The Challenges of Double Transformations in East Central Europe and their Failure in Local and Regional Contexts – Eastern Galicia as an Example
Through the collapse of Empires and the following (nation) state foundings, nationalism experienced a turning point. Democracy formed the core of the regime legitimation of the new nation states in East Central Europe after World War I. Hence, the building of nation states and democratization were two intertwined processes in Eastern Europe. too. De-imperialization in East Central Europe consisted of the tightly interwoven processes of democratization and nation formation: these “double transformations” were basic with regard to state building, but the claims for nationalization lead to a less intensive democratization. So, we can observe a failure of democratization beyond the highest level of state hierarchies, which provoked a lack of democracy on the lower levels.
The keynote will consist of two parts: First, it wants to introduce into the concept of “double transformations” and then, discuss the mentioned hypothesis at the striking case of Eastern Galicia.