Post-Communist Modernization,
Transition Studies, and Diversity in
Europe
Paul Blokker
UNIVERSITY OF TRENT, ITALY
Abstract
The majority of studies of post-communism ­ habitually grouped under the
heading of `transitology' ­ understand the transition ultimately as a political
and cultural convergence of the ex-communist societies with Western
Europe. Even those critical approaches that regard the post-communist
transition as a relatively unique phenomenon (as in the approaches of path
dependency and neo-classical sociology) tend to conflate normative prescrip-
tions with empirical descriptions and to move within an overall framework
of what Michael Kennedy has aptly called `transition culture'. This article
argues instead that the transition's nature can only be fully grasped if a case-
specific and historical-contextual approach is taken. In theoretical terms, a
three-step movement to grasp diversity in Central and Eastern Europe is
proposed: (1) the acknowledgement of the plurality of modernizing agency
and its creativity; (2) the acknowledgement of multi-interpretability and
difference as primary elements of modernity; and (3) a sensitivity to the
resulting institutional variety in societal constellations. In substantive terms,
it is argued that diversity is a distinctive mark of Europe that is bound to
persist in an enlarged Europe, despite the spirit of assimilation in the
accession process.
Key words
 diversity  enlargement  historical sociology  modernity  transition
Introduction
Even if the incorporation of eight East European countries in the European
project on 1 May 2004 was heralded as the outcome of `our common commit-
ment to unify our continent',1 and understood as the most significant litmus test
for the stability and democratic consolidation of these former communist states,
enduring differences, structural tensions, and potential conflict in the region
should not be underestimated. Instead of calling for the `end of transition', the
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4): 503­525
Copyright  2005 Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi
www.sagepublications.com DOI: 10.1177/1368431005059703
fundamental differences that the post-communist countries bring to Europe,2
and the problems they face in terms of socioeconomic welfare, political conflict,
and collective identity construction should be the focal point of any analysis. The
enlargement process and its spirit of assimilation (as embodied in the Copen-
hagen criteria) have not unequivocally led to the homogenization of the new
member states (Mair and Zielonka, 2002).
In the same vein, rather than celebrating the achievements of the social
sciences in the past decade and a half in analysing and understanding the transi-
tions, and in developing new theoretical frames for grasping its idiosyncrasies,
much is to be gained by a more reflexive and critical approach which admits that
innovation in social theory has not kept pace with the implications of the changes
in the region (Szakolczai, 2001). Transition studies have been too occupied with
assessing the progress of convergence of post-communist societies towards a
European standard, instead of critically engaging with enlargement as well as
exploring any diversifying implications of the transition process and EU
membership.
In the approaches towards modernization and social change in Eastern Europe
(commonly referred to as `transition'), that emerged after the collapse of the
communist regimes, the normative affirmation of the Western modern project
has been a diffused, but mostly unproblematized element.3 In this, the enlarge-
ment process of the European Union has been understood as the embodiment of
progress and necessary `external anchor' for the Eastern European societies.
Membership of the EU implied the end state of the transition and stipulated the
necessary steps to move away from the socialist past.
Until the end of the 1990s, the debate on `transition' was dominated by
approaches that shared a number of elementary assumptions on the general
nature of social change in Eastern Europe: the convergence of the post-
communist countries with Western Europe, rather than divergence or persistent
difference; a teleological view of social change with regard to the end-state of the
transition in the form of a Western-type democratic market economy; the
predominant attention to formal, procedural institutions (democracy, market
economy) with the relative neglect of substantive issues (national and regional
identity, culture); and an overall negative appreciation of the past (communism).
Many have not failed to notice, though, that this `consensus' shows a strong
affinity with assumptions of `classical' modernization theory as developed in the
1940s and the 1950s, a theoretical strand that had, however, been thoroughly
discredited by the 1970s.4 The re-emergence of modernization theory, or at least
of some of its central tenets, means that those assumptions that had been held as
untenable in the debate on `classical' modernization theory were re-inserted into
studies on post-communism.
If most transition theory uncritically endorsed a revived modernization
paradigm which both normatively (`the end of history') and empirically (`designer
capitalism') promised a rapid and relatively unproblematic convergence of East
with West, rather early on in the debate, a number of critical approaches pointed
out that straightforward convergence was not to be expected as institutional
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 0 4
legacies from communism would durably influence the nature of the new
societies (Stark and Bruszt, 1998), while others indicated the atypical class struc-
ture underpinning the modernizing projects undertaken (Eyal et al., 1998) and,
therefore, the sui generis status of the post-communist project, at least in the short
run. Even if these critical, `second-generation approaches'5 provide well-founded
critique, their overall argumentation tends to remain within the overall
parameters set by the transition paradigm (Kennedy, 2002). The ultimate
endorsement of the Western model means, in my opinion, that the critical
approaches mentioned are ill equipped to confront the structural diversity which
the region displays in its experience with yet another project of modernization.
In this article, therefore, I argue for an approach that leaves behind the
`convergence thesis' of the transition paradigm altogether by discarding the idea
of a telos of social change in the post-communist countries, and by taking as a
starting point persistent diversity instead. In theoretical terms, I will argue for a
three-step movement to go beyond the existing inability to deal with diversity in
the region: (1) the acknowledgement of the plurality of modernizing agency and
its creativity; (2) the acknowledgement of multi-interpretability and difference as
primary elements of modernity; and (3) a sensitivity to the resulting institutional
variety in societal constellations.
In substantive terms, I argue that, despite the assimilation that is part of the
accession process, diversity is a distinctive mark of Europe that will endure in an
enlarged Europe. Even if the framework for transition is set rather strictly by the
spirit of assimilation towards the Western European standard, as embodied in the
Copenhagen criteria and the adoption of the acquis communautaire, diversity still
persists, both between East and West and between singular states. My argument
is based upon the observation that, first of all, the accession process only led to
a partial (legal-technical) convergence of the new member states, while, second,
the qualitative change in the European project (through both the enlargement
and constitutionalization) in itself offers increased opportunities for the Central
and East European Countries (CEECs) to articulate diversity.
