Conclusion

Abstract

Where do the troubles of liberalization emanate from? This book states that the elitist and disaggregate course of liberalization generates the troubles. Morally-justified-yet-elitist nature of liberalization and simultaneous liberalization of economy and politics that promotes the former at the expense of the latter relate to these troubles. Therefore, this book presents a detailed account of how the liberal course of regime change, the transformation to democracy and market economy, as well as Europeanization has followed an elitist pattern and promoted policies and rhetoric that demoted the provision of welfare. Influential political actors, such as ex-dissidents or ex-communists, have been integral to this course of change in the CEE states, but not the public. On the one hand, the involvement of ex-dissidents who then became the new politicians gave legitimacy to transformation. On the other, the ex-communist later leftist politicians’ embrace of liberalization and Europeanization substantiated progressivism. In this way, the political elite imposed conditions of change on the public, while taking their support for granted. In the end, the insular and moralized shape of liberalization qualified liberal attempts to bolster hegemony on, first, what is moral and democratic and, later, on what is progressive and European.