This was a one-day conference at the end of November (26th) that discussed the nature and legacies of the immediate aftermath of communism’s demise in East-Central Europe. The year 1990 was crucial for the evolution of post-communist countries, setting the pace of their evolution towards democracy and market economy. The conference aimed at taking the stock of the transformations starting in 1990 and placing the evolution of the different countries in a regional comparative framework, outlining both the similarities and the different factors & options which led to divergences during the 1990s.
The conference dealed with the following issues: Reinventing Politics? From Dissidence and Protest to Representative Democracy and Party-Building; Communist Elites in the Post-Communist Transition(s); Economic Transformation(s); East-Central Europe between East and West in the early 1990s; Narratives of Identity in the Early Post-Communist Transitions; Constitutional Change in Post-Communist Countries. The invited scholars discussed these issues starting either from a national experience and then placing it in a comparative context, or from a regional approach which were then enriched by reference to national evolutions.
