13. The Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Jack Bielasiak, Indiana University, bielasia@indiana.edu

The 2008 theme of categories and global inequalities is especially pertinent to the communist and post-communist world. First, conceptual boundaries must be reconsidered in an environment where communist power exists along market economies, where transition politics leads to open and closed polities, and where commitments to equality meet the forces of globalization and separatism. Second, the construction of categorical understandings must confront the interactive effects of multiple hierarchies; differences that reach well beyond the structure of politics to encompass identity and symbolic meanings or the reproduction of social and economic practices.

The division therefore encourages the consideration of diverse forms of inequality, be it based on ethnicity, gender, status, wealth or political access, in single country, cross-national or varied temporal settings. Proposals that examine the cross-fertilization of political, social, cultural, and economic privilege or marginalization under the impact of globalization and transnational forces are of particular interest, as are papers and panels that consider local, national and international strategies to redress inequalities, foster social justice, and facilitate political inclusion. As in the past, the section is committed to the scholarly pluralism of comparative politics and welcomes paper, panel and roundtable proposals from all theoretical and methodological schools of political science.