level. At the lower racy and in democracy, in general and in levels, some courses were offered (e.g., in central sociological institutions. They take Byelorussia) in empirical sociology and important initiatives for the sociological sociological research methods (mostly community. statistical), and the graduates who completed This lack of the ‘deep de-Communization’ these courses could be employed as sociolo- of sociology has caused concern among some gists in the social research centers. Now, every scholars who considered it to be an aspect of university in the post-Soviet nation-states has a more general lack of coming to terms with a sociology program. Teachers are on the one the socialist (Communist) past. A discus- hand researchers from the old time ‘laborato- sion of this problem was published in an ries of empirical sociology’, and on the other influential right-wing daily, Zycie. A Polish hand former lecturers of Marxism–Leninism sociology professor in Germany wrote in and scientific Communism, though retrained 1998 that there had been no debate in Poland through special courses. on the relations between social sciences The first graduates of sociology (at the and Communism in this country after 1989: MA level) came out of the post-Soviet uni- nobody was fired, nobody was criticized versities in the mid-1990s. In Byelorussia, in public, and even the most corrupt were thirty first-year undergraduates are accepted let off. In the next several issues of Zycie, every year out of one hundred to one hundred the opinions of a small number of scholars and twenty candidates. In Estonia (which of various pre-1989 biographies were pub- is a very tiny nation) six hundred first-year lished. They stressed that in 1998 it was undergraduates are accepted annually for too late to start any ‘de-Communization’ of the four-year BA program. A fraction of

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graduates is accepted for a one-year MA studies are not organized in the same way program. PhD studies were completed abroad throughout the region. We already mentioned up to now, mainly in Finland. In Russia, the differences within the former Soviet Union. there are 200,000 students taking courses in In Bulgaria, the system of education is based sociology. In the Ukraine, university educa- on the four-year BA program, and some gradu- tion has four steps: BA, ‘specialist’, MA, ates later take one year of the MA program. PhD, and habilitation. Since the mid-1990s, One can then enroll for the PhD program at about one hundred graduates (at the BA the Academy of Science or at the University of level) of sociology have completed their Sofia. In Hungary, in Slovakia, and in Poland, studies within private and public institu- as a rule, and there are many exceptions to this tions of higher education. BA programs in rule, regular studies entailed a five-year mas- sociology are quite new, emerging in the ters program. Now, they are in the process of early 1990s as a way of coordinating the changing into three levels – BA, MA, and PhD. whole higher education system within In Hungary, two Budapest universities conduct the unifying Europe. a joint doctoral program. In Romania, the In the post-Soviet Slavic countries, their basic education is a four-year, though in some own new, as well as the new Russian lan- schools three-year, BA program, followed for a guage textbooks are studied. However, some small number of students by three more semes- Western texts are also translated into Russian ters for the MA. and into national languages. The most Let us look a little closer at the situation popular Western authors are Neil Smelser in Poland. It is to some extent unique, as any and Anthony Giddens. In small non-Slavic example would be, but it also reflects the nations, for instance in Estonia, in addition transformation in teaching sociology in the to Russian texts, Russian translations of whole region. There are many candidates in Western books are used as texts. five-year MA programs in sociology (start- Throughout CEE, sociology became very ing in 2007, three-year BA programs) at popular among students at both public and the public universities financed by the state. private schools, though less so than econom- Sociology, as a major at MA level, has been ics, business administration, management, expanded from a few traditional centers political science, and law. As we mentioned such as Warsaw, Cracow, Poznan, Katowice, above, old teachers of Marxism–Leninism Lublin, to several new academic centers. who have the formal qualification (habilita- Now, nearly twenty public institutions of tion degree5) and are not yet of retirement higher education, including all public univer- age, participate in teaching. Students use both sities, have at least BA programs. Sociology domestic and Western textbooks. In Romania, is also offered as a paid BA (and then MA) Poland, Hungary, and former Yugoslavia this degree program for students in the ‘non- was also the case before 1989. It seems to us public’ Collegium Civitas in Warsaw and in that with the exception of some Polish the ‘non-public’ Warsaw School of Social universities, the curricula are relatively rigid Psychology. Similiarly, a paid extramural and the proportion of mandatory courses is three-year BA program is available for stu- quite high. Students from many countries have dents in many other ‘non-public’ schools. taken advantage of the educational exchange At the BA and MA levels together, about programs of the European Union, first called 15,000 students are now majoring in sociol- Tempus, and later Erasmus/Socrates. The ogy. Graduates of BA programs can, after an Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) entrance exam, study sociology at the MA has been supporting both research and higher level at the same school from which they education programs. graduated. However, they may have to go to There are various systems of university edu- another school if they studied at one without cation in various countries, and sociological an MA program in sociology.

