Three Paths of Transformation in Post-Communist Central Europe

Abstract: The social transformations following the "gentle revolutions" of 1989 had profound effects upon East European societies . Many texts emerged analysing "post-communist transition" as a phenomenon, but they were usually based upon experience of one, or a small range, of countries and generalising from them. However, since that time divergent paths of transformation have emerged between these post-communist countries. Here we concentrate upon 10 post-communist countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Belarus. From this range of countries we can discern three main paths of transition in terms of political, social and economic transformations. They are the Central European path, the Eastern European path and the Southern European path. Although political and economic transformations have been relatively well documented, there has been less information about social transformation in any systematic or comparative sense. In this paper, we draw upon indicators of social transformation using longitudinal survey data in order to explore ways in which social transformation can be explored in comparative perspective.;