The state against society

by Grzegorz Ekiert

Classical images of state socialism developed in the contemporary social sciences were founded on simple presuppositions. State-socialist regimes were considered to be politically stable due to their repressive capacity and pervasive institutional and ideological control over the everyday lives of their citizens. They were seen as rigid, inert, and impervious to reform and change. Finally, they were considered to be representative of extreme cases of political and economic dependency. Despite their contrasting historical experiences, they have been treated as basically identical in their institutional design, social and economic structures, and policies. Grzegorz Ekiert challenges this common political wisdom in a comparative analysis of the major political crises in post-1945 East Central Europe: Hungary (1956-63), Czechoslovakia (1968-76), and Poland (1980-89). . The author maintains that the nature and consequences of these crises can better explain the distinctive experiences of Ea