Tr@nsit online

Bruce P. Jackson: The Twilight of the Post-Soviet Space

The failure of the West after the fall of the Soviet Union was first indifference and then the inflation of our expectations beyond what was politically conceivable for the post-Soviet states, writes the American political adviser and analyst Bruce P. Jackson. He argues that the objective of the West should be an extended period of limited engagement with the most promising post-Soviet states in areas of agreement such as trade, security and conflict resolution. This could help to shape new states — possibly even European states — in the post-imperial twilight.

Gerhard Gnauck: Der neue Kreisauer Kreis

Gerhard Gnauck erzählt, wie eine Witwe aus dem Widerstand und ein DDR-Bürgerrechtler dem Gut des Feldmarschalls Moltke neues Leben einhauchten.

Agnieszka Pasieka: Being Normal in Poland

What makes the bond between Polishness and Catholicism an expected norm, and how does this lead to the symbolic exclusion of non-ethnic Poles and non-Catholics from the national community? In her study of a multi-religious and multi-ethnic community in rural Poland, Agnieszka Pasieka argues that there are multiple ways in which local people challenge the “Pole-Catholic” norm, demonstrating the arbitrariness of the “taken-for-granted” and their own ways of “being a Pole”.

Martina Steer: Jenseits des Traumas.
Überlegungen zur Erinnerungsforschung in der Postmoderne

Die Erinnerungsforschung emanzipiert sich zunehmend von der Nationalgeschichte. In der Folge wird kollektives transnationales Gedächtnis oft mit Trauma gleichgesetzt. Martina Steer zeigt die Konsequenzen dieser Gleichsetzung auf und beleuchtet Perspektiven für einen breiteren Zugang zur Erforschung transnationaler Erinnerung, die nicht auf der Kategorie „Trauma“ basieren.

János Mátyás Kovács: Frivolous cohabitation.
Preparing the soil for a Jobbik takeover?

“Jews! The university belongs to us not to you. Best regards: the Hungarian students” – That is the message of a sticker found at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest. The national holiday of March 15, commemorating the 1848 Revolution in Hungary, was preceded by the fourth amendment of the Basic Law of the country (the “Orban Constitution”), which abolishes the remaining rights of the Constitutional Court to check parliamentary legislation. Despite international protest, Orban continues with what he calls a revolution or a freedom fight in a tacit or open agreement with the extremist party, Jobbik. The interview given by Janos Matyas Kovacs to Kultura Liberalna sheds light on that alliance.

Robert Cooper: The European Union and the Habsburg Monarchy

The Habsburg Monarchy lasted five centuries. It was both solid and flexible; it aroused genuine affection among its citizens. But it vanished in a puff of smoke. Should we expect the European Union, shallow in history and unloved by those it serves, to do better?

Post-Orange Ukraine

Anton Shekhovtsov: Ukraine: The Far-Right in Parliament for the First Time

The Parliamentary election in Ukraine has, as expected, returned President Yanukovych’s Party of Regions to power. It has also had one less predicted result: the first election to the country’s parliament of MPs from the ultra nationalist far-right. Anton Shekhovtsov looks at the rise of ‘Svoboda’ (Freedom).

Mykola Riabchuk: Raiders' state

Even Ukrainian cultural journals have become the target of "raiders" – shady groups working on behalf of powerful interests who use bogus property claims to close down businesses. The biggest raider of all is the Yanukovych government itself, says Mykola Riabchuk.

Timothy Snyder: Ukraine's Last Chance?

Ukraine has long been a borderland between greater powers. What is different about the present moment is that it is now an independent state, and that it has become a borderland between two authentically different approaches to foreign relations. The European Union has no interest in admitting Ukraine as it is today, but might be interested in admitting the orderly, lawful eastern neighbor it might one day become. Russia has no interest in the rule of law in Ukraine, but is happy to exert influence upon its territory as part of its efforts to control the distribution of natural resources and reassert its power in the post-Soviet space.

Mykola Riabchuk: Tymoshenko: Wake-up call for the EU

The EU shouldn't be surprised by the Tymoshenko verdict: its support of anything nominally reformist has been perceived as acceptance of a range of repressions. Tough measures are now needed if another authoritarian regime is to be prevented from forming on the EU's eastern border, writes Mykola Riabchuk.

