International Conference: Beyond 1989: Childhood and Youth in Times of Political Transformation in the 20th Century

Beyond 1989: Childhood and Youth in Times of Political Transformation in the 20th Century Institute of Advanced Studies at the...

Revolution From Within: Experts, Managers and Technocrats in the Long Transformation of 1989

The programme for our collaborative conference with Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena is now available. The conference will form Imre Kertész Kolleg...

Registration Open for our British Academy Conference: Global Neoliberalism, 7-8 June 2018

Global Neoliberalism: Lost and Found in Translation British Academy Conference 7-8 June 2018 The University of Exeter and 1989 after...

Secret Agents and the Memory of Everyday Collaboration in Communist Eastern Europe

Professor James Mark’s co-edited volume Secret Agents and the Memory of Everyday Collaboration in Communist Eastern Europe is now available through...

The Future of the Past: Why the End of Yugoslavia is Still Important

By Ljubica Spaskovska A new socialist model is emerging in the western Balkans. Can its political vocabulary transcend the ethno-national dividing...

Writing Human Rights into the History of State Socialism

By Ned Richardson-Little The collapse of the Communist Bloc in 1989-1991 is viewed as one of the great triumphs of...

< >

Revolution From Within

Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena Annual Conference

Revolution From Within: Experts, Managers and Technocrats in the Long Transformation of 1989

14 – 15 June 2018
Venue: ROSENSÄLE, FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITÄT JENA, FÜRSTENGRABEN 27, 07743 JENA

This is a collaborative conference in partnership with Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena and their annual conference.

Conference Synopsis

The expression of truth is losing its ethical impact and becoming no more than a historical fact that arouses interest but not enthusiasm. And the experts are better informed and are able to quote facts more accurately than the dissidents” wrote Jiřina Šiklová, a Czech dissident sociologist, in January 1990. Already a few months earlier she had predicted that it would be the professionals and experts from the „grey zone“ between official Party structures and dissident circles, who would necessarily play a major role in rebuilding of the political and economic life after the democratic revolution. Her words were prophetic, yet the „revolution of experts“ remained, for long, in the shadow of the great anti-totalitarian master narrative of 1989 that has dominated historical imaginary both in East and West.

It is this aspect not only of the 1989 revolutions, but of the entire “long transformation” lasting at least from the 1970s until the early 2000s that is at the heart of the conference. Its main aim is to historicize today’s academic as well as political discussions concerning the alleged neo-liberal hegemony which replaced the state socialist regimes after their collapse. The system described as “neo-liberal governance” was made possible not only by imported Western political and cultural patterns, but also by a number of intellectual, mental and socio-cultural continuities from late State Socialism. Experts not only paved the way for the adoption of new policies and analytical frameworks, but also played a crucial role in adapting them to local circumstances – with varying degrees of success.

For the conference we invited scholars, who advance research on the “long transformation” and highlight two topics increasingly prominent in historical research today: First, expert cultures and technocratic governance during late State Socialism and early Post-Socialism; second, the experts, managers, technocrats and their transnational networks and epistemic communities as prominent – though less visible – actors of the liberal (democratic) revolutions of 1989 in East Central Europe. It is our intention to provide an overview, as broad as possible, of different approaches and research perspectives in the given area of study.

Combining perspectives of intellectual and conceptual history, social history of expert cultures, new institutionalist studies, cultural anthropology, history of sciences etc., the focus of the conference is on the creation of expert knowledge, its political implications as well as direct influences during late State Socialism and the liberal democratic regimes after 1989. It concentrates on concepts of social management and social control formulated by scientists and experts, political applications of expert knowledge, and interactions between the technocratic, managerial and expert elites, both at home and internationally, as well as the entanglements of political rule and scientific knowledge and expert skills in dynamically changing social contexts.

Conference Programme

14 June

13:00 // Welcome and Introduction, Michal Kopeček
13:15 // Panel 1: Market Liberalism Between ‘National Sovereignty’ and Globalization (Chair: Eva-Clarita Pettai)
Lars Fredrick Stöcker: Exiting Communism: Visions of ‘Economic Sovereignty’ and the Creation of a National Economy in Estonia 1987–1991
Vítězslav Sommer: Management Theory from Late to Post-socialism
Tobias Rupprecht: Pinochet in Prague: Latin American Neoliberalism and (Post-) Socialist Eastern Europe
Discussant: Philipp Ther

15:30 // Panel 2: Reimagining Europe (Chair: Paul Hanebrink)
James Mark: Europe and its Others: Re-imagining a Continental Space in Late Socialism
Martine Mespoulet: Europe by the Numbers: Social Indicators on Both Sides of the Iron Curtain 1960–1990
Tomasz Zarycki: The De-Spatialization and Europeanization of the Late Communist Imaginary: The Intellectual Trajectory of Polish Geographer Antoni Kukliński
Discussant: Steffi Marung

17:30 Keynote Speech
David Priestland: Regime Change: Market Liberal Transformations in Comparative Perspective
Chair & Introduction: Włodzimierz Borodziej

19:00 Reception (Griesbachsches Gartenhaus)


15 June

09:30 // Panel 3: (Re-)Constituting the State (Chair: Raphael Utz)
Marta Bucholc: Liberal Pedagogy in a Post-socialist Society
Paul Blokker: Building Democracy by Legal Means: The East-Central European Experience
Ned Richardson-Little: Lawyers, Human Rights and Democratization in Eastern Europe
Discussant: Michal Kopeček

11:45 // Panel 4: From ‘Socialist Personality’ to Liberal Individual (Chair: Holly Case)
Agnieszka Kosćiańska: Sex and Self-realization: Psychologizing Intimacy in Late State Socialist Poland
Maik Tändler: Psychological Experts and the ‘Western’ Liberal Self in the Late 20th Century
Mat Savelli: Medical Authority: The Collapse of Yugoslavia and the Rise of the ‘Trauma Society’
Discussant: Adéla Gjuričová

14:30 // Panel 5: Governance and Urban Planning (Chair: Diana Mishkova)
Brian Ladd: Professional Identities and Local Initiatives in a Party State: Late GDR Urban Planning and Preservation
Petr Roubal: Žižkov Battle: Urban Planners Transition from Heritage Protection to Neo-liberal Discursive Planning
Csaba Jelinek: Turning a ‘Socialist’ Policy into a ‘Capitalist’ One: Urban Rehabilitation Experts in Hungary During the Long Transformation of 1989
Discussant: Matěj Spurný

16:45 // Panel 6 – Summary Session (Chair: Joachim von Puttkamer)
Melissa Feinberg, James Mark, Philipp Ther, Joanna Wawrzyniak

→ Conference Programme: Revolution From Within: Experts, Managers and Technocrats in the Long Transformation of 1989

Comments are closed.

[Top]