Transitology and the Return of Modernism
The debate on social change and transition in post-1989 Eastern Europe has been
dominated, on the one hand, by modernist approaches that constitute the hard
core of transitology.6 These approaches are mainly concerned with the transfer of
Western models and institutions, assuming a universal quality to modernity and
modernization. On the other hand, the modernism of transitology has been
challenged with increasing success by historicist approaches. These approaches,
often in the institutionalist vein, acknowledge that the transformations contain
unique elements as a result of the particular (communist) experiences of the
Eastern European countries, thereby admitting to a historical, contextual
component of the transition (Eyal et al., 1998, 2003; Stark and Bruszt, 1998).
The modernist approach is ahistorical in that it largely ignores distinct historical
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 0 5
legacies, which potentially have an important impact on the current transform-
ations and thus render these transformations different from other experiences.
The historicist approaches show a sensitivity towards historical legacies, but often
understand these legacies in the light of a rather narrowly circumscribed and non-
critical vision of modern society (Kennedy, 2002).
As I will show below, both approaches have been unable to fully incorporate
diversity into their theoretical frameworks. Modernist approaches assume that
there is essentially one pathway towards modern society; the post-communist
societies can follow this pathway by closely implementing Western models and
ideas. The historicist approaches question the modernist notion of a singular
pathway and see various routes emerging from the confrontation between the
immediate past and the present, although they ultimately leave a singular
definition of ­ and affirmative stance towards ­ modern society largely
unquestioned.
Modernist Transitology
The swift demise of communism as a real and viable alternative to Western
modernity was widely interpreted as the apparent victory of a singular model of
modernity throughout the world. This is particularly visible in the way policy-
makers and the academic world have analysed the changes as such and have
prescribed policies to be implemented in order to ensure a smooth transition
process for the countries concerned. Debates have, until recently, been dominated
by various strands of what we could call modernist or (neo-)modernization
approaches (Altvater, 1998; Bönker et al., 2002; Spohn, 2002). Modernist
approaches perceive a singular answer to major social problems such as under-
development and poverty. The countries concerned need to adopt Western politi-
cal, economic, legal and financial institutions and to rearrange their state
structures and budgets according to Western norms. In short, they have to trans-
form their communist societies into Western-type capitalist and democratic
ones.7 A partial revival of modernist theoretical ideas as well as of ideas of
totalitarianism has occurred (the later approach of totalitarianism, that departed
decisively from Hannah Arendt's initial historical-philosophical study (1951),
regarded communism as a pathology rather than as an extreme case of moder-
nity, see Müller, 2003). In particular, totalitarianism ultimately denied any
viability to the `modern' aspects of the socialist experiments. Neo-totalitarianism
pushes contemporary research towards normative and policy-oriented
approaches that analyse current developments in terms of approximation to a
Western model of society. While transitology accommodates a variety of
approaches, its basic premises are widely shared:
the Soviet model is seen as having failed in competition with the west, and its legacy
is reducible to after-effects: dysfunctional patterns of development and mentalities
unadapted to the market continue to obstruct the progress of transformation. The
victorious western model has, by the same token, become a blueprint for the future,
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 0 6
and the agenda of the transition can be defined in terms of measures and policies which
would bring the countries in question closer to this really existing ideal . . . The most
fundamental ­ albeit often latent ­ premise of transitology is that the current western
constellation of capitalism, democracy, and the nation-state (allowing for some differ-
ences of opinion on the relative weight of the last factor) represents a universal and
definitive model on its way to global ascendancy. (Arnason, 2000)
Transitology is strongly informed by the idea that the collapse of communism
has confirmed a singular view of modernity. For the `transition countries' this
means that their experiences are basically comparable and compatible with earlier
experiences elsewhere.8 This means that theoretical concepts as well as models of
modernization developed for social change in different temporal and spatial
contexts can be applied to the current experiences without much amendment.
The basic premise is that the `democratic market society' is `universally applic-
able' (Bönker et al., 2002).
The announcement of the `end of history', which implied the triumph of a
singular modernity, concomitantly recreated the modernist dichotomy between
the traditional and the modern. From this perspective, the institutional and
cultural legacies of communism embodied the traditional, whereas (a specific
image of) Western society represented the ultimate goal of any modern project.
Although modernists reproached the communist project for its self-acclaimed
capacity to reshape society from above, they proposed an equally `designer'-type
of project in which the post-communist elites should copy and impose key
Western institutions on their societies. The centrally planned economy was
placed in sharp contraposition to the self-organizing market, thereby evaluating
the philosophy of the scientific management of society through the state as
traditional and counterproductive, and the allegedly spontaneously evolving logic
of the market as the archetypal modern solution.9 State planning was associated
with inertia and de-differentiation, and market forces with dynamism and differ-
entiation. This contraposition of the state to the market was further exemplified
in the distinction between self-reliant, closed economies, as opposed to open
market economies, that were deemed highly functional in a globalized economy.
Similarly, in the political sphere, the vision of a totally subordinated and homoge-
nous society to the monopolist party-state under communism was contrasted
with the Western democratic pluralist party system of institutionalized political
conflict and a counterweight to state power in an autonomous civil society. On
the level of the individual, (implicit) assumptions are made of an atomized,
apathetic, state-dependent individual under communism (homo sovieticus) as
opposed to a participative, socially active, rationally calculating, and
autonomously acting individual (homo economicus) in modern societies. The
cultural legacies of communism are then predominantly assessed in their quality
of obstructing the transition towards the pre-determined goal of a democratic
market economy. The labelling of communist legacies as `cultural-civilizational
syndrome' or `bloc culture' ­ the outcome of both being the internalization of
communist norms and values and adaptive individual reactions towards com-
munism ­ further underlines their identification in strictly negative terms,
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 0 7
consisting of passivism, political apathy, illicit behaviour, and the tenacity of
`welfarist' ideas (Sztompka, 1995).
