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This book reassesses a defining historical, political and ideological moment in contemporary history: the 1989 revolutions in central and eastern Europe. It considers the origins, processes and outcomes of the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. The book argues that communism was not simply an 'unnatural Yoke' around the necks of East Europeans, but was a powerful, and not entirely negative, historical force capable of modernizing societies, cultures and economies. It focuses on the interplay between internal and external developments as opposed to an emphasis on Cold War geopolitical power struggles and the triumphalist rhetoric of how the 'freedom-loving' USA 'defeated' the 'totalitarian' Soviet Union. The book also approaches the East European revolutions from a variety of angles, emphasizing generational conflicts, socio-economic and domestic aspects, international features, the 'Gorbachev factor', and the role of peace movements or discourses on revolution. It analyses the peace movements in both parts of Germany during the 1980s from a perspective that transcends the ideological and geopolitical divides of the Cold War. The history of the East German peace movement has mostly been written from the perspective of German unification in 1989-1990. Many historians have read the history of the civil rights movement of 1989-1990 backwards in order to show its importance, or ignored it altogether to highlight the totalitarian character of the German Democratic Republic.
economy, while avoiding political democratisation. 2 In this chapter I aim to examine the evolution of Czechoslovak perestroika, specifically how the discourse of socio-economic reforms gradually undermined the rhetoric and self-perception of the regime and facilitated its ultimate collapse. Despite the dissimilarities between the two countries, economic critiques of state socialism and of everyday scarcities and inefficiencies played a crucial role in discrediting and delegitimising the existing system. The Czechoslovak economy was among the most advanced in the
Druze sheikhs. This sectarian display and manipulation once again allowed the political elite to divert popular demands away from pressing political and socio-economic reforms, with extraordinary effectiveness. In fact, Lebanon remains mostly immune from wide-scale popular unrest. In September and October 2015, a number of other protests were organised, but the movement had significantly weakened. On 8 October 2015, protesters took to the streets demanding that the cabinet urgently meet to organise waste collection without
fluctuation of economic cycles of global capitalism, on the changing domestic policies (including socio-economic reforms) in the United States and other parts of West, on the shifting international situation, and, ultimately, on the evolving nature of Soviet society and the Soviet state. The early Soviet Union had no trouble showcasing its impeccable internationalist credentials and did so eagerly, especially through the Comintern and its affiliates and by organising such massive public protest campaigns as the vociferous
-regional and cross-sectarian solidarity was soon tamed by the ruling elite. The elites united in their manipulation of sectarian identities by staging rallies and events to divert popular demands away from pressing political and socio-economic reforms. The movement faded away. At this juncture, activists who were interviewed attested to the limited power and capability of structure-less and leaderless movements to challenge the ruling elite. It has brought to the fore the need for an organisation and structure that can sustain a long
domination of Labour’s and the wider political agenda by the politics of the Cold War meant that for most of the period under review the ALP was unable to draw sufficient national attention to its historiographically somewhat neglected proposed programme of socio-economic reforms in the pre-Whitlam years. Had it been able to do so, then its chances of electoral success would have improved markedly. Only when the suffocating politics of the Cold War began to wane from the later 1960s onwards was Labor, in the form of Gough
all bailed out governments of the Eurozone. On the importance of partisanship If we are right that bailed out governments have leverage and can use external constraint to introduce measures they favour politically, then the partisan composition of government should make a difference even during a bailout. This expectation is coherent with the partisan-effect theory that posits that political partisanship has an impact on socio-economic reforms during a recession or an adjustment programme. More precisely
European actors focused on defending the ENP, which was framed as an agreement to undertake mutually beneficial socio-economic reform. Such agreements between the EU and Ukraine were at no point intended to have a detrimental effect on Russia or its policies (Füle 2013 ), because neither the European Commission nor the EEAS perceived the neighbourhood as an area of geopolitical competition (Interview PO35): The EU has a radically different way of thinking compared to the Russians. [It] believes that
served as disciplinary rhetorical tools, while at the same time also creating a sense of insiderhood and togetherness between 51 Temporalities of austerity the trainers and their audiences. When Aina said that children ‘abroad’ set goals already in early grades at school, she was invoking a fantasy of the ‘Imaginary West’ (Yurchak 2006). During the Soviet times, it had been the ‘Other’ to daydream about. After 1991, ‘the West’ was equated with ‘normalcy’, and the political and socio-economic reforms were meant to return Latvia, just like the other post
of Riddell’s work. In particular, it considers her relationship to the Irish national tale genre, established in the early nineteenth century. Furthermore, it outlines Riddell’s engagement with the tension between ‘improving’ economic rationalisation and supposedly pre-capitalist modes of landlordism as presented by earlier writers such as Maria Edgeworth and Charles Lever and raised anew by Gladstonian reform. It establishes the discourse between rationalist visions of human perfectibility through socio-economic reform and the traditional evangelical view that