Tatiana Zhurzhenko: Land of Confusion
Ukraine, the EU and the Tymoshenko case

The Ukraine-European Union summit planned for 19 December, 2011, was supposed to be a milestone in Ukraine's European integration process: the completion of talks on an Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU is expected to be announced there, accomplishing a negotiation process that had started in 2007. However, recent developments in Ukraine, particularly the criminal prosecution of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, raise serious doubts about the European aspirations of the current Ukrainian leadership.

George Soros: The Tragedy of the European Union

On September 9, 2012 US financier and philanthropist George Soros was a guest of the Institute for Human Sciences at its Political Salon. In a talk on The Future of the Euro, held before invited guests, Mr. Soros presented his vision of how the European financial crisis can be solved. His considerations were commented by Austrian Minister of Finance Maria Fekter and subsequently discussed with the audience.

Karl Aiginger

Europe: What does not kill you makes you stronger
Comment on “The Tragedy of the European Union” by George Soros

Ewald Nowotny

Comment on “The Tragedy of the European Union” by George Soros

Margit Schratzenstaller: Comment on “The Tragedy of the European Union” by George Soros

Wilfried Stadler: Comment on “The Tragedy of the European Union” by George Soros
Wege aus der Doppelmühle der Finanzmarkt- und Staatsschuldenkrise

Martin Endreß: Säkular oder Postsäkular?
Zur Divergenz der Perspektiven von Jürgen Habermas und Charles Taylor

Die Religion ist in aller Munde. Entweder wird ihre „Wiederkehr“ gefeiert oder aber die „Abkehr“ von ihr ausgerufen – wobei beide Diagnosen zwischen Jubel und Warnung, zwischen Verzweiflung und Befreiung changieren. Diese Unentschiedenheit ist nicht nur eine Frage der jeweiligen „religiösen Musikalität“, sondern ganz ebenso eine Frage des jeweiligen Verständnisses von dem, was moderne Gesellschaft im Kern auszeichnet. In herausragender Form prägen diese Fragen in der Gegenwart insbesondere die jüngeren Arbeiten von Jürgen Habermas und von Charles Taylor. Ihre Arbeiten scheinen dabei geradezu gegenläufige Diagnosen zu stellen: Während Taylor von einem „säkularen Zeitalter“ spricht, identifiziert Habermas demgegenüber eine „postsäkulare Kultur“. Der Vortrag geht den Hintergründen dieser beiden gegenläufigen Diagnosen nach und setzt sie kritisch zueinander ins Verhältnis.

Dessy Gavrilova: The Perm Cultural Revolution

The city of Perm could become a textbook example of how, in today’s Russia, with all the peculiarities of its regime, it is possible to create a cosmopolitan cultural space that gets local development moving.

Ivan Krastev: Europe’s Democracy Paradox

When man-made worlds of political and cultural artifice disappear, they do it fast. And indeed, the European Union as we knew it just a year or two ago has vanished. Elites have lost their way even as publics have lost their patience. The official EU elite mantra is that European citizens will save the Union. The actual citizens, argues Ivan Krastev, Permanent Fellow at the IWM, are far more likely to destroy what is left of “Europe” given half a chance, whether at the polls or, possibly, in the streets. The current crisis has painfully demonstrated that, despite all the solidarity rhetoric we have heard for years, European publics’ readiness to share burdens does not readily extend beyond national borders. Read here why the European financial crisis is but a symptom of a deeper malaise of European political culture.

Timothy Snyder: How Democracy Can Save Europe

The disintegration of the Eurozone would be nearly as disastrous for the US as it would be for Europe. But it is not only a matter of distant economic events that might have consequences for the US. The deeper issue is whether institutions of continent-wide democracy, European or American, can keep pace with the twin threats of global financial instability and national populism.

Andrey Makarychev and Victoria Vasilenko: Poland: EU Presidency as an Incentive to Reconsider Polish Identity?

Charles Gati: Lost Momentum:
The European Union in 2011

Europe is in a crisis, but that’s nothing new. As in the past sixty years, the underlying conflict today is between advocates of more integration and advocates of more sovereignty. However, the current European Union’s crisis is different and more serious than any of the previous ones, argues Hungarian-American political scientist Charles Gati, because this time it is a systemic crisis. The memory of what Europeans have done to each other in the past is fading, a nationalist surge haunts the continent, financial calamities are tearing Europe apart and the political elites do not convincingly transport the European idea anymore. An institution which stops deepening and widening could, at best, linger on, warns Gati. Therefore, Europeans need to recall the founding vision of the EU and reset their priorities.

