Abstract
With the fall of communism across Eastern Europe in 1989 and the official end of the USSR in 1991, the fundamental borderline that divided both Europe and the world after the Second World War, the line that defined "East" and "West," has ceased to exist. Two consequences can be said to have followed from this epochal event, one regional or area-specific, the other general or global.
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Notes
For the above paragraph, see the classic study by Denys Hay (1957): Europe: The Emergence of an Idea (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press); and Pim den Boer (1995): "Europe to 1914: the making of an idea," Kevin Wilson and Jan van der Dussen, eds., The History of the Idea of Europe (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 13-82; as well as, Traian Stoianovich (1994): Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe (Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe).
St. Augustin, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, trans. by Henry Bettenson (1984), (London: Penguin), esp. Book I, pp. 5 - 47.
Self-awareness in contrast to self-confidence, as stressed by Pim den Boer, "Europe to 1914," p. 29.
George Ostrogorsky (1969): History of the Byzantine State, rev. ed., trans. by Joan Hussey (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP ), p. 125.
I am here partial to Ostrogorsky's authoritative insistence that the Byzantine Empire did in fact develop over the course of its existence. However, I wish to distance myself from Ostrogorsky's metaphysical interpretation that the Empire ended because its "mission" of preserving "the heritage of the ancient world" was fulfilled; Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, p. 572.
Derived and shortened from "caesar". Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State,p. 572; Perry Anderson (1974): Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (London: NLB), p. 231; Perry Anderson (1974): Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: NLB), p. 201.
For the formulation of a "primordial Iron Curtain," Lonnie R. Johnson (1996), Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends,(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 24.
The story has been told many times before, its causes and dynamic has occupied some of the most eminent scholars in the social sciences and humanities, and we are still unsure about the exact whys and hows. Good snythesizing discussions can be found in David S. Landes' (1969) introduction to his classic The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press), and in Daniel Chirot (1985): "The Rise of the West," American Sociological Review, vol. 50, pp. 181 - 195.
Gerard Delanty (1995): Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality ( Houndmills and London, etc.: Macmillan ), pp. 44 - 47.
Larry Wolf (1994): Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, ( Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press ), pp. 43 - 44.
Perry Anderson in following Frederico Chabod, calls Machiavelli's comparison between "the Turk" and "the king of France" "one of the first implicit approaches to a self-definition of `Europe"'. I think it is very "implicit". The actual comparison is embedded in a general discussion about how to hold a state after conquest, a discussion which ranges from Alexander the Great to "our times" and the forms are not tied to a spatial recognition (safe for Asia in the case of Alexander the Great and not mentioned in conjunction with "the Turk"). Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State,p. 398; Nicoll() Machiavelli (1985): The Prince,a new translation with an introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press), 16-19 (ch. IV).
William Coxe (1785): Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark: Interspersed with Historical Relations and Political Inquiries (London), as cited in Larry Wolff, Imagining Eastern Europe, p. 27. 13 Coxe's account became a best-seller and served as a reference for many travelers who came after him. As cited and presented in Eric J. Hobsbawm (1969): Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day ( Harmondsworth: Penguin Books ), pp. 23 - 27.
Reinhart Koselleck (1973): Kritik und Krise: Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt,(Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp), pp. 81-103; Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State,p. 398 n. 4, pp. 399-401.
Making a strong case for East Central Europe in this regard, Piotr S. Wandycz (1992): The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present ( London, etc.: Routledge).
Ivan T. Berend and György Ranki (1982): The European Periphery and Industrialization, 1780-1914,trans. by Eva Palmai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;) Piotr S. Wandycz, The Price of Freedom,pp. 166-180.
Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (New York: Vintage, 1989 ); H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: The Reorientation of European Social Thought, 1890-1930 ( New York: Vintage, 1977 ).
Bram Stoker (1979): Dracula (Harmondsworth: Penguin (orig. 1897)), p. 32.
Ivan T. Berend (1996): Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery, ( Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press), xi-xiii and passim.
Reinhard Bendix (1978): Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule, ( Berkeley, CA: University of California Press ), p. 499.
Iver B. Neumann (1996): Russia and the Idea of Europe: A study in Identity and International Relations (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 28-39; Lucian Boia (1997): Istorie si Mit in Constiinta Româneasca ( Bucharest: Humanitas ), pp. 38 - 55.
Friedrich Engels (1978): "On Social Relations in Russia," (1874), The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. by Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton ), pp. 665 - 675.
It is interesting to note the power of wording at this point. In using "East-West" conflict we are already putting the blame on the Eastern part of the conflict (the East is in conflict with the West, but not necessarily the other way around). As proof, try switching the words around: West-East conflict.
Michael Paul Rogin (1987): Ronald Reagan, the Movie, and Other Episodes in Political Demonology, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), ch. 1 (the title essay), pp. 1-43, and ch. 8, "Kiss Me Deadly: Communism, Motherhood, and Cold War Movies," pp. 236 - 271.
