2022/12/15 by Raj Kollmorgen, Kollmorgen, Raj
Social Sciences · #Central and Eastern Europe #Eastern European Communism and Reforms #Political Conflict and Governance #Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition #postcommunism #social theory #transformation #transition
paper · pdf · doi:10.58036/stss.v5i2.165
openalex publication_date 2025/09/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
The article explores the current theoretical debates on postcommunist transformations. After identifying important novel or reinvigorated approaches, three of them are critically discussed: the postcommunism approach, the governance approach, and the Europeanisation approach. The examination leads to the result that, indeed, a ‘second generation’ has emerged. It has largely overcome universalistic assumptions and gained explanatory power by more complex theoretical architectures as well as systematic time-space-embeddings or contextualisations. A final consideration makes the case for interdisciplinary and general theories of societal transformations as a necessary step in the advancement of the debate.