III - Back to Europe? Post-1989 transformation and pathways to the future

Summary

After its mid twentieth-century detour, its revolt against the West, Central and Eastern Europe has settled down to a post-communist transformation characterized by a return to Western values and the parliamentary democracies' road to an export-led modernization (integration into the world market with an emphasis on exports), both of which it had abandoned at the beginning of the century.

Privatization, the transition to a market economy, and the laissez-faire, anti-isolationist policies of the early post-communist years, have caused dramatic economic and social set-backs. Is Central and Eastern Europe a worthy candidate at this point for full and equal membership in the European Union, for successful integration into the world market and the community of civic societies?

Can the poor peripheries follow the road of the rich core with any degree of success, or will corrective measures be necessary? Can the peripheral nations ever ‘enter Europe,’ or are they doomed to remain on the outside, in the backyard of the European Union or an all powerful Germany? Will market democracies prevail or will autocratic nationalisms lead to new uprisings? In other words, does history move forward or in a circle?

Not only did each of these prospects seem possible at various points in the early transition years; they are still indicative of possible, greatly divergent futures for Central and Eastern Europe's countries or subregions.