1st Edition

The Meaning of Liberalism - East and West

Edited By Zdenek Suda, Jirí Musil Copyright 2000
280 Pages
by Central European University Press

The Meaning of Liberalism provides a new perspective on the continuing debate about how liberalism should be defined and what it means in countries with an established parliamentary system, particularly in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. The key question this book addresses is: will the specific experience of communism and its aftermath give birth to a new distinct current... Read more
Foreword, Introduction Part 1. Contemporary State of Liberal TheoryCitizenship & moral individuality, Liberal values, Liberal guilt & the disaster for politics, Liberalism, value & social cohesion, Value of liberalism, Communitarianism in Practice: The Threat to Individual Rights from the Imtitutionalist Interpretation of the German Basic LawPart 2. Liberalism in the WestLimits & the crisis of liberal politics, Social & cultural problems in contemporary Europe: On Recent Challenges to Liberal Ideas,Two dilemmas of liberalism, Historical Exhaustion and Internal Division in a World of Globalization, German difficulties with liberalism: A Historical OutlinePart 3. Liberalism in the EastThe Burdens of the PastLiberalism in Central Europe after 1989, Can Weak-State Liberalism Survive? Neo-Liberalism, Post-Comniunist Transformation, and Civil Society, Constitutional Transformation in Post-Communist Central Europe: A Liberal Revolution Law, Tradition and Liberalism in Practice: Quo Vadis, East Central Europe, Contributors Name, index

Biography

Zdenek Suda is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing mainly in branches of political sociology with focus on Central and Eastern Europe, and the sociology of work and of education. He also devoted considerable attention to the problems of modernization and globalization.

Jirí Musil is Professor of Sociology at the Central European University in Budapest and Warsaw and at Charles University in Prague. He was the first Academic Director of the Prague College of CEU. He is a member of the “Academia Europea” and “Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea” and a founding member of the Czech Learned Society. His main professional fields are urban and regional sociology and sociology of culture.