An Uncharted Transition

Prof. Dr. Christophe Solioz

doi:10.5771/9783748942740

Summary

An Uncharted Transition focuses on the western Balkans and east-central Europe in an integrated approach attempting to evidence the main trends in, review the variety of interacting trajectories of and offer new insights into these regions. This essay sheds new light on some key issues, such as transition, integration, democratisation, the east–west divide and the core–periphery gap. Its aim is to highlight systemic change, to acknowledge the hybridisation of structural factors and individual ones, and to identify the oscillation between formality and informality, consolidation and deconsolidation, and democratisation and de-democratisation. The author argues, first, that transition—characterised by instability, movement, alterations and ruptures—becomes the rule of any society, not exclusively that of ‘transitional societies’. And, secondly, away from the sequencing theorised on in democratisation studies, transition points tentatively—beyond the post-Wall period—to a new era: an age of transition characterised by uncertainty as well as by movement that creatively empowers a society to self-constitute. Accordingly, democracy is framed as an open-ended process, ‘under construction’, constantly interrogating itself.An Uncharted Transition invites the reader to explore the new lands of democracy through forward-looking analyses based on a substantial number of sources in multiple languages. It presents if not a manifesto, then a wake-up call to those involved in shaping how Europe, central and eastern Europe specifically, could be in the future.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2024
ISBN-Print: 978-3-7560-0644-1
ISBN-Online: 978-3-7489-4274-0
Publisher: Nomos, Baden-Baden
Series: Southeast European Integration Perspectives
Volume: 16
Language: English
Pages: 255
Product type: Book Titles

Titelei/Inhaltsverzeichnis No access Pages 1 - 8
List of abbreviations and acronyms No access Pages 9 - 12
1. The centre of Europe moves eastwards No access Pages 14 - 21
2. First steps in an Age of Transition No access Pages 22 - 25
3. On the road No access Pages 26 - 32
1. Chronicle of the year 1927 No access Pages 33 - 37
2. New software update No access Pages 38 - 46
3. Towards a manifesto No access Pages 47 - 49
4. Perspectives No access Pages 50 - 53
5. Spaces and names of a contested regional area No access Pages 54 - 56
1. 1. The European dream lost in the transition No access
  2. Varieties of transition No access
  3. Questioning the East-West divide No access
  4. Beyond the imported state No access
2. 1. Transition revisited No access
  2. From transition to transformation No access
  3. From transformation to co-transformation No access
  4. Added value of the co-transformation approach No access
3. 1. Economic and political nationalism No access
  2. Post-Wall Europe’s paradoxes No access
  3. Capturing central Europe’s “software” No access
1. 1. Convergence versus conditionality No access
  2. Convergence deficit (de-convergence) No access
  3. Differentiated integration No access
  4. Sequencing post-Wall Europe No access
2. 1. Scrutinizing the third post-Wall decade No access
  2. Lost treasure? No access
3. 1. From transition to consolidation No access
  2. From consolidation to de-consolidation No access
  3. From de-consolidation to de-democratization No access
  4. Entrapped Europe? No access
  5. More, not less! No access
1. 1. Towards a multifloor Europe No access
  2. Europe of networks No access
  3. Regionalism reloaded No access
  4. Wider Europe – wilder Europe No access
2. 1. Combining neo-urbanism and regionalism No access
  2. Emerging New World Order No access
  3. Multiplex world No access
  4. Rethinking regionalism away from “Western values”? No access
3. 1. The Age of Crisis and beyond No access
  2. Reassessing the post-Wall period No access
  3. The emergence of the “subject” No access
  4. An Age of Transition No access
  5. Savage democracy No access
  6. Facing uncertainty and unpredictability No access
  7. What is to be done? No access
Black Light Matters No access Pages 223 - 228
Acknowledgements No access Pages 229 - 230
Bibliography No access Pages 231 - 255