Konvergenzen und Divergenzen in der europäischen Geschichte vom Prager Frühling bis heute

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s, political debates in East Central Europe and Western Europe were influenced by the idea of convergence between the capitalist and the socialist systems that dominated Europe. After 1989, the idea of convergence was replaced by ideas that revolved around the one-sided adaptation of and transformation. Despite the great political and economic success of the transformation process, the concept of an ