Practice Theory and Postsocialist Civil Society
Toward a New Analytical Framework
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2236615 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brandon Baca (0000-0001-9844-0941, Heidelberg University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2022-04-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Political Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ips/olab021 |
| OpenAlex | W3196704510 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 17 |
| References cited | 91 |
When discussing postsocialist civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), scholars have predominantly focused on the nonparticipatory and advocacy-oriented activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), effectively narrowing the concept of 'civil society' to that of the 'civic sector.' This actor-focused and normative approach has resulted in a systematic obfuscation of less structured forms of everyday resistance, civic engagement, active citizenship, contentious politics, and social movements, giving only a partial view of civil societies in the region. Through a critical dialogue between state-of-the-art research on postsocialist civil society and the practice turn in international political sociology (IPS), this article postulates an analytical distinction between contentious and compliant practices in order to arrive at a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the ways in which postsocialist civil societies are manifested, enacted, and actualized. On the one hand, the proposed practice turn moves the research agenda away from abstract, universalist, and normative assumptions of what civil society should be in favor of an embedded, contextual, and critical understanding of what it actually is; on the other hand, this shift opens venues for theorizing not only about, but also from the 'postsocialist condition' of civil societies in the transnational space of CEE
Citizenship · Civil society · Epistemology · Normative · Political science · Politics · Social movement · Sociology · State (computer science) · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Abortion, mobilisation of feminist movements in Poland and the war in Ukraine
Participatory Democratic Innovations in Southeast Europe
Discursive Construction of Civil Society in Political Clashes
Rethinking Conceptualizations of Civil Societies in and beyond Post-Socialist Contexts
Decentralization in Ukraine
River protection movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia
Resilience from below
Us’ vs. ‘them’
Challenges in building constituency among civil society organizations in Serbia
Who, if not us
Rethinking international intervention through coeval engagement
How do social movements take the “electoral turn” in unfavourable contexts? The case of “Do Not Let Belgrade D(r)own
Explaining the mass protests in Belarus in 2020
Three stages of civil society development in the Global East
Organizing Counterpublics
QAnon and the Epistemic Communities of the Unreal
Enacting Resistance, Performing Citizenship
Russia's economy of favours
Trust and Democratic Transition in Post-Communist Europe
Social Movements in Post-Communist Europe and Russia
Ideology and Social Protests in Eastern Europe
Social Practices
Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in Postcommunist Countries
The Work of Global Justice
Divide and Pacify
The Politics of Small Things
Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory
Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia
The Political Economy of Protest and Patience
International practices
Socially Engaged Art after Socialism
An End to “Patience”?
The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe
International Practices
An Invitation to Critical Sociology
Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe
Democracy and Democratization
Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia
The Power and Limits of NGOs
Frontiers of Civil Society
Social Movements in the Balkans
The Politics of Central Europe
Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina
Civil Society Revisited
Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe
The Informal Post-Socialist Economy
Strangers at the Gates
Rebellious Civil Society
In Search of the Global East
Citizenship in flux
The search for dialogue as a hindrance to understanding
We Are All Beranselo’
Mobilizing Grassroots in the City
Path Dependence and Privatization Strategies in East Central Europe
Changing Patterns of Civil Society in Europe and America 1995-2005
Civilizational Incompetence
Civic engagement in American democracy
The Student's Two Bodies
Performing Resistance
Pink, Purple, Green. Women's, Religious, Environmental, and Gay/Lesbian Movements in Central Europe Today
Weak states, weak societies
A conceptual map of political participation
Activist Citizenship in Southeast Europe
Green Activism in Post-Socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union
Post-Communist Modernization, Transition Studies, and Diversity in Europe
Different worlds of contention? Protest in Northwestern, Southern and Eastern Europe
Transactional and Participatory Activism in the Emerging European Polity
Contentious Politics in New Democracies
Civil Society and the Legacies of Dictatorship
Bad Civil Society
Political Theory, Political Science and the End of Civic Engagement
Making Embedded Knowledge Transparent
The Legacies of 1989
The Logic of Practicality
Economic inequality and its asymmetric effect on civic engagement
The weakness of postcommunist civil society reassessed
What do we know about civil society and regime change thirty years after 1989
State–society relations in contemporary Russia
Civil society and the state intertwined
What Are the Origins of Political Trust
Political participation and civic engagement
Un-civil society
Eventful Protest, Global Conflicts
Political space and the space of polities
On Critique
Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization
The Sociology of Critical Capacity
Toward a Theory of Social Practices
Politics between justification and defiance
Pragmatic sociology
From Reproduction to Transformation
Things of Networks
Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization
Theory Must Not Go on Holiday. Wittgenstein, the Pragmatists, and the Idea of Social Science
Returning Struggles to the Practice Turn
Interpreting the Organizational Practices of North American Democracy Assistance
Ten Years of IPS
On Justification and Critique
Thinking between the Posts
| Unique citing works | 17 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |