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Problems of Early Post-Communist Transition Theory: From Transition from to Transition to
Dejan Jović
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Sažetak
The paper critically assesses the main approaches developed within the theories
of post-communist transitions in the 1990s by looking at early works
of Przeworski, Fukuyama, Vanhanen and Schflin. The author argues that
the post-communist transition theories departed from the original understanding
of transition, as developed by O’Donnell and Schmitter in the 1980s. Instead
of focusing on explaining the past, the post-communist transition theories
constructed themselves as primarily normative, ie. forward-looking. They
adopted key elements of ‘objectivist’ and normative approaches in analysing
political actions. In order to emphasise this anticipatory approach to analysing
political and economic transformations, the new ‘transitologists’ described
transition as ‘transition to democracy’, rather than ‘transition from authoritarianism’.
The author argues that some of the (self-admitted) failures of anticipatory
transition theories in predicting events that led to 1989 in Eastern
Europe were primarily due to their ‘objectivist’ approach in analysing political
actions.
Ključne riječi
transition theories; post-communist transitions; transitology; Eastern Europe
Hrčak ID:
68759
URI
Datum izdavanja:
10.5.2011.
Posjeta: 2.283 *