The Splendor and Misery of Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe.

The resurgence of attention to civil society as a concept of political thought and practice as well as of social science research in the past two decades has been intimately connected to the fall of communism in Europe. In fact, the connection has been so close as to render some of it myopic, not always clear on what it is that one is looking at, what is denoted and what is meant to be achieved by the term ‘civil society’ in reference to the events, actors, and processes preceding, affecting and succeeding the political change in the Eastern block. This paper systematically reviews the various ways in which civil society has been conceptualized and employed in the literature focusing on the past two decades of Central and Eastern Europe, exploring the extent to which certain assumptions underlying the concept have been challenged, explicated, or, conversely, taken for granted. It traces the fluctuating vision of civil society as a tool and as a cause, posited as an explanatory variable and as a dependent variable, but always in connection to transition to and consolidation of democracy, and assesses whether the literature to date has shown the concept of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe to have analytical value-added. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]