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As in the case of other attractive uni- and Kyrgyzstan from post-Communist Asia. versity disciplines, there are not enough The Graduate School for Social Research senior professors in Poland to educate all of at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology the students according to the state quality of the Polish Academy of Sciences was of education requirements. Therefore, many founded in 1992. In the academic year senior faculty members have several aca- 2000–01, one hundred and sixty-two students demic jobs. Young scholars’ promotions are from seventeen countries studied philosophy often delayed because they have no time to and sociology, among them were ninety- conduct the independent research that would nine Poles, twenty-five Ukrainians and ten lead them to the habilitation degree. There Russians. were also problems with Polish textbooks. Polish scholars have tried very hard to Only since the beginning of the year 2000 maintain or even improve the quality of have good original Polish textbooks begun to education in this new situation of dynamic be published. development in higher education, though There are new specializations within the without the requisite infrastructure, e.g. general major in sociology. The most impor- lack of new teachers, textbooks, and lecture tant are ‘social policy’ and ‘social work’. BA halls. A semi-formal process of accreditation and MA programs in them are offered by of individual academic disciplines started public and private schools. These programs are in 1998, and has been carried out by the usually paid by students and are extramural. University Accreditation Commission, which An exceptional but important phenomenon is is independent of the Ministry of Education. the post-graduate two-year interdisciplinary In 2000, sociology was accredited at eight program in cultural and social gender iden- public universities, i.e. in Poznan, Lodz, tity – gender studies, offered initially only by Warsaw, Cracow, Torun, Katowice, Lublin, the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of and Wroclaw. This process of accreditation Warsaw University. This institute, along with was preceded by activities of the Conference the Institute of Sociology of the same school, of the Institutes of Sociology (KIS), an also offers an MA program in sociology. informal body that has been analyzing and Recently, the number of schools offering this coordinating syllabi and teaching standards program has increased. since the mid-1990s. At the beginning of the Postgraduate studies in sociology are a year 2000, a formal accreditation process of relatively new phenomenon in Poland. They all academic disciplines began. existed in some Polish universities before To conclude, the teaching of sociol- 1989, but have grown only recently. Before ogy in CEE has changed more in some 1989, the universities employed research countries than in others. The common and teaching assistants with MA degrees features of the process have been a rapid who were expected to teach and to conduct growth in the number of students, inad- research leading to a PhD. In addition to equate infrastructure, attempts to build major universities, postgraduate studies in a system including BA, MA, and PhD levels sociology were introduced in two private of education, changes in the curricula in schools. PhD studies in sociology at the order to bring them closer to classic and Department of Sociology of the Central modern sociological theoretical perspectives, European University, funded by the Soros and to the analysis of the most impor- Foundation (Warsaw Branch; it was later tant social phenomena characteristic for the moved to and then to Budapest) modern and post-modern world. For the started in 1997. In the academic year region, international cooperation also seems 2000–01, there were twenty-six postgradu- to be important. ate students coming from eleven countries, There currently seem to be no ideo- mostly from CEE, but also from Mongolia logical limitations in teaching sociology.

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Sociology is popular because it offers job media research, sociology of youth and edu- opportunities. Social work and social policy cation, life course analysis, analysis of stand- have become much more important than ards of living, and of ways of life (lifestyles) before, due to the emergence of the market were carried out during the Communist period economy and the accompanying problems, and are all still very popular. Hungarians to the fact that societies are growing older and Poles still study the rural population. and because national and local policy- Slovenes study social services and quality makers pay more and more attention to the of life, as they used to. Naturally, all these problems of the population. Market econo- subjects are now studied with new perspec- mies and democratization of CEE societies tives, through theories developed in the West. demand specialists in market research, media Therefore, there is continuation in the subject research, and public opinion polls. Thanks to matter but not necessarily in the methodol- the spread of university teaching of sociol- ogy and theory. ogy, CEE societies have become a little more Industrial conflict has always existed but reflexive. was very rarely studied. Ethnic composition is nothing new in each individual country of CEE, but it was not popular as a subject matter of sociology. Different kinds of elites NEW RESEARCH TOPICS always existed but it seems to us that they had been analyzed only in Poland, and again, As presented above, the ideological system not in the frameworks in which they are cur- that dominated CEE until the late 1980s rently studied. Women had always had their resulted in the absence of some crucial, rel- own specific problems, but they were not evant research topics, such as the political studied as such. There were neither ‘wom- organization of society and its transforma- en’s studies’ nor ‘gender studies’. During the tion, cultural differentiation, and minorities. last decade, ethnicity and gender relations Due to the ideologically legitimized vision of became legitimate and very trendy subjects homogeneity and consensus, many problems for teaching and research. However, the had been previously neglected. latter is very often ridiculed by conservative All this changed in the aftermath of 1989, scholars. and as mentioned above, in some countries Three new thematic areas of research have even earlier. New research topics emerged emerged due to the transformation. The first for at least two reasons: the socioeconomic is the analysis of the socioeconomic aspects and political transformation in the region of transformation. Of necessity, important and its immediate consequence; and the topics for investigation became the privatiza- liberation of sociology itself. These topics tion of state-owned enterprises and its social are new in the sense that either the social consequences; industrial relations in remain- phenomena (the subject matter) did not exist ing state-owned enterprises – in enterprises before, or if they did exist but for various rea- sold to foreign investors – and in new private sons, such as the lack of funding, the lack of companies, domestic and foreign; the new political approval for the research project, the labor market and different strategies adopted enforced ‘blindness’ of scholars which pre- by different actors in this market; informa- vented them from seeing some phenomena, tion technology and its social consequences; or their fear of political consequences if they the dynamics of class structure, including applied for funds or approval to do research class-building processes, change, and repro- at all, were rarely or never studied, or they duction of economic elites; unemployment in are now studied in new ways. its various aspects; and the new poverty. In the former Soviet Union, particularly in The second area is the new, liberal, and Estonia, Lithuania, and Byelorussia, mass democratic politics, such as analysis of