Timothy Snyder: As Ohio Goes:
A Letter from Tea-Party Country

As Michele Bachmann contends for the Republican nomination, one might ask what her Tea Party means for the US. One thing is clear, says Yale historian and IWM Permanent Fellow Timothy Snyder: the Tea Party’s notion that the federal government ought to be starved of resources is not patriotism, it is right-wing anarchism, which corrodes not only the American state but the American nation. A nation which is defined by its middle classes. Yet there is no middle class without an American government that provides the essential services that allow people to move up in a globalized world: security of pensions, a good and affordable education system, reliable health care. What America needs is not the Tea Party with its mantras of low taxation and small government. What the country needs is a truly patriotic politics, one that cares for those who were left behind by today’s globalized economy.

Thomas Schmid: The Story Behind the Story

Journalism isn’t going away. However, as the newspaper crisis shows, another kind of journalism is needed: one which goes into detail, tells great stories, provides background, poses questions and turns answers into even more questions. Thomas Schmid, who held a speech at last year’s IWM conference on “Democracy and the Media” at the Austrian Chancellery, calls for a revival of journalistic virtues.

Gleb Pavlovsky: The Politics of No Alternatives or How Power Works in Russia
An interview led by Ivan Krastev and Tatiana Zhurzhenko

In April 2011, the Russian presidential administration terminated its contract with the Effective Politics Foundation headed by Gleb Pavlovsky, who had advised the Kremlin for many years. Pavlovsky worked on Boris Yeltsin's 1996 reelection campaign and was a key strategist for Putin's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, as well as Medvedev's in 2008.
Shortly before his dismissal, Gleb Pavlovsky was a guest at the IWM and gave an interview to Transit – Europäische Revue, the Institute’s journal, where he offers a revealing inside view of the workings of political power in the former Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. The interview will be published in German in the next issue of Transit (nr. 42, Autumn 2011), which is devoted to politics and society in contemporary Russia. Co-editor is Ivan Krastev.

Ivan Krastev: Arab Revolutions, Turkey’s Dilemmas:
Zero Chance for "Zero Problems"

Turkey’s ambition of becoming a regional power with global relevance is reflected in the domestic and foreign policy of its confident political elite. But changing realities at home and abroad present new problems, says Ivan Krastev. In particular, the Arab democracy wave exposes the limits of Turkey’s “zero problems with neighbours” approach.

Mykola Riabchuk: They Will Not Sing

The biggest success of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was also its biggest defeat. The presidential elections of 2010 were open, free and secret - and for the first time, it was not clear, who would win. This sounds fairly democratic. However, the winner was Viktor Yanukovych, whose 2004 electoral fraud was the actual cause of the Orange Revolution. Many observers feared that his victory would mark the beginning of a counterrevolution in Ukraine. Meanwhile, only one year after the elections, the revolution against the revolution is underway: the number of violent crimes against journalists within the past year increased exponentially, the number of cases of torture and obscure deaths in custody doubled and the number of illegal searches, arrests, detentions, and politically motivated interrogations exceeded everything that had happened within the previous two decades. Apparently, authoritarian “normality” is back in Ukraine, says Ukrainian political scientist Mykola Riabchuk.

Ivan Krastev: Getting Reset Right

It was in March 2009 in Geneva that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proclaimed a "reset" of the frozen Russia–U.S. relationship. After two years, Ivan Krastev draws a balance and asks what the new policy has brought for the Europeans.

The Hungarian Shock: Transition from Democracy?

"Hungary on the road to populist dictatorship", "Orban – the Putin of the Puszta", "Constitutional coup d’état in a EU member state" – topics such as these are presently mushrooming in the international media. The European Parliament is running heated debates about the new Hungarian media law. Leading politicians all over the world keep on qualifying the current state of human rights in the country. It seems, however, that in the global arena of opinions there are only few insider views of local analysts. We recently invited colleagues in Hungary, former Visiting Fellows or scholars involved in IWM activities, to contribute their reflections on the state of affairs in their country to Tr@nsit_online . With the following articles we would like to bring the voices of three Hungarian experts to the attention of our readers: András Bozoki, János Kornai and Miklós Haraszti.

András Bozoki: The Hungarian Shock:
Transition from Democracy?

