From 'Civil Society' to 'Europe'

Grażyna Skąpska Ph.D. (1978) in legal sciences (sociology of law), Polish Academy of Sciences, is Professor of general sociology and sociology of law at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. She has published extensively on postcommunist transformation, including privatization of state-owned property, restitution of property rights, dealing with the past human rights violation, implementation of the rule of law after the collapse of communism.

• Introduction: The Objectives of this BookConstitution and constitutionalism: a sociological approachPostcommunist dilemmas and sources of popular frustrationTheoretical backgroundEmpirical context Prologue: Between “Civil Society” and “Europe”: Round tables in East Central Europe as Political and Legal Events Round tables as political events Round tables and the legality of the transformations Constitutional outcomes of round tablesConsequences of the round tables in subsequent changeChapter OneA Constitution as a Theory of Society within Society Postcommunism critiquedConstitutional instrumentalismThe “Empty Space” proposition as justification of constitutional instrumentalismNon-fictive, context-bound reflexive constitutionalism A constitution as a theory of society within society Constitutional instrumentalism versus the reflexive approach to the constitution Chapter Two Stalinist Constitutionalism Typical features of Stalinist constitutionalism Theoretical foundations of the Stalinist political system Axiology of Stalinist constitutionalism System legitimization: the unarticulated social contract and negative constitutional consensusStalinist constitutionalism and the need for a new constitutional semantics Chapter Three In Search of a New Semantics: Discursive Resources of Postcommunist ConstitutionalismRecent constitutional history: the context for democratic constitutionalism Recent constitutional history in its narrow sense The return of civil society, reintroduction of morality, and renaissance of history in the public sphere after the Gulag experienceInterpretations of the rule of law The Eastern European syndrome: a brief outline of difficult legacies, old and new The semantic endowment of the new constitutions Chapter Four Settling Accounts with the Past and the Dilemmas of the Law-Governed StateThe constitutive potential of the difficult past: the right to truth, to remembrance, and to restitution of property rights as part of identity restoration Two legacies of Stalinist totalitarianism Structural and mental legacies of the semantics used to legitimize state crimes Legacies of mass scale expropriations Knowledge as power: the paradoxes of democracy and model approaches Dilemmas of the law-governed state principle “Alienating justice” or a positive constitutional consensus? Chapter Five Dividing the Cake: The Constitutionalization of Economic OrderPrivatization in the eyes of economists and sociologists Institutional optimism and sociological realism Anarchy, semi-legalized anarchy, and blurring the line between state-owned and private propertyThe constitution versus mundane economic processes after the collapse of communism in East Central Europe Conclusions: written constitutions and emerging realitiesSumming up: Thirteen Theses on Postcommunist ConstitutionalismAppendix OneElection participation in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and SlovakiaAppendix TwoReferenda participation in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia Appendix ThreeTrust in governments and courts Appendix FourComparison of Evaluations of Democracy and Market Economy in Action is Particular CountriesBibliographyIndex