The Break-up of Communism in East Germany and Eastern Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 1-17

3. Rethinking the East European Revolutions

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 18-39

4. The Collapse of Communism

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 40-48

5. From Information Control to Creative Chaos

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 49-68

6. A Hotbed of Hatred

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 69-97

7. Coping with Ethnic Conflicts in Eastern Europe

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 98-117

8. In the Company of Bulgarians

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 118-128

9. East Germany as a ‘Model Case’ for Transformation Theory

   • Feiwel Kupferberg

   Pages 129-148

10. Managing an Unmasterable Past

    • Feiwel Kupferberg

    Pages 149-169

11. Transformation, Modernity and the East German Sonderweg

    • Feiwel Kupferberg

    Pages 170-186

12. Back Matter

    Pages 187-204

    PDF

This book presents a novel understanding of the break-up of communist hegemony in East Germany and Eastern Europe. Based on comparative case studies, it argues that identity politics is a particular invention of communist rule, producing a political citizen. Focusing upon identity politics helps us better to understand the longterm stability of communist hegemony, its sudden collapse, the difficulties of transforming communist societies to liberal democracies and the unexpected revival of ethnic, nationalist and cultural conflicts in post-communist Eastern Europe.

• communism
• Europe
• Germany
• hegemony
• politics
• revolution
• european union politics

• Aalborg University, Denmark

  Feiwel Kupferberg

FEIWEL KUPFERBERG is Associate Professor of Sociology at Aalborg University. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, guest Lecturer at Moscow University, Visiting Scholar at the Berlin Institute of Social Studies, and Visiting Scholar at Max Planck Institute of Human Development, Berlin. He is the author of The Paternalistic Spirit, and Creative Chaos in Project Work.

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