1989 en tant que mouvement social

In: Revue d'études comparatives est-ouest: RECEO, Band 32, Heft 3, S. 5-21

Abstract

The events of 1989, frequently referred to as a "velvet revolution", in the countries of the former Communist bloc should be analyzed as an exceptional course of historical processes rather than as a regular historical law of transformation and tran sition. When dealing with these events, Western scholars have too often forgotten that politics is a function of culture; and culture, a function and production of structural processes at the very heart of society. The connective thread running through the tapestry of 1989 connects politics and society. It thus draws attention to the cultural underpinnings of structural processes, to the processes involving identity politics and cultural symbolism, as well as emotional and spiritual responses to everyday situations. In order to increase the explanatory power of an analysis of these events, we should focus on the perpetual, frequent and prevalent elements of social action, and not just on the exceptional ones.