PCE Seminar by Ferenc Laczo on 13 January

PCE research seminar: ‘From Late Communism to the European Union, or on the Making and Unmaking of the Liberal Consensus’.

Dr Ferenc Laczo, Department of History.

When: Wednesday 13 January 2016, 15.30

Where: Spiegelzaal, Soiron building, Grote Gracht 80-82

Abstract

Whereas there is a substantial body of historical literature on the causes and unfolding of 1989 in East Central Europe, post-communist developments have tended to be studied by representatives of neighboring disciplines such as political science, sociology or economics. This division of labor implies that few attempts have been made to connect key historical developments of the 1970s and 1980s to those of the post-communist period. Similarly, the accelerating process of Europeanization and its ambivalent, almost paradoxical relation to the strength of liberalism within the region are yet to be analyzed from a historical perspective. This is where my ongoing research project aims to make an original contribution: it attempts to embed the post-communist transition of East Central Europe in a longer sequence to thereby account for the making and unmaking of the liberal consensus. The planned monograph shall thus analyze the emergence of the broad coalition in favor of “the change of system” as well as European integration around 1989, but will also explore the growing gap between expectations and experiences regarding Europeanization.
The current presentation shall outline the planned monograph and offer three case studies on Hungarian developments in comparative and transnational frames, a country whose recent trajectory provides an excellent opportunity to study how the liberal consensus could be unmade in a nominally successful country of the “transition era.” I shall begin by sketching a transnational perspective on the emergence of the Hungarian democratic opposition around 1980. I will subsequently explore the political discourses during the early post-communist moment of liberal dominance. Last but not least, I intend to propose a novel interpretation on the rise and political successes of anti-liberal forces.

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