Table of Contents

Authors' Note
11: Late State Socialism: Consolidation, Legitimization, and Reform from Above
11.1: The raison d'état of 'really existing socialism'
11.2: National communism: Liberalization or neo-Stalinism?
11.3: The dilemmas of perestroika reformism
12: Political Thought in Exile
12.1: Ideological, generational, and institutional cleavages
12.2: The intellectual battle with communism
13: Dissidents and Opposition Movements
13.1: The emergence of dissident discourses and subcultures
13.2: Dialogue and empowerment
13.3: The identity politics of the dissidents
13.4: Toward a self-limiting revolution
PART III: Farewell to Modernity? Thinking Politics After the' End of History'
14: Velvet Revolutions and the Thorny Paths of Transition
14.1: Visions of democratic transformation
14.2: The ambiguities of the 'liberal consensus'
14.3: Coming to terms with the past
14.4: Church, religion, and democracy
15: 'Rebuilding the Boat on the Open Sea'
15.1: The dilemmas of state-building and constitutional reforms
15.2: The specter of ethnopopulism
15.3: Modes of coexistence
16: In Search of a New Ideology
16.1: The 'culture wars' of the 2000s
16.2: Radicalizing democracy
16.3: Centers and peripheries

About the Author

Balázs Trencsényi is Professor in the Department of History, Central European University Budapest. His research focuses on the comparative history of political thought in East Central Europe and the history of historiography. He is Co-Director of Pasts, Inc., Center for Historical Studies at CEU and Editor of the periodical East Central Europe (Brill). His publications include A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe: Volume
I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (with Maciej Janowski, Monika Baar, Maria Falina, and Michal Kopeček, OUP, 2016), The Politics of 'National Character': A Study in Interwar East European
Thought (Routledge, 2012), Whose Love of Which Country?: Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in Early Modern East Central Europe (Brill, 2010), and Hungary and Romania beyond National Narratives: Comparisons and Entanglements (Peter Lang, 2013).

Michal Kopeček is Head of the Ideas and Concepts Department at the Institute of Contemporary History in Prague, and Co-Director of Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. His publications include A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe: Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (with Balázs Trencsényi, Maciej Janowski, Monika Baar, Maria Falina, OUP, 2016), and Quest for the Revolution's
Lost Meaning: Origins of the Marxist Revisionism in Central Europe, 1953-1960 (forthcoming Brill, 2018). Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič is a PhD candidate at the program in Comparative History of Central, Southeastern and Eastern
Europe at the Central European University, Budapest. His main fields of interest include intellectual history, nationalism, and history of political thought, with a focus on European peripheries and semi-peripheries. He co-authored a volume on modern radical ideologies ( Utopije demokracije, ZNK Masovna, 2005), and edited a volume on humanism in contemporary social and political thought ( Blodnjaki smisla: misliti humanizem danes, DHG, 2007). He is the editor of the Slovenian
quarterly journal Razpotja.
Maria Falina is Lecturer in Modern European History at Dublin City University. Her main fields of interest are intellectual history, nationalism, and history of religion and politics. Her publications include A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe: Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (with Balázs Trencsényi, Michal Kopeček, Maciej Janowski, and Monika Baar, OUP, 2016), and articles such as 'Between "Clerical
Fascism" and Political Orthodoxy: Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism in Interwar Serbia' in Totalitarian Movements & Political Religions (2007) and 'Religion Visible and Invisible: The Case of Post-Yugoslav Anti-War Films', in
C. Schmitt and L. Berezhnaya, eds. Iconic Turn(s): Religion and Nation in East European Films after 1989 (Brill, 2013).
Mónika Baár is Professor of Central European Studies at the University of Leiden. Her research focuses on modern historiography, cultural history and political thought, with special attention to the problem of marginality. Her publications include A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe: Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (with Balázs Trencsényi, Michal Kopeček, Maciej Janowski, and Maria Falina,
OUP, 2016), and Historians and the Nationalism: East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century (OUP, 2010). She is Associate Editor of Nationalities Papers.
Maciej Janowski is Head of Section at the Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw and Visiting Professor at the Central European University, Budapest. His main fields of interest are social and intellectual history of Central Europe and the history of liberalism. He is editor of the periodical East Central Europe (Brill) and Deputy Editor of Kwartalnik Historyczny. His publications include A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe:
Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (with Balázs Trencsényi, Michal Kopeček, Mónika Baár, and Maria Falina, OUP, 2016), and Polish Liberal Thought before 1918 (CEU Press, 2004).

Reviews

[the reader] will receive something like a universal formula encompassing the history of the region's political thought from the eighteenth century until the present ... The merit of this book is that it has introduced -- hopefully for good -- a whole series of previously-missing links into international academic discourse ... it is really worthwhile to read this weighty work.
*Maciej Górny, Acta Poloniae Historica*

The History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a brilliant book. It combines the intellectual history of Central East Europe with the regions political, sociological, and legal past for the first time. It is based on a very deep knowledge of the individual development of the various nations of East Central Europe and brings them together in a new, original, and innovative synthesis.
*Martin Schulze Wessel, Professor of Eastern European History, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich*

An ambitious collective endeavor by leading scholars of the post-1989 generation to revisit the key issues and rediscover the leading figures shaping the main currents of political thought in twentieth-century East-Central Europe. Its major contribution lies precisely in the transnational approach to the subject, providing a complex historical narrative and original insights into the political cultures of the region and their lasting relevance. Required reading for those who want to understand the intellectual background to the main political trends coming from East Central Europe today.
*Jacques Rupnik, Director of Research, Sciences Po, Paris*

Together these volumes constitute an extremely valuable and up-to-date treatment of political thought in East Central Europe, a region that now plays an outsized role in the broader zeitgeist. Covering the crucial period from 1968 to the present, this last volume comes at an auspicious time. It is a must-read not only for field specialists, but for any thinking individual seeking to understand our contemporary moment.
*Holly Case, Associate Professor of History, Brown University*