Political thought in Central and Eastern Europe: The open society, its friends, and enemies*
| Author | Aurelian Craiutu,Stefan Kolev |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14748851211049602 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Spotlight |
Political thought in
Central and Eastern
Europe: The open society,
its friends, and enemies∗
Aurelian Craiutu
Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Stefan Kolev
Political Economy, University of Applied Sciences, Zwickau,
Germany
Abstract
A review essay of key works and trends in the political thought of Central and Eastern
Europe, before and after 1989. The topics examined include the nature of the 1989 vel-
vet revolutions in the region, debates on civil society, democratization, the relationship
between politics, economics, and culture, nationalism, legal reform, feminism, and “illib-
eral democracy.”The review essay concludes with an assessment of the most recent
trends in the region.
Keywords
Central and Eastern Europe, democracy, totalitarianism, liberalism, illiberal democracy,
civil society
It is more difficult to pass from totalitarianism to democracy than from democracy to totali-
tarianism (Popper, 1990: 16).
1
Corresponding author:
Aurelian Craiutu, Political Science, Indiana University, 210 Woodburn, 1100 E 7th St, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Email: acraiutu@indiana.edu
∗In memoriam János Kornai (1928–2021).
Spotlight
European Journal of Political Theory
2022, Vol. 21(4) 808–835
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14748851211049602
journals.sagepub.com/home/ept
A strange neglect
“It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century,”Czesław Miłosz once wrote
(1955: 3), “that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleas-
antly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse
books of philosophy.”This truth might surprise us but had long been obvious in Central
and Eastern Europe (henceforth CEE), where ideas have always mattered and had lasting
political implications. The region’s turbulent history is strongly linked to the theories that
circulated there. As Hungarian political thinker István Bibó once wrote, CEE “remains
the greatest threat to world peace as long as it remains the region of the greatest
anarchy, insecurity, and discontent”(2015: 180). Two world wars fueled by ultra-
nationalist impulses started there within one generation, upending the old global order.
Three decades ago, a bloody civil war made the Balkans descend into collective paranoia
and barbarism.
Regrettably, the political thought in CEE has remained understudied in the West.
2
Our
essay highlights its richness and diversity by examining not only political ideas, but also
the economic thought and the interplay between politics and culture. We also explore the
dialog between Western and CEE thinkers and the transfer and reappropriation of ideas
between West and East. We highlight the significance of changes in the East and examine
how Western scholars interpreted the revolutions of 1989 and their aftermath. Given our
own biographies and scholarly interests, we seek to go beyond contested dichotomies
(East versus West, politics versus economics) that reproduce old divides.
3
Studying the political thought in 19 countries with rich linguistic, political, economic,
and cultural diversity and fuzzy borders is no easy task.
4
Consider, for example, the issue
of a common Central Eastern European ethos. Some deny its existence or prefer to define
it as a community of (mostly tragic) destinies, others as a homogeneous cultural and pol-
itical phenomenon.
5
Examine then the diversity of personal trajectories. While many CEE
intellectuals stayed put, others (among them, Aurél Kolnai, Karl and Michael Polanyi,
Tzvetan Todorov, Ghiţa
̆Ionescu, Leszek Kołakowski, and Zygmunt Bauman) emigrated
and published in the West. Some severed all contacts with the region and assimilated into
their new environments, while others transmitted dissidents’works to Western audiences.
A few such as Ágnes Heller returned home after 1989. They fostered an alternative public
sphere without borders through venues such as Radio Free Europe,theBBC, and
Deutsche Welle, or journals such as Kultura, co-founded in Paris in 1947 by Józef
Czapski, which published texts of Polish authors.
6
Furthermore, the line between political thought (action) and non-political resistance
has always been thin in a region where censorship limited freedom of speech, forcing
writers to resort to samizdat or pseudonyms. Those who wrote on political topics
risked internal exile or imprisonment. Starting with 1978, the “Flying University”in
Warsaw offered lectures and courses scheduled on a swift notice to avoid surveillance
by the authorities.
7
Political ideas had to be decoded by shrewd readers trained in the
art of esoteric interpretation. Important political statements appeared as literature, phil-
osophy, sociology, or art, conveying the fear and duplicity of daily life under commun-
ism, memorably described in Czeslaw Milosz, Danilo Kiš, and Milan Kundera’s works.
Craiutu and Kolev 809
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