One of the continuities in Eastern Europe is that the current projects of
modernization are to a great extent elite-driven projects, i.e. they are carried out
by relatively small groups of individuals in society who are capable of initiating
projects of social change (see Eyal et al., 1998; Higley et al., 1998). In classical
modernization theory, as well as in Marxism, there was a focus on either the urban
bourgeoisie or the entrepreneur as the promoting agent of modern society. In the
modernist approaches of transition theory, `functional elites' or `change agents'
who will construct a new order on the basis of Western institutions are identi-
fied with radical reformers on a political level (in contrast to conservative,
obstructionist forces tied to the old regime). By means of the transfer of the right
institutions by these modernizers, the right actors who can sustain the new order
can emerge, i.e., the citizen and the entrepreneur, who are believed to share rather
similar characteristics that are conducive to the new order.10 As Eyal et al. argue,
modernist thinking is based on the assumption that `if you create the proper
institutions, they will shape the individuals that occupy them so that individual
behavior will conform to institutional constraints and imperatives' (1998: 8­9).
This is so, because, by means of the withdrawal of the state from society (organ-
ized by the radical reformers), economic, negative freedom is created, which in
turn also enhances political freedom, as individuals are less restrained by the state
in their actions. In this institutional context, citizens and entrepreneurs emerge
who hold the right mind-sets for the reproduction of the new order, whereas the
role of the radical reformers is of a transitional kind. The absence of sustaining
social forces is then interpreted as the need to create these social groups, partially
to legitimate the new societal project, partially to create groups who actually
promote the right vision of society.11 However, the existence of the transforma-
tional elites identified with the modernizing project is taken for granted in most
cases (Arnason, 2000: 89; Kennedy, 2002, Chapter 2).
History and Diversity
Modernist approaches generally fail to appreciate both historical diversity and the
possibility of contemporary diverging paths and interpretations of moderniza-
tion. Instead, the triumph of the Western model as the only and, therefore,
universal one has been widely recognized (without, however, being granted the
status of `grand narrative'), whereas the communist systems are primarily under-
stood negatively.12 The main reason why modernist approaches have been
criticized is exactly their assumption of uni-linearity and teleology, and their
neglect of historical legacies. Alternative, critical approaches take as their direct
starting point the historical nature of the current transformations. They do not
regard transformation as basically `a one-way process of change from one
hegemonic system to another' (Pickles and Smith, 1998: 1). Rather, current social
change is seen as directly bound up with old social relations and institutions,
and therefore can only be understood in a historical way, resulting in various
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 0 8
trajectories from the past to the present. The presentation of social change as a
mere process of `catching up', achieved by adopting the right institutions is
rejected (see Arnason, 2000; Burawoy and Verdery, 1999; Pickles and Smith,
1998). Critical approaches focus on diversity, particularity and continuity with
the past in order to explain and understand (diversity in) contemporary social
change in Eastern Europe. The communist world is not then regarded merely as
an aberration (as in totalitarianism) leaving behind only structures that need to
be dismantled as soon as possible. Rather, its modern features are (often
implicitly) acknowledged.
Here, I will focus on two of the most elaborate and convincing historicist
alternatives to mainstream transitology: (1) the path dependency approach, of
which the most important contribution is that of David Stark and Laszlo Bruszt;
and (2) neo-classical sociology, as proposed by Ivan Szelenyi and others. The
former consists of a predominantly historical institutionalist interpretation of the
transition, as path dependency underlines the importance of institutional
patterns of the past for the emerging forms of the present. The latter approach
emphasizes the role of agency in any project of modernization, and the adapta-
tion of an individually and historically accumulated habitus to the current
transformation.
Path dependency theory points to the distinctiveness of the Eastern European
experiences, in that current change is circumscribed by the endurance of older
institutions. This means that a new order is not built in an `institutional void',
nor on top of the ruins of communism, but is rather constructed with the legacies
of communism, leading to forms of institutional `bricolage' which potentially end
in some kind of innovation (Pickles and Smith, 1998: 1­4; Stark and Bruszt,
1998: 7). Path dependency theory sees `political economic transformation' as an
`evolutionary and path-dependent process', `based upon institutionalised forms
of learning and struggles over pathways that emerge out of the intersection of old
and new' (Pickles and Smith, 1998: 15). In other words, path dependency theory
claims that current and future developments can only be fully understood if the
past is reflected upon, so that the constraints and confinements as well as the
possibilities for current transitions become clear.
Also neo-classical sociology (Eyal et al., 1998, 2003) explicitly underlines the
importance of historical legacies for understanding current social change, in
particular in the form of long-term continuities. At same time, contingency seems
acknowledged as the outcome of the current transformations is considered `an
open question' (Eyal et al., 1998: 39). The neo-classical approach, like path
dependency, problematizes the modernist assumption of a capitalism-by-design
that can be imposed from above, creating institutions that will have similar
outcomes everywhere. Instead, a potential diversity of outcomes is assumed, as
capitalism itself can take the form of a `diverse set of social actors and institutions'.
According to neo-classical sociology, the particularity of post-communist (i.e.
Central European, as distinct from Eastern European) capitalism is exactly a form
of `capitalism without capitalists', thus without the class that was historically
significant in bringing about capitalism (Eyal et al., 1998: 3). Historicity is then
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 0 9
a correction of the assumption of timeless social mechanisms and a way to bring
out `the historical specificity of our times' (Eyal et al., 2003: 17). Eyal et al. intro-
duce a diachronic comparison of historical projects of modernization, as `Central
European intellectuals have been attracted to various ambitious historical projects
to reshape their societies, and . . . whatever else may be, the power bloc that rules
contemporary post-communism is heir to their projects' (1998: 11). They
identify different historical projects, in which different logics inform social
agents: the nineteenth-century project of a Bildungsbürgertum creating a bour-
geois society, a subsequent reaction to the slow modernization in the region in
the form of communism and fascism, and the current re-emergence of bourgeois
liberalism (Eyal et al., 1998: 24­36). These three projects have been shaped in
different historical contexts, in which competing logics of social stratification
existed, based on class and rank order. Different perceptions of the social order
(legal-rational domination or clientelism) then informed the major social
struggles, finding temporary solutions in institutionalized systems of stratifi-
cation. Moreover, according to Eyal et al., actors are endowed with different
forms of capital (economic, social, and cultural) which provide them with
different opportunities, depending on the dominant logic of the period. The
particularity of Central Europe (and Germany) is considered to be the relative
historical importance of cultural capital, as opposed to the significance of
economic capital in Western Europe (Eyal et al., 1998: 25­6). In post-communist
Central Europe, it is again a coalition of agents endowed with cultural capital
who shape the current social structures. Diversity in post-communist pathways,
but also continuity are thus underpinned by specific forms of agency.
