Communism and the Emergence of Democracy

Harald Wydra is University Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St Catharine's College. He is the author of Continuities in Poland's Permanent Transition (2001).

Review of the hardback: 'This original and powerful interpretive account of important political transformations in the twentieth century applies, in a creative fashion, the theory of fluid conjunctures to the understanding of communism and the emergence of democracy. Harald Wydra argues that understanding political transformations needs to take into account the social experiences of people in the chaotic historicity of extraordinary situations. Such situations have a logic of their own, which guides action and produces acts of signification that sustain and express the formation of political consciousness.' Michel Dobry, Professor of Political Science, Sorbonne University, Paris

• 1. Communism and democracy - a problematisation; Part I. The Experiential Basis of Communism and Democracy: 2. Revolutions, transitions, and uncertainty; 3. The political symbolism of communism; 4. Experiencing democratic transformations; Part II. Critical Events and their Symbolisations: 5. The rise of Bolshevik power; 6. The emergence of the Cold War; 7. The articulation of dissidence; 8. The collapse of communism; Part III. Democracy as a Process of Meaning-Formation: 9. The power of memory; 10. The future that failed; 11. Democracy as a civilising process.