"Building Democracy and Civil Society East of the Elbe: Essays in Honour of Edmund Mokrzycki" ed. by Sven Eliaeson

This book explores the idea of civil society, and how it is being implemented in eastern Europe. It relates the concept of civil society, and developments in eastern Europe, to wider sociological theories, and makes international comparisons where appropriate. It discusses particular aspects of civil society, and examines the difficulties of establishing civil society. It concludes by assessing the problems and prospects for civil society in eastern Europe going forward.



Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Foreword by George Soros
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction

PART I - Perspectives on civil society
2 Civil society: notes on the revival of a concept
3 Civil society and its discontents: reflections on the North American experience
4 Comments on Reichardt and Scaff

PART II - The political sociology of civil society in transitional societies
5 Democracy, inequality and state crisis
6 State–society relations: a comparison of six post-communist countries
7 The middle class in transition from communism to capitalist society
8 Transforming leviathan in South Eastern Europe: implications for social policy
9 Bringing “class” and “interest group” back in: Edmund Mokrzycki on civil society
10 Explaining the transformation from state socialism: revolution, class and elites
11 The climate of globalization: glocalization, civil identity, and theories of difference
12 Is there an organisational base for civil society in Central Eastern Europe? Social and economic potentials of civil society organisations in CEE after 1989
13 Weber, Eastern Europe, and civil society 196

PART III - The perils of transitology: the role of intellectuals
14 How to be a sociologist and a humanist: sociology as a vocation in liquid-modern times
15 Hidden actors, overlooked dimensions and blind intellectuals: nine paradoxes that account for institutionally entrenched ignorance
16 The enchantment of the social
17 Was “real existing socialism” merely a premature form of rule by experts?

PART IV
Comparative perspectives
18 Democratic consolidation in third wave democracies
19 Building post-communist states: political corruption and strategies of party formation in Estonia and Latvia
20 Similarities and differences in the social reality and sociological analysis of Russia compared with Poland and Hungary
21 Third-way politics, sceptical voters, insecure societies
22 National myths, pro-socialist capitalism, and the old and new mythmakers
23 Civil society: the concept and the European level

PART V
Democracy East of the Elbe: problems and prospects
24 Institutional modernization: a third stage of Polish transformation
25 Threats to democracy: on some Polish paradoxes
26 Building civil society and democracy East of the Elbe: problems and prospects
27 Democracy, memory and forgiving: paradoxes of dealing with the past in post-communist transitional societies – the Polish case
Index