Introduction

Summary

Here we introduce the main themes of the book. First, we argue that 1989 was not the beginning of the region’s globalisation but rather the confirmation of a choice of a capitalist, Western democratic form. Second, we assert the need for a less Eurocentric approach: the story of the Westernisation of Eastern Europe is in fact a global story of exchange, circulations, and re-imaginings. Third, we critique the ‘West to the rest’ framing of the story of the 1989: rather, we contend that globally engaged local elites were key players in this regional reorientation in a long-term process that lasted from the 1970s to the 1990s. To this end, the book charts how the values which would eventually underpin the neoliberal, liberal democratic and European-facing settlement emerged within elite and oppositional cultures, as part of interactions between Eastern Europe and the world, during the late Cold War. Last, we explore the ‘other 1989s’ – radical, populist, or authoritarian: these stories were hidden in the liberal celebratory culture that once surrounded the transformation, but had legacies which returned to haunt post-Communist politics and culture.