Late State Socialism: Consolidation, Legitimization, and Reform from Above

Abstract

Seeking to consolidate the state socialist framework of government, individual regimes developed, in dialogue with social scientific research, peculiar disciplines of state socialist governance and authoritarian socio-technics. With the help of political economy, socialist jurisprudence, political sociology, or “prognostics,” late socialist regimes tried hard to stabilize their rule. At the same time, knowledge production catalyzed from above gave rise to a critical potential that caused a majority of the experts to endorse wholeheartedly first perestroika and glasnost coming from the Soviet Union and later also the radical break with the state socialist political system. Another effort to boost the failing legitimacy of the regime was a reconfiguration of national communism. Whereas the earlier, “liberalizing” variant was turning to the liberal nationalist tradition for inspiration, linking the cause of individual and national liberty, the later, “homogenizing” version drew more on the romantic nationalist identification of the ethnic Other as the oppressor.