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The 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe and the subsequent transitions have commonly been interpreted in political terms, as movements towards democracy, or in economic terms, as escape from the command economy towards the free market. We revisit the problem to suggest a different reading. We argue that in the legitimization crisis of real socialism, a pivotal role was played by the burden of social oversaturation and bureaucratic arbitrariness, which met its desired alternative in social imaginaries of impersonal, objective social system. For the citizens of Central and East European countries, this fantasy was matched by the promise of the free market, which was morally contrasted to the experience of daily life under late socialism. We argue that this desire to escape from arbitrariness to objectivity is a particularly strong motive in the imaginary of modernity which found one of its historical manifestations in the disappointment with real socialism.

The democratic legitimation imperativeof the modern state has been conceptualised as the barrier that stops the environmental state from developing into a green or eco-state–and thus as the glass ceiling to a socio-ecological transformation of capitalist consumer democracies. Here, I suggest that this state-theoretical explanation of the glass ceiling needs to be supplemented by an analysis of why democratic norms and procedures, which had once been regarded as essential for any socio-ecological transformation, suddenly appearas one of its main obstacles. I conceptualise the new eco-political dysfunctionality of democracy as one dimension of a more encompassing legitimation crisis of democracy which, in turn, has triggered a profound transformation of democracy. Ultimately, exactly this transformation constitutes the glass ceiling to the socioecological restructuring of capitalist consumer societies. It changes democracy into a tool for the politics of unsustainability, in which the legitimation-dependent state is a key actor.

To garner the necessary legitimacy to enact a future final status peace agreement with Syria or the Palestinians, Israeli politicians from the Left & the Right have endorsed the concept of a peace referendum. This article examines the potential consequences of a peace referendum in Israel by drawing on the referendum experience in Northern Ireland regarding the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In the case of Northern Ireland, the legitimization of the agreement required not only a clear majority of votes cast but also a clear majority among Protestants: and 'ethnic majority.' Given the similarity of the discourse surrounding a peace referendum in Northern Ireland & in Israel, it is clear that a referendum in Israel would similarly require an ethnic Jewish majority to legitimize a peace agreement. Under these circumstances, rather than legitimizing peace between Israel & its neighbors, a referendum would be more likely to result in a broad legitimation crisis for Israeli democracy by deepening the ethnic tensions between Israel's Jewish majority & its Arab minority. Hence, in contradistinction to the conventional wisdom, Israel would be well advised to avoid the use of a peace referendum. 1 Table. Adapted from the source document.