Both the path dependency of Stark and Bruszt and the neo-classical sociology
of Eyal et al. start from the assumption of diversity; in both, diversity is seen as
the result of reproduced legacies in the present. Path dependency explicitly keeps
open the possibility for innovation in the form of public­private networks, while
neo-classical sociology identifies the particularism of contemporary Central
Europe in the post-communist managerial-intellectual project of modernization,
heir to the nineteenth-century project of the Bildungsbürgertum.
The deterministic understanding and pre-defined nature of agency present in
modernization approaches are seen as a key problem by path dependency theory
and neo-classical sociology. One could read Stark and Bruszt's objection to
considering the Eastern European civil societies as the main actors in the revolu-
tion and subsequent transformation as a critique of the assumption that a singular
`right' modernizing agent can be identified (Stark and Bruszt, 1998: 15­16). In
this, they take issue with the exclusive focus on one set of actors supposed to bring
about modernization. Instead, they argue for an interactionist approach in which
they focus on relations between actors and their perceptions of their opponents'
strategies (1998: 16). They see `these capacities, perceptions and strategies [as]
fluid rather than fixed . . . [T]he political organizational identities of major social
actors change as they react to and interact with other competing strategies in
the political field.' Indeed, a historicization of the role of elites further shows
that in particular moments in history, in different societal contexts, different
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 1 0
constellations of actors play the role of pioneers in a new society. Neo-classical
sociology indeed explicitly historicizes the role of agency in modernization. The
`right' agent of change, who, according to Eyal et al., is usually identified with a
capitalist class of private owners in theories of transition to capitalism, can take
various historical guises. This assumption underpins their hypothesis that the
specificity of contemporary Central Europe is that there is a capitalism without a
propertied bourgeoisie in the making. In other words, they perceive post-
communism as a new order in which the agent of change is not a bourgeoisie of
private property owners, but a bourgeoisie that possesses culture or knowledge
(technocrats and managers), thereby including technocratic-intellectual elites in
the emergence of a new form of society (Eyal et al., 1998: 1).
Despite the convincing arguments of both approaches against the teleology,
assumptions of convergence, and ahistoricism of transitology, and the well-
argued attempts to reconstruct alternative trajectories to the modern, both
approaches seem to operate with too restrictive an understanding of the outcome
of the transitions in the post-communist societies, while neglecting potential
constructions and dynamics of projects of modernization that do not fall into
their respective teloi of transition (a network society in the case of Stark and
Bruszt, a managerial-intellectual project in the case of Eyal et al.). Other experi-
ences are then either considered to be beyond the scope of analysis, or become
instances of `involution' rather than transition.
Paradigm Shift but Not Quite: The Need for a Radical
Break with Modernism
The emergence of critical and historical approaches within the transition debate
has been described as `second-generation theory' (Bönker et al., 2002) and seems
to entail the promise of a veritable paradigm shift, in that transition studies seem
to be moving increasingly towards interdisciplinary approaches that explicitly
denounce the ahistoricism, teleology, and Euro-centrism of early transition
theory (Bönker et al., 2002; Ekiert and Hanson, 2003). In reality, however, only
few have decisively transcended the idea of an inevitable movement from
communism to market democracy and accept the contingent as well as histori-
cal nature of the construction of post-communist societies, which requires a truly
open-ended and interpretative rather than pre-defined, normative modus
operandi.13
For all their merits in opening up the debate, the critical approaches described
here still leave something to be desired. Both path dependency and neo-classical
sociology ultimately use either a restricted understanding of historicism (the
former) or a rather teleological and one-sided reading of history (the latter). What
is more, both ultimately remain within `transition culture' by searching for ways
in which post-communist societies can attain Western levels of modernity, which,
in the case of path dependency, is understood as a network society, and, in the
case of neo-classical sociology, as a managerial-intellectual project towards
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 1 1
Western capitalism. Thus, despite the primary attention to contemporary diver-
sity and the relation of this diversity with the past, the treatment of the past itself
remains rather cursory in many path dependency approaches. For Stark and
Bruszt, the articulation of the past in the present has been confined to the
moment of regime change that produces a variety of `paths of extrication'. The
specific ways societies emerged out of the revolutions of 1989 (reunification in
Germany, electoral competition in Hungary, compromise in Poland, and capit-
ulation in Czechoslovakia), consequently shaped political institutions and forms
of interest mediation between state and society (Stark and Bruszt, 1998: 101).
Thus, the outcome of the interplay between dominant actors (reform and
orthodox communists, and ruling elites and opposition) at the ­ admittedly
crucial ­ moment of regime change is taken as the primary factor in explaining
diverse pathways in the 1990s (Burawoy, 2001; Dobry, 2000: 56). In short, the
constellation of dominant actors at a particular intersection defines the specific
pathway taken.14 Despite the acknowledgement of diversity, one can identify here
a form of historical determinism in which the eventual outcome is defined by a
designated earlier moment of change, between which the paths of extrication
then merely run their pre-defined courses (Dobry, 2000: 62). What is more, it is
not entirely clear why the moments of regime change embody the essentials of
relevant history. Although the outcome of elite struggles in the moment of
collapse of the old regime has important implications for the system that emerges
afterwards, the potentiality of the emergence of historical legacies in a later
moment of the transition or the possibility of the occurrence of highly contin-
gent events should not be ruled out.15 So, other (long-term) continuities that
might shape actors' behaviour after regime change then seem foreclosed, perhaps
most importantly historically formed cognitive frameworks that potentially shape
the course of transition (for instance, in the form of non-liberal and non-capitalist
discursive traditions and the dynamics these discourses can create).16 Though
neo-classical sociology goes a long way in historicizing the currently shaped
societies in Central Europe, and is able to explain the specificity of post-
communist societies by referring to historically formed attitudes and institutions,
the primary emphasis on a cultural bourgeoisie `whose project is to foster the
transition from rank order to a system of class stratification' (Eyal et al., 1998:
47) forecloses analyses of alternative projects of modernization that might be
pursued by actors with a very different mind-set. The insistence on the cultural
bourgeoisie as the `bearers of the project of modernization' (Eyal et al., 1998: 60)
means that Eyal et al. see in Central Europe the emergence of a new project of
modernization, whereas Eastern Europe and Russia are characterized as being in
the mere process of `involution, i.e. a form of adaptation to the imposition of
capitalism from above' (Eyal et al., 2003: 15). In this, they read Central European
history as a bourgeois history, without paying due attention to other modern
actors and their projects.
