Collective Images of the West in Postcommunist Countries and the Process of Enlargement of Community Space

Extract

The fall of the Communist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and their commitment to social, political and economic reform, represent two aspects of a deep process of social transformation. As in all socio-political transformation which overturns the previous political and economic order, this process needed to develop an ideology and a concrete image of the future in order to mobilize their populations, to invent that certain political rationality which is indispensable for bringing reform to a successful conclusion, and to produce a certain coherence in the changes which occurred in the various fields of life in society. Unlike the preceding revolutions which had gradually nourished hopes for a better life and had expanded the horizons of human possibility with difficulty, movements towards democracy in the former Communist countries found an almost ready-made model.