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political parties, which, in the Western sense, sciences in CEE can become a case on which did not exist before 1989, political, espe- to study other regions of the world that are cially parliamentary, elites; voting behavior; also embarking on a complicated road to civil society, and NGOs. The third area is democracy and the free market. Moreover, culture: culture versus economy as the factor the new trends highlighted in sociology of explaining everyday behavior and everyday CEE can be models for study of other coun- social processes; religion in its new forms tries ‘in transition’. Thus there is a possibil- such as the institutionalization of the role ity of developing a comparative analysis of of major denominations, public religious various aspects of transition to democracy in rituals, private religion, new religious move- varied social contexts. ments, and new spirituality; and cultural Increasingly, sociology in CEE has become trauma resulting from the transformations. similar to Western sociology. However, it is We have already mentioned mass media and not necessarily unilateral imitation. Certainly, ethnicity above. A topic studied in several it should, in our opinion, take advantage of CEE countries, but not in all of them, has the achievements of that sociology, its theo- been regional CEE cooperation and the ten- ries of various ranges, its various methodolo- sions arising from it, and European enlarge- gies, and research experiences. The challenge ment, in the context of aspirations of some to Western scholars is to assess whether a societies towards the European Union. comparative study of social processes of There are also topics specific to certain CEE sociology can help them to rethink countries. The catastrophe in the nuclear their own societies. The same should be the power plant in Chernobyl in the Ukraine case for Western sociology, its generaliza- in 1986 affected both that country and tions, explanation, and hypotheses. European Byelorussia. Only after 1988 was it pos- Union funded research projects known as sible to analyze the social consequences Framework Programs bring together uni- of this tragedy. Post-Yugoslavian sociolo- versities from various regions of Europe to gists conduct war-related research, studying stimulate international cooperation. social and cultural aspects of the wars them- selves, refugees, displaced persons, return- ees, ethnic relations after the wars, and diaspora resulting from the wars. Czech soci- NOTES ologists analyze immigration to their country from Eastern Europe, and the dangers of 1. This paper draws partly upon our article (Keen xenophobia. and Mucha, 2006). 2. Croatian, Czech, Romanian, and Slovenian pre- Marxist sociology had existed, though. 3. Denes Nemedi and Peter Robert from Hungary, Mikko Lagerspetz and Iris Pettai from Estonia, Bohumil CONCLUSION Buzek and Eva Laiferova from Slovakia, Franc Mali from Slovenia, Karel Turza from Yugoslavia, Vyara CEE sociology and its internal development Gantcheva from Bulgaria, Ognjen Caldarovic from reflects the systemic transformation of the Croatia, Vanda Rusetskaya and Olga Tereschenko from Byelorussia, Petre Georgievski and Mileva whole region, including specific features in Gurovska from Macedonia, Miloslav Petrusek from individual countries. It has also become a the , Ilie Badescu and Radu Baltasiu tool for analysis of the processes of trans- from Romania, Valery Masurov and Michael Chernysh formation, and of social self-reflection, and from Russia, Natalia Pohorila from the Ukraine, and self-analysis. Some lessons can be learned Janusz Mucha from Poland. 4. We have also paid attention to the subjective, from the analysis of sociology in CEE, which individual aspects of sociology as practiced in CEE we believe extend beyond the regional con- (see Keen and Mucha, 2006). They will not be dis- text. The trajectory of sociology and social cussed in this paper.

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5. Habilitation degree is a 'second doctorate', a at the Dawn of a New Millennium. Westport, traditional precondition for full professorship in a CN and London: Praeger. number of European countries. Keen, M.F. and Mucha, J. (2004) ‘Sociology in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s: A Decade of Reconstruction’, European Societies 6(2): 123–48. REFERENCES Keen, M.F. and Mucha, J. (2006a) ‘Central and Eastern European Sociology in the Post- Keen, M.F. and Mucha, J. (eds) (1994) Eastern Communist Era’, East European Quarterly Europe in Transformation. The Impact on 39(4): 523–36. Sociology. Westport, CN and London: Keen, M.F. and Mucha, J. (eds) (2006b) Greenwood Press. Autobiographies of Transformation. Lives Keen, M.F. and Mucha, J. (eds) (2003) Sociology in Central and Eastern Europe. London: in Central and Eastern Europe. Transform ations Routledge.

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