Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Socio-economic and Political Consequences 30 Years After
The 30 years that have passed after the fall of the Berlin Wall have been a challenge not only to countries in the Eastern bloc, but also to the western world. Once the Iron Curtain collapsed, liberal democracy acquired wings but also new meanings. Ever since then it has been the engine to fuel changes, be they economic, social, political or educational. The endeavor to build on the remains of Socialist dictatorships political regimes that nurture respect for the rule of law and human rights has been tremendous, especially in those areas with little or no democratic tradition. The costs of transition are not yet known, as some countries are still paying them. The transformative efforts have had their positive and negative consequences, varying from country to country, due to violence, poverty, lack of coherence in policies of transitional justice, continuity of some institutional structures and political actors, economic instability and frailty, lack of solidarity. Despite these circumstances, transnational political and military structures such as the European Union and NATO have expanded in former territories of Soviet influence providing a sense of safety and stability.
This call for papers seeks for transdisciplinary perspectives on the 30 years that have passed since the collapse of the communist regimes. The contributions should analyse the economic and political transformations that the former Soviet Bloc underwent, by looking at institutions, people and everyday lives, policies and politics, post-traumatic memories and policies of memory, East-West post-communist interactions and interdependencies etc.
Editors welcome contributions from different fields of research: history, political science, cultural studies, philosophy, sociology, gender studies or any other related areas of interest.
Topics may address (but are not limited to) the following aspects:
- transnational consequences of the end of the Cold War, global impact
- national and regional comparative perspectives
- evolution, implications, consequences, instruments of the process of democratization
- successful or failed politics, policies and practices of transitional justice
- traumatic memory of the difficult pasts, amnesia, nostalgia; museification and memorialization
- transformations of core institutions and systems: government, education, research, healthcare, social work, visual and liberal arts, etc.
- demography and migration
- economic transformations from state market to free market, privatization and social costs
- deindustrialization and its consequences
- adaptive discourses of the Socialist/ Communist ideology and political transformations.