Open AccessPost-socialism: conceptual evolution and future perspectives. A critical analysis
Author(s) -
Cosmina Elena Mihalcea
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
sociologie românească
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2668-1455
pISSN - 1220-5389
DOI - 10.33788/sr.19.2.8
Subject(s) - cognitive reframing , socialism , capitalism , epistemology , sociology , meaning (existential) , social science , political science , philosophy , law , social psychology , psychology , communism , politics
Burawoy (1999), Eyal (2001), Berdahl (2006), Cervinkova (2012) and others have proposed the concept of „postsocialism” as a way of describing the gap between socialism and capitalism. But, in a world marked by “rearrangements, reconfigurations and recombinations that yield new interweavings of the multiple social logics” (Stark, & Bruszt, 1998) what does postsocialism entail? This article aims to provide an overview of the different perspectives regarding the meaning of postsocialism, by bringing together and examining ideas represented in the theoretical literature. Starting from the idea of reframing the understanding of the past, this analysis explores postsocialism, as a process, from four perspectives: imitation, involution, emergence or zombie socialism. The critique serves as a starting point for future directions in postsocialism conceptualisations, in order to better understand the present based on the past.