Both the path dependency approach and neo-classical sociology seem to
reason from a point of view that takes the transition towards a distinct society
with a particular set of institutions for granted and therefore they ultimately work
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 1 2
within the mind-set of modernist thinking (Kennedy, 2002). Even if the
acknowledgement of diversity forms one of the main corrections on transitology
introduced by both approaches, the diversity offered remains in the end within
the confines of a rather strictly limited understanding of modern society, i.e., not
always specified but clearly reminiscent of the Western post-industrial market
democracy. Diversity becomes, in this reading, multiple pathways to a similar end
destination while creative agency is confined to the invention of locally function-
ing, successful ways of reaching that goal.
European Modernity as a Generator of Diversity
As the above attests, mainstream transition theory as well as its most important
critics are moving within an ideational space or ideological forma mentis that a
priori precludes the perception of significant difference in the construction of
modern society. This means that the analytical frames of both transitology and
its critical other are fundamentally unable to deal with diversity in the modes of
construction of national identity, statehood, and forms of society within the post-
Soviet space. Indeed, events following the memorable year of 1989 have shown
that the assumption of a relatively unequivocal pathway from totalitarianism to
democracy is defied by a reality of idiosyncrasies in post-communist change. In
the transitional context, and not only here, a singular view of European moder-
nity as a universal phenomenon runs into problems; modernization cannot mean
a single road to a singular end-state of societal evolution, as even the experiences
of the Western states themselves are too diversified to justify assumptions of a
global convergence.17
I will argue that significant diversity persists within the European space and is
even likely to gain in importance in the future. I suggest that it is here where the
debate on transition ­ which has by no means lost its validity with the accession
of eight post-communist societies to the European Union and the admission of
two more countries in 2007 ­ could go beyond its own perceptive limitations.
One fruitful way of doing so is by learning from recent debates on the theoriza-
tion of modernity.18 Recent sociological approaches towards modernity ­
grouped under the labels of `varieties of modernity', `multiple modernities' or
`entangled modernities' ­ have taken the multi-interpretability and openness that
result from modernity, and, therefore, plurality, conflict, and diversification, as
their fundamental starting point. The question has been raised whether
modernity should be understood as a loose constellation that is irreducible to
Western civilization, or as a civilization among other civilizations which are or
have been modern in their own way.19 The overall approach has a clear signifi-
cance in that it tries to break with modernization theory in a radical way, in that
it denies modernization to be a purely Western phenomenon and sees several
`modernities', of which the European manifestation is only one variant.20 Rather
than understanding modernization as leading to the convergence of societies
towards a unified, homogenized modernity, modernization is perceived as
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 1 3
creating value pluralism and conflict.21 Furthermore, it is assumed that various
patterns and visions of modernity have developed rather than merely a single
main pattern constituted by European modernity. Instead, modernity (including
the transition to an `authentically' modern form of society as in the case of the
former communist societies) should be understood as open to different interpret-
ations and therefore cannot be reduced to a narrow reading of modernity as the
historical experience of the West.
For the sake of clarity, I should make a short digression here into the signifi-
cance of modernity for the debate on transition. If modernity as a concept is to
have any heuristic validity for the analysis of different societies and their trajec-
tories, it needs to be perceived as comprising at least some basic tenets and
characteristics. Modernity is often defined in either a temporal and/or a substan-
tive way. The first refers to the understanding of modernity as an epochal
phenomenon, as a distinct period in time that has broken decisively with preced-
ing periods. The second focuses on modernity as a set of key characteristics,
which makes modern ideas and practices distinct from pre-modern ones.
Although both conceptions are useful, they tend to be conflated (Yack, 1997).
Whereas, by and large, a modern epoch can identified, it should not be perceived
as an era in which only a singular programme of (Western) modernity reigns, but
rather as an epoch in which major conflicts over the interpretation of modernity
take place (Arnason, n.d.). Here, it is helpful to be more explicit about the
substantive components of what I mean by modernity. At least four interrelated
characteristics of modernity can be identified. The first important characteristic
is the negation of traditional authority and a religiously legitimated political
order. By denying the foundation of political and societal order on other-worldly
grounds, modernizing agents claim the possibility of constructing a new order
on the basis of self-produced understandings of such an order. In the context
of post-communist Eastern Europe, this means that transition is to be primarily
understood as the rejection of the closure of modernity in its extreme com-
munist variant and the emancipation of the East European societies from the
dogmatic totalitarian order and the singular truth of the Marxist-Leninist
political religion. A decisive rupture with `traditional' understandings, however,
simultaneously opens up the possibility of various, alternative visions of how
modern society could be shaped. Modernity can, therefore, be understood as
intrinsically generating diversity and conflict over its meaning. In post-1989
Eastern Europe, the transition should be seen as generating new conflicts over
interpretations of modernity rather than as the end of meaningful conflict. I
will argue below that this diversity does not necessarily disappear with European
integration.
The second, strongly related, key characteristic of modernity is the emphasis
on human autonomy, i.e. the idea of the human being as a subject who is able
to understand the world and act on these understandings. Post-communist
emancipation can thus primarily be understood as the liberation of the subject
from the heteronomy of a centrally administered and totally controlled order. An
unequivocal attachment to liberal individualism does not follow from this,
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 1 4
though. The emancipation of Eastern Europe also meant the re-articulation of
collectivisms of various kinds.
The third characteristic is the idea that society (and nature) is malleable, and
that human beings can therefore reconstruct their own societies on the basis of
their own visions (the latter two characteristics, which could be referred to as
mastery and autonomy, or discipline and liberty, can, however, be interpreted in
diverse ways and are in continuous tension ­ see Wagner, 1994). Thus, the `insti-
tutional design' of `transition culture' is only one way of perceiving the construc-
tion of modern societies in Eastern Europe.
The fourth characteristic is the essentially future-oriented nature of modern
ideas and programmes of modernization. By creating (utopian) visions of a better
society, modern agents divide the present from the past, and claim that by means
of decisive action these visions can be implemented in the present (Eisenstadt,
1999; Koselleck, 1985; Therborn, 1995). The transition has, however, not only
opened the possibility of the present mimesis of the West but has also created the
basis for the resurfacing of nationalism and religion as primary elements in the
projection of a pre-communist past into the post-communist future. Therefore,
not so much the `catching up' of the East European societies with Western, or,
more specifically, European modernity should be the main focal point, but rather
the unique reactions of these `later modernizing societies' is to be taken as a
starting point.
The contemporary experience of the post-communist societies with European
modernity is predominantly understood in terms of a gradual incorporation of
the post-communist societies into the European project. This process is then
mostly read as convergence in legal, institutional, and political terms (after all,
the entry conditions set by the Copenhagen Council of 1993 were political and
economic convergence, as well as the potential to function within the EU by
means of the adoption of the acquis communautaire).22 The process of accession
could be, and has predominantly been, perceived in a spirit of assimilation,23 in
which the Eastern European countries shed their non-European or not-yet-fully-
European status or Easternness in favour of Europeanness (Kuus, 2004). In
reality, convergence is limited mostly, however, to the surface, institutional level.
Moreover, the idea that assimilation will lead to convergence is not as obvious
and unproblematic as often assumed. The pursuit of assimilation of the East is
shared by an `epistemic community' of Western and Eastern elites, but European
norms and values are both being strategically adapted to local circumstances by
the latter and producing unintended consequences that do not necessarily rein-
force convergence. The enlargement `rite', in which the applicant states shed their
non-Europeanness and the European Union monitors progress in sameness
through screening and regular reports (Jacoby, 2002), does not, therefore, necess-
arily lead to comprehensive convergence which comprises, for instance, political
cultures, collective identities, and perceptions of Europe (Jacoby, 2002; Kuus,
2004; Mair and Zielonka, 2002). In my view, rather than understanding
accession as the logical outcome and further conveyer of convergence of the
backward post-communist states, widening should be understood as both
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 1 5
contributing to an immediate increase of diversity within the European Union,
and, more importantly, as enhancing the potential for further manifestations of
diversity in the future. This is so because of two reasons. First of all, the new (and
prospective) member states gain membership status and therefore effective means
for the articulation of difference. Even if the new member states are in an asym-
metrical relationship with the old members24 (in terms of the actual suspension
of the enjoyment of certain benefits of membership, such as the mobility of
workers, participation in Schengen and the monetary union, and with regard to
the internalization of the organizational culture of the EU, see Schimmelfennig,
2000), accession most importantly means the achievement of effective sover-
eignty (the full recognition as a European state) and the acquisition of the right
to co-decide on European matters (Priban, 2005; Walker, 2003). In this sense,
the new member states gain considerably in autonomy and hence also in poten-
tial to articulate difference on a European and political level. This difference
consists, among others, of the legacies of socialism and pre-socialism the new
member states bring with them, which have not and could not be completely
eradicated by the accession process and the wider transition process (these legacies
include, for instance, collectivism, a classical view of sovereignty, etatism, and
social solidarity, see Albi, 2003; Fuchs and Klingemann, 2002; Walker, 2003; for
the case of Romania, see Blokker, 2004a), but also new or renewed forms of
difference can be expected to arise or to be accentuated (as in the leanings towards
the USA in the political cultures of countries such as Poland and Romania).
Nevertheless, as Kubik argues (2003), legacies only have import in the present if
articulated by significant actors. The acquisition of the status of membership by
the post-communist countries is in this sense pivotal as it means that diversity
can be increasingly articulated ­ and can therefore acquire additional political
meaning ­ on a European level. The new member states are thus not only suffer-
ing from an asymmetrical position as new members, but accession to the EU also
means the reconstitution of their national identities and effective sovereignty.
Enlargement has not only exposed these countries to a more or less imposed
adoption of norms and rules of a European model, and hence to a forced conver-
gence towards a European standard, but, by embedding their recovered sover-
eignty in the larger European project, also enabled them to meaningfully exercise
self-determination within and as a result of a European national identity. A
significant example is the process of constitutionalization, in which the CEECs
not only increasingly participated, but in which they also articulated distinct
viewpoints on future Europe.25
This brings me to a second reason for expecting persistent diversity: the
European project itself is in a process of qualitative change that in many ways
might sustain further (political and cultural) diversity within Europe. While it
seems undeniable that membership enhances the standing of the new members,
the entity of which they became member is itself in flux, both as a result of a
dynamic of political integration relatively independent of enlargement, and the
political integration that is the result of the enlargement process itself (see
Walker, 2003; Wiener, 2002). The gained momentum in the process of
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 1 6
constitutionalization since the Council of Nice in 2000 clearly attests to the
fundamental change the European project is undergoing. Whereas constitution-
alization includes a redefinition of the finalité of the European project, without
obtaining a definite result, the widening of the EU has de facto meant a consider-
able reshuffle of power within the EU in favour of the periphery (Delanty, 2003).
Moreover, and in spite of an asymmetric participation of the new (and prospec-
tive) members, the open-ended nature of the European Constitution means that
the current codification of the European foundations is by no means a `closed
book' (Walker, 2003; Wiener, 2002). New members will have ample future
opportunity to defend national idiosyncrasies as well as distinct visions of future
Europe. In sum, in the process of widening, the European project has definitely
drifted away from its earlier restricted (predominantly economic) and exclusivist
raison d'tre as it is in a process of redefining its finalité which introduces elements
of polity-formation and increased participation and can hence be seen as possibly
moving towards a more open-ended form of integration (Delanty, 2003).
