Att förutsäga framtiden – och förlösa den : En undersökning av den postkommunistiska transitologins idéhistoria och tidsuppfattning

• In this article, the historical roots and philosophical premises of post-communist transitology, that rose to prominence during the 1990s, are critically contextualized and analyzed from the point of view of intellectual history and political philosophy, paying attention to the development of the concept of time, and also of history, development, evolution, progress, revolution, and acceleration. The idea about regime change is accordingly reconstructed and traced through the political philosophy of Greek antiquity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, as well as in biological thought and debate of the 19th century, in the modernization theories of the 1950s and in 1970s and 80s “transitology” dealing with Southern Europe and Latin-America. The analysis takes it point of departure in a comparison between post-communist transitology and cold war sovietology and critically assesses implications of teleology, chronocentrism and ethnocentrism.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Idé- och lärdomshistoria (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- History of Ideas (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Transition

Transitology

Teleology

Time

Intellectual History

Sovietology

Kremlinology

Historical Studies

Historiska studier

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)