Ken Jowitt (1992): New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), esp. ch. 5. I should note that Jowitt rejects the inference of a "Washington Center" on the grounds that Washington was never able to exercise the kind of symbolic and direct power over a pluriverse of Western partner-states. I agree as far as Jowitt's objection goes. For in the last instance, the logic of Cold War confrontation also worked in unifying the West and placing it under the undisputed leadership of Washington. As to the symbolic power — perhaps now that the Cold War is over we are beginning to realize how much power the myth of "America" has and continues to exercise.
Charles Gati, ed. (1974): The Politics of Modernization in Eastern Europe: Testing the Soviet Model, (New York, etc.: Praeger Publishers;) Walter D. Connor(1979): Socialism, Politics, and Equality: Hierarchy and Change in Eastern Europe and the USSR, ( New York: Columbia University Press ).
Werner Link (1980): Der Ost-West Konflikt: Die Organisation der internationalen Beziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert ( Stuttgart: Kohlhammer), esp. pp. 216 - 226.
Where do Europe's internal borders lie?" The opening sentence of Jenö Szücs (1990): Die drei historischen Regionen Europas,transi. by Béla Rüsky (Frankfurt/M.: Verlag Neue Kritik).
Lonnie R. Johnson, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends,p. 252.
I am referring here to the most famous essay on the idea of Central Europe as a "kidnaped West" (written, as its author maintains, for a Western audience), Milan Kundera (1984): "The Tragedy of Central Europe," The New York Review of Books,April, pp. 33, 36, 38. For critical discussions: Krishan Kumar (1992): "The 1989 Revolutions and the Idea of Europe," Political Studies,vol. XL, no. 3 (September), pp. 439461; Iver B. Neumann (1993): "Russia as Central Europe's Constituting Other," East European Politics and Societies,vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring), pp. 349-369.
Thus the famous definition by Timothy Garton Ash (1989) of "East Central Europe" The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (New York: Random House), p. 250 n. 10.
Mihâly Vajda (1989): "Who excluded Russia from Europe? (A Reply to imeèka)," George Schöpflin and Nancy Wood, eds., In Search of Central Europe ( Cambridge: Polity Press ), pp. 168 - 175.
Krishan Kumar, "The 1989 Revolutions and the Idea of Europe," p. 442.
Barbara Lippert (1998): "Der Gipfel von Luxemburg: Startschuß für das Abenteuer Erweiterung," Integration, vol. 21, no. I (January), pp. 12-31; Christian Meier (1997): "Transformation der Außenwirtschaftspolitik: Zur Wechselbeziehung von EU-Integration und regionaler Kooperation der Staaten Ostmitteleuropas," Bundesinstitut für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien (ed.), Der Osten im Prozeß der Differenzierung: Fortschritte und M/erfolge der Transformation (München: Hanser); (1998): "Europa: Auf der Kippe," Der Spiegel, nr. 27, p. 128.
Jürgen Habermas (1990): "What Does Socialism Mean Today? The Revolutions of Recuperation and the Need for New Thinking," Robin Blackburn ed., After the Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism (London and New York: Verso), pp. 25-46; Ralf Dahrendorf (1990): Betrachtungen über die Revolution in Europa in einem Brief, der an einen Herrn in Warschau gerichtet ist ( Stuttgart: DVA, 1990 ).
Ralf Dahrendorf: Betrachtungen über die Revolution in Europa,p. 93.
Claus Offe, besides Adam Przeworski, has developed the conception of the "double transformation" and the "dilemma of syncronicity;" Claus Offe (1994): Der Tunnel am Ende des Lichts: Erkundungen der politischen Transformation im Neuen Osten (Frankfurt/M.: Campus).
should note at this point that the Western reception of the idea of Central Europe was predictably not so much guided by the idea of a "return to Europe" as it was by the idea of a "return to history".
Michael Zürn (1995): "The Challenge of Globalization and Individualization: A View from Europe," Hans-Henrik Holm and Georg Sorensen, eds., Whose World Order Uneven Globalization and the End of the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), pp. 137-163, quotes pp. 137, 139, 163.
Joschka Fischer (1989): Der Umbau der Industriegesellschaft: Plädoyer wider die herrschende Umweltlüge (Frankfurt/M.: Eichhorn), esp. 58-59; Klaus von Beyme (1994): Systemwechsel in Osteuropa ( Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp).
See Klaus Müller (1991): "Nachholende Modernisierung? Die Konjunkturen der Modernisierungstheorie und ihre Anwendung auf die Transformation der osteuropäischen Gesellschaften," Leviathan, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 261-291; also: Klaus Müller (1992): "'Modernising' Eastern Europe. Theoretical Problems and Political Dilemma," European Journal of Sociology, vol. 33, pp. 109 - 150.
For a recent discussion: Thomas Bremer, Wim van Meurs, Klaus Müller (1998): "Vorwärts in die Vergangenheit? Zur Zukunft der Osteuropaforschung," Osteuropa, vol. 48, no. 4 (April), pp. 406-408. 47
Adam Przeworski et al. (1995): Sustainable Democracy ( Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press ), p. 4.
David Apter (1987): Rethinking Development: Modernization, Dependency, and Postmodern Politics (Newbury Park: Sage;) S. N. Eisenstadt: Tradition, Wandel und Modernität, trans. by Suzanne Heintz (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1979;) Dieter Nohlen and Franz Nuscheler (eds.) (1993): Handbuch der Dritten Welt, vol. 1: Grundprobleme, Theorien, Strategien (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz ).
Wolfgang Zapf (1994): "Wohlfahrtsentwicklung und Modernisierung (1993)," Wolfgang Zapf, Modernisierung, Wohlfahrtsentwicklung und Transformation: Soziologische Aufsätze 1987 bis 1994 (Berlin: edition Sigma, 1994), pp. 175-186, quote p. 181.
Wolfgang Zapf (ed.) (1990): Die Modernisierung moderner Gesellschaften: Verhandlungen des 25. Deutschen Soziologentages in Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt/M.: Campus); Roland Robertson (1992): Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage;) Ulrich Beck (1993): Die Erfindung des Politischen: Zu einer Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp;) Anthony Giddens ( 1990 ): The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press ).
On the special issue of migration in this context, see Mathias Bös (1997): Migration als Problem offener Gesellschaften: Globalisierung und sozialer Wandel in Westeuropa und Nordamerika ( Opladen: Leske und Budrich).
One of the better treatments spanning scientific and general discussion (despite its title), Benjamin R. Barber (1996): Jihad vs. Mc World: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World ( New York: Ballantine Books).
Jadwiga Staniszkis (1991): "Dilemmata der Demokratie in Osteuropa," Rainer Deppe, Helmut Dubiel, and Ulrich Rödel (eds.), Demokratischer Umbruch in Osteuropa (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp), pp. 326-347. In this early, important discussion of the "dilemmas of democracy" in Eastern Europe, Staniszkis distinguishes five such dilemmas which can be summarized as follows: 1) demobilization: the process of transformation was initialized by a process of mobilization, yet for the transformation to continue, for the necessary consolidation to set in, mobilization has to be taken back from above; 2) the ambiguous importance of the state: the state takes on a renewed importance as sole representative of the common interest and initializer of the entire reform process, which also makes new abuses of state power possible; 3) the Russian problem: the process of transformation in Eastern Europe remains within the orbit and within the influence of a new Russian colonial state; 4) the ambiguous solution of the presidency: as an attempt to fill the power vacuum left behind by the communist party, the presidency as institution is rather ill-defined; 5) the restrictive context of reform activity: both internal economic crisis and external economic dependence reduce the options available to the political actors. Obviously, this classification was meant to pertain to the "transition" period immediately following the events of 1989. It is also important to realize that her empirical reference point is the case of Poland, or more generally, the cases of the "velvet revolution" (V. Havel). In our context, the reader should also note the concern about Russia and the emphasis on the responsibility of western politicians for the caution of western investors in her discussion. Both points are powerful Leitmotifs of the Eastern reform discourse; the latter now slightly tampered by the realization that capitalist investment is not something that western politicians can command. Of course, there is also an added problem here which already brings us around to the point of our argument: in the present context, westem politicians have a hard time making the case for investments abroad as something beneficial to their respective constituents; in some cases, such as Germany's, more investments at home (no matter what the source) are sought after. In the German context, the entire debate on investment is further complicated by the domestic West-East divide: it is still the case that investment in the East of Germany (again: no matter what the source!) is not seen as investment in Germany, period, but rather as "aid" (which, in the perverse logic of "public investment," it is).
As with so many German terms, is, too, is virtually untranslatable. "Social politics" is rather awkward. I have borrowed the term from the social reporting (social indicators, social structure) literature, although even there the term leads a rather underground existence. See for example Roland Habich and Heinz-Herbert Noll with Wolfgang Zapf (1994): Soziale Indikatoren and Sozialberichterstattung: Internationale Erfahrungen and gegenwärtiger Forschungsstand (Bern: Bundesamt für Statistik der Schweiz).
Wolfgang Merkel (1996): "Institutionalisierung and Konsolidierung der Demokratie in Ostmitteleuropa," Wolfgang Merkel, Eberhard Sandschneider and Dieter Segert (eds.), Systemwechsel 2: Die Institutionalisierung der Demokratie, (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1996), pp. 73-112; Olivier Blanchard, Kenneth A. Froot, and Jeffrey D. Sachs (eds.) (1994): The Transition in Eastern Europe, vol. 2: Restructuring (Chicago: University of Chicago Press ).
However, as Catherine Durandin has pointed out, in the light of the region's multi-ethnic past, the exclusivism of nationalism can (should) be seen as "a betrayal of tradition"; Catherine Durandin (1994): "Occidentalistes et Nationalistes en Europe Central et Orientale: De la Guerre Froide à la Guerre Chaude," L'autre Europe,nos. 28-29, pp. 105-114.
George Schöpflin, "Central Europe: Definitions Old and New," George Schöpflin and Nancy Wood (eds.), In Search of Central Europe,pp. 7-29. That such a discovery has to include Russia should not even deserve a special mention.
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Wagner, P. (2002). Beyond "East" and "West". In: Preyer, G., Bös, M. (eds) Borderlines in a Globalized World. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0940-8_10
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