Conclusion
The diversity that the post-communist countries bring to the European project
is ultimately related to the way political, social, and cultural actors have dealt with
the collapse of the communist empire, and the projects of modernization they
have embarked on in its wake. In general, the importance of agency and subjec-
tivity in modernization has been acknowledged in transition studies, in both
`first-' and `second-generation' theories. The concept of meaningful agency and
subjectivity in these theories seems, however, to be confined to a small layer of
the post-communist societies, that is, liberal and European-minded political and
economic elites. If, however, we want to understand European modernity as
generating multiple understandings of a modern order and as intrinsically
producing conflict over its meaning, as I have stated above, an analytical search
for those modernizing agents that exhibit the Western mind-set forecloses the
identification of agents with alternative programmes, and, therefore, the analysis
of significant difference.26 The analysis is then restricted to the identification of
`functional elites', `change agents', or `interactionist-individualist elites'
(Kaminski and Kurczewska, 1995), i.e., those agents that portray the right
dynamic and rational attitude necessary for a decisive rupture with the old system
and who are capable of designing and implementing a programme of modern-
ization that coincides with Western self-understandings of modernity.27 I argue
instead that a plurality of modernizing agents should be acknowledged. This means
that, while recognizing the importance of designer elites in defining the pathways
of transition, the co-responsibility of other, (extra-)institutional and social agents
in determining the direction of transition should be part of the analysis. Such
recognition will enhance a more complex understanding of transition as well as
a sensitivity to potentially diverse paths of exiting from communism and the
construction of modern societies (Kennedy, 2002: 22). The relations of the
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 1 7
political centre with social actors (in the form of intellectuals, social movements),
and the relation of the latter to the centre's project, have a profound impact on
`designed' social change.28
This brings me to a strongly related point. Next to a plurality of modernizing
agents, a multiplicity of programmes of modernization should be considered. The
fact that the post-communist elites articulate their programmes in a context
which is strongly conditioned by the global neo-liberal paradigm and the
European project alike does not imply that the articulation of difference and the
persistence of diversity are impossible in the face of imposed convergence. Tran-
sition should be regarded as a recurrent project of modernization, which implies
that emancipation is at the centre of post-communist social change, i.e. emanci-
pation from the closed order of communism, and, by the same token, consisting
of a fundamental opening up of society for alternative proposals. Admittedly, the
post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe immediately experienced a closure
of the discursive space, circumscribed by, on the one hand, the widespread
perception of endogenous political elites that the imitation of `tested' Western
political and economic models as well as a `return to Europe' was the only viable
form of emancipation, and, on the other, the shape this `return to Europe' took
in the conditionality of the accession process. But even if enlargement can be seen
as a process of assimilation of Western European standards by the post-
communist countries (in this sense, membership of the EU is strongly compati-
ble with transition culture), the conditions are sufficiently ambiguous to allow
for the interpretation and adaptation of these norms (Grabbe, 2002; Jacoby,
2002; Mair and Zielonka, 2002; Wiener, 2002). The ostensible reproduction of
West European norms, transition culture and discourses of Europeanization by
East European elites should be understood as potentially entailing a two-way
relationship between the Western centre and the Eastern periphery, thereby
acknowledging space to manoeuvre for the latter (Jacoby, 2002; Kuus, 2004).
With regard to national political arenas, it is further important to recognize that
Eastern European politics not only consists of the future-oriented programmes
of reformist forces (liberal political forces and business elites) versus the past-
oriented programmes of former communists-cum-social democrats and national-
populists, but that the latter similarly contribute to the construction of the
post-communist order.29 And, as argued above, these alternative voices could gain
increasing prominence in the future European order. The dichotomous under-
standing of pro- vs anti-reformist/anti-European forces should further be
replaced by an interpretative approach that is sensitive to the reciprocal influences
of the various post-communist political forces. At the intersection of political
and social actors' interaction, external influences, and historical legacies,
creativity and otherness can produce a difference that significantly marks
transition trajectories and participation in Europe.
This leads me to the final point, i.e., the multiplicity of institutional configura-
tions that can underpin modern society. Multiple understandings of post-
communist modernization inform multiple forms of institutions, in which the
key tenets of modernity are institutionalized in different ways (for instance, in
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 1 8
terms of codified collective identities in national constitutions, see Priban, 2004,
2005, and understandings of freedom and participation in different forms of
democracy and political culture, see Dryzek and Holmes, 2002, and Fuchs and
Klingemann, 2002). Within the context of the contemporary European project,
the configuration of democracy, the market economy, and the nation-state consti-
tutes the main pattern of European modernity, but this should not obscure the
diversity in institutional patterns that can be imagined and realized within that
overall frame, in particular since all three components are subject to both
centrifugal and centripetal forces (Borneman and Fowler, 1997). Furthermore,
of great importance for current configurations in Eastern Europe is the fact that
the post-communist societies emerge from the most durable alternative pattern
or counterculture to Western modernity, i.e., communist modernity, which in
various ways ­ among others, political culture, constitutional traditions, concep-
tions of political participation ­ informs present societies.
The challenge is, therefore, not to reduce the outcome of the transition in
post-communist Europe to a mere (converging) variety of the Western European
constellation, or 1989 to a nachholende Revolution (Habermas, 1990), but to
acknowledge significant difference in the emerging societal orders. Here, theory
should be both interpretative, in the sense that it should be able to recognize the
construction of similarity without leaning on normative prescriptions, and
hermeneutic, in the sense of being able to provide understanding from within
the particularistic contexts in which projects of modernization arise, and which
fundamentally shape the contours and substance of these projects.30 Breaking
with modernism then means letting go of writing the stories of success and failure
of transition, and, instead, providing a critical analysis of `success stories' and an
interpretative understanding of `deviating' cases. It also means a critical revisiting
of the impact of the dominating discourses of globalization, neo-liberalism and
European integration on the sites of transition, while simultaneously acknowl-
edging local adaptive and innovative power, and the continuing reformation of
the present by legacies of the past. Even if it has taken a decade and a half, it is
never too late to redirect transition theory (and social theory in general) radically
away from the harmonizing and universalizing `convergence thesis', and to
embrace diversity as the guiding principle of research on societal change in the
post-communist world.
Notes
1 Romano Prodi on `Accession Day', Dublin Castle, 1 May 2004, Speech/04/221.
2 See the report `The Spiritual and Cultural Dimension of Europe' of the Reflection
Group of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, published in October 2004.
The accession of the three aspirant member states ­ Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia,
let alone Turkey ­ will make structural diversity even more apparent.
3 Some recent publications indicate, indeed, that an affirmative ­ rather than self-
critical ­ stance is increasingly considered untenable (see Bönker et al., 2002; Ekiert
and Hanson, 2003; for a review of both, see Blokker, 2004b).