János Kornai: Taking Stock

Miklós Haraszti: Hungary's Media Law Package

Timothy Snyder: Brutality in Belarus

Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus’s sad capital, on December 19. When Aleksandr Lukashenko claimed victory by an improbably large absolute majority in the presidential elections, people came there, in the tens of thousands, to protest the official results. They came, women and men, young and old, knowing what they were risking in the Belarusian police state as they called for the president to resign. Soon, the state militia cleared the square. Buses of Belarusians disappeared to parts unknown; according to the official report 639 people were arrested. Among those beaten were correspondents for Russian, Polish, and American media. The opposition group Charter 97 left a last Facebook posting: “We’re all at the KGB”. The cruel policy of Independence Square might be a good time for Americans and Europeans to ask: do we have a foreign policy that promotes human rights and democracy?

Ivan Krastev: The Balkans’ New Normal

Imagine a rainy election day in an unnamed country, and that almost three-quarters of the ballots are returned blank. The government demands that the elections be re-held, when the sun is shining. The result is terrifying: the protest increases, with 83% of the electorate voting without choosing a candidate. That is the plot of José Saramago’s novel Seeing – a dystopian vision of post-political democracies where people are angry, the elites are conspiracy-minded and insecure, and social life is paralyzed. It is also a fair depiction of how citizens in the Balkans feel about their new political systems. Ten years after the last war, the region still comprises an assemblage of frustrated protectorates and weak states. And, while only a few years ago, people in the region worried about living on the outskirts of Europe, they now worry about Europe itself.

Timothy Snyder: Russia’s Reckoning with Katyń

Why does it matter that the Russian parliament has recently declared the Katyń mass murder of 1940 to be a Stalinist crime? Seventy years on, no one doubts the responsibility of the former Soviet Union for the murder of more than twenty thousand Polish citizens in the Katyń Forest. However, eighty percent of Poles believe that the gesture will improve relations between the two countries. Moscow seems to understand that better relations with Warsaw will remove an obstacle to closer ties with the EU, and that for Poles, history can be central to diplomacy.

Stefan Troebst: Lebendige Erinnerung an die Diktatur.
Was Europas Süden und Osten gemeinsam haben

Bis weit in die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts hinein waren die Gesellschaften des östlichen und südlichen Europa diktatorischen Regimen unterworfen. Die zeitliche Nähe zur Diktatur prägt die Erinnerungskulturen der Länder Ost- und Südeuropas in ähnlicher Weise – und unterscheidet sie damit vom übrigen Europa.

Burkhard Liebsch: Zur Konfiguration menschlicher Geschichte, Gewalt und Gemeinschaft
Repolitisierung eines "Humanismus des anderen Menschen" mit Blick auf Levinas und Rancière

Ungeachtet weit verzweigter anthropologischer Diskurse, die eine unübersehbare Zahl von Veröffentlichungen hervorgebracht haben, bestehen nach wie vor erhebliche Zweifel daran, ob wir heute weiter sind als Blaise Pascal, der feststellte, niemand wisse, was ein Mensch ist. So unterstellte er immerhin, dass dieses Nicht-Wissen nur Menschen haben, die zwar nicht wissen, was sie sind, wohl aber davon ausgehen, dass sie überhaupt jemand sind. Um die Wer-Frage, die auf jemanden abzielt, steht es indessen kaum besser. "Der Mensch? Wer ist das?" – fragte Isaiah Berlin rund dreihundert Jahre später, um diese Frage suggestiv als unsinnig abzutun. Einem Einzelnen können wir die Frage stellen, wer er ist. Aber ein begriffliches Abstraktum wird auf eine solche Frage keine Antwort geben können.

Maria Todorova: The Balkans between cliché and European future
Christine von Kohl Memorial Lecture

For the last two centuries the Balkans have been at the center of international relations, eclipsed lately only by the Near East, of which they were once deemed to be a part. At the beginning of the 20th century they were transformed from an innocuous name into a powerful derogatory metaphor that softened with time into a weaker but still negative cliché, to blow up fully again in the 1990s.

Säkularismus neu denken

Kristina Stoeckl: Welche politische Philosophie für die postsäkulare Gesellschaft?
Bestandsaufnahme eines practice turn

In der gegenwärtigen sozialwissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Diskussion ist Religion zu einem zentralen Thema aufgestiegen. Nicht nur das Verhältnis von Religion und Politik steht zur Debatte, sondern auch die Bedeutung des Säkularismus und sein Stellenwert für die liberale Gesellschaftstheorie und für das Selbstverständnis der politischen Philosophie. Europa steht vor der Herausforderung eines kulturellen und religiösen Pluralismus, dessen liberale Voraussetzungen zu bewahren und teilweise neu zu begründen sind.
Als postsäkular wird in diesem Zusammenhang eine Gesellschaft bezeichnet, die die eigenen säkularistischen Vorurteile reflektiert. Umgelegt auf sozialwissenschaftliche und philosophische Debatten über Religion könnte man als postsäkular eine solche Sozialwissenschaft und Philosophie bezeichnen, die ihrerseits ihre säkularistischen Vorurteile reflektiert. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist, erstens, diese kritische Selbstreflexion in der aktuellen Diskussion anhand der Neudefinition der Begriffe Säkularisierung, Säkularität und Säkularismus zu dokumentieren, und zweitens die Auswirkung dieser Selbstreflexion auf die politische Philosophie zu analysieren.
Die vorgelegte Skizze fragt nach der Möglichkeit einer postsäkularen liberalen politischen Philosophie. Weitere Beiträge zur Säkularismus-Diskussion finden sich in Transit – Europäische Revue Nr. 39.

Ecopolitics and Solidarity

David G. Victor: The New Politics of Climate Change
Moving Beyond Gridlock on Global Warming

The Copenhagen meeting ended with few tangible achievements nor any clear plan for future diplomacy on global warming. These troubles are fundamental to the strategy of broad UN-based talks that aim, as in Copenhagen, for universal agreement on binding treaties. A new approach is needed. Victor's considerations will show, using lessons from the history of international economic cooperation, that other approaches focused on smaller groups of countries and more flexible legal instruments would be much more effective. They will also show that even in the best scenario the world is likely to experience substantial changes in climate, requiring nations to make massive investments to adapt to new climate conditions. Changes may also be so severe that radical "geoengineering" systems may be needed to blunt the effects of rapid warming.

Solidarity and the Crisis of Capitalism

Katherine Newman: Obama and the Crisis:
What Does the Future Hold?

The rise of populist, xenophobic and nationalist parties has been attributed to tensions arising from the financial crisis in Europe. While these tensions have erupted in some regions of the United States as well, ironically at the national level, the steep downturn delivered a democratic victory with the election of Barack Obama. This is not an unprecedented turn of events. When we look backwards at previous financial crises in the U.S., especially those that were accompanied by extreme inequality, we see a familiar pattern. Franklin Roosevelt, the liberal architect of the American welfare state, came to power in the midst of the worst economic calamity we have ever experienced. Hence it isn’t inevitable that financial crises produce right wing reaction.

Jennifer L. Hochschild: How Did the 2008 Economic Crisis Affect Social and Political Solidarity in Europe?

Does the economic crisis affect solidarity in Europe? Only shortly after the worst of the 2008 economic crisis has passed Europe finds itself in the middle of the next one. The European Union is based on the solidarity of its members and citizens. Has solidarity lived up to its idea during the last year and will it be strong enough to cope with the new challenge? There are disturbing undertones in the media coverage of the recent debt crisis.
Harvard political scientist Jennifer L. Hochschild has analyzed how the 2008 crisis affected the attitudes and the behaviour of the Europeans. To her surprise public opinion data seem to indicate that European citizens have not lost faith in their economy, polity, and each other.
The article emerged from the IWM conference Social Solidarity and the Crisis of Economic Capitalism held last October. More contributions will be published here in Tr@nsit_online, and in Transit – Europäische Revue 40 (Autumn 2010).

The ‘‘Brave New World’’ after Communism
1989: Expectations in Comparison

Much of the history of the 1989 revolutions has been lost or remained hidden until now. A good part of it, however, can be retrieved by reconstructing the expectations (both elite and popular) prevailing at the time.

On June 15-16, the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) organized, in cooperation with the Jena Center of 20th Century History, the Institute of Political Science at the Vienna University and the Renner Institut, an international conference on revisiting the pre-1989 visions of the much-awaited world after communism. The conference program was worked out by Rainer Gries, Dieter Segert and Janos Matyas Kovacs in a joint effort. A selection of papers contributed to this event is presented here. We are grateful for the generous support given by the Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED Diktatur, Berlin.