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 1 9
4 See, for similar observations, Alexander (1995); Altvater (1998: 592); Kennedy
(2002); Knöbl (2001).
5 See, for this terminology, the introduction to Bönker et al. (2002).
6 I understand modernism as the affirmative reading of the dominant Western
programme of modernity, embodied by the Enlightenment and individualist liber-
alism. In terms of the attainment of social knowledge, modernist approaches tend to
`conflate the imaginary signification of modernity with the reality of social life in
Western societies' (Wagner, 2001: 4).
7 According to Alexander:
Jeffrey Sachs and other simpliste expositors of the `big bang' approach to transition
seem to be advocating a rerun of Rostow's earlier `take-off' theory. Like that earlier
species of modernization idea, this new monetarist modernism throws concerns of
social solidarity and citizenship, let alone any sense of historical specificity, utterly
to the winds. (1995: 44)
8 In particular, Latin America and Southern Europe; see, for instance, Przeworski
(1991). For the problems this raises for nomothetical as opposed to contextual
approaches, see the debate between Karl and Schmitter (1994, 1995) and Bunce
(1995a, b).
9 Jeffrey Sachs has formulated the self-evidence of the superiority of market arrange-
ments as follows: `[m]any of the economic problems solve themselves: markets spring
up as soon as central planning bureaucrats vacate the field' (Sachs, in Bönker et al.,
2002: 7).
10 As, for instance, Kaminski and Kurczewska note: `The two roles [of citizens and
entrepreneurs] relate to different functional areas in social life, but they share many
of the same traits. They entail self-reliant, self-confident individuals endowed with a
sense of self-respect' (1995: 132).
11 For similar reasons, communist elites considered it necessary to create the working
class, and Eastern European liberal elites in the inter-war period perceived the need
to construct the urban middle class.
12 Indeed, Müller suggests using the term `negative sociology' for approaches that use
`a kind of applied theory of totalitarianism which maintains that, since the system of
real socialism has totally failed, it will shortly totally disappear ­ a process often
labelled "creative destruction"' (1995: 277).
13 For contributions to the debate that do significantly move beyond its early premises,
see Kennedy (2002), Kubik (2003), and Spohn (2002).
14 As Burawoy remarks: `the diverse ways of reworking the past spring from diverse
political conjunctures in the moments of dissolution' (2001: 1108).
15 As Dobry asks:
why, after all, the focus on `extrication paths', while details and descriptions
frequently suggest the causal weight of the whole communist period, its social
structures, and, in particular, the social networks generated during that period,
which implies a whole other temporality than the short span of moments of
`extrication'? (2000: 58)
16 The unawareness regarding such features is clearly a consequence of path depen-
dency's explicit focus on (a particular kind of ) capitalism rather than other, alterna-
tive arrangements. See Kubik (2003) for the significance of discursive legacies on
post-communist trajectories.
European Journal of Social Theory 8(4)5 2 0
17 This is, for instance, also highlighted in current discussions about varieties of capi-
talism, see Hall and Soskice (2001).
18 For a similar suggestion regarding the reciprocal value of the debates on transition
and modernity, see Allardt (2002).
19 See Arnason (n.d.) and Eisenstadt (1999).
20 See, for instance, the special issue of Daedalus (2000), Arnason (1999), Eisenstadt
(1999, 2000), Kaya (2004), Sachsenmaier and Riedel (2002), Therborn (2003) and
Wagner (1994).
21 See for the context of Europe, Delanty (2000); see also Blokker (2005). For the
immanent nature of diversity in modernity, see Spohn (2003).
22 See for a forceful statement into this direction, Moravcsik and Vachudova (2003).
23 I use here, mutatis mutandis, the concept of assimilation as defined by Alexander
(2001). An alternative and imaginative way of depicting the accession process is the
portrayal of the EU as a family, and the accession process as the adoption of `second
cousins with lesser rights', who `must undergo a probationary period of Europeaniza-
tion before being ostensibly adopted by the family' (Borneman and Fowler, 1997:
496).
24 For two forceful statements of this asymmetry, see Holmes (2003) and Grzymala-
Busse and Innes (2003).
25 The most visible impact was the role of Poland in the reformulation of the Preamble,
see Joerges (2005) and Ziller (2004); the participation of the countries of Eastern
Europe was, however, wider than that, see Landfried (2005) and Priban (2005).
26 According to Stark and Bruszt: `[W]e should not be too quick or too confident in
our a priori ability to distinguish strategies of survival from strategies of innovation'
(1998: 7).
27 As Kaminski and Kurczewska argue:
We find more of the interactionist-individualist type of élites in the Baltic states,
where such traditions have survived from the interwar period, than in Bulgaria and
Romania. This suggests that the first three societies will probably make faster
progress in developing their democratic and market institutions than in the latter.
(1995: 150)
28 The relations as they existed during communist times have a profound impact on
the post-communist order, see Kubik (2003); for the relation of the populist-nation-
alist phenomenon and the emergence of democracy in Eastern Europe, see Blokker
(2005).
29 Alternative programmes can of course consist of illiberalism and anti-Europeanism
and, therefore, threaten current efforts of democratization and further integration,
see Holmes (2003) and Tismaneanu (2002). In most Eastern European countries,
however, the impact of such movements is intra-systemic (moving within democracy)
rather than anti-systemic (refuting democracy as such), see Blokker (2005).
30 Kennedy (2002) makes some convincing, but preliminary, steps towards a critical
theory of transition which explicitly acknowledges difference. He argues for a critical
opening up within `transition culture', that is, to develop a critical theory of tran-
sition, which explicates possibilities for emancipation and alternative projects of
transition.
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 2 1
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 Paul Blokker has a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence, and
is currently a Research Associate at the University of Trento. His doctoral research
was on `Modernity and its varieties: a historical sociological analysis of the
Romanian modern experience'. Currently, he is working on local development and
social capital in transition countries, European cultural diversity, constitutionalism,
and the European Constitution. Address: Viale A. Volta 139, 50131, Florence, Italy.
[email: paulus.blokker@iue.it] 
Blokker Post-Communist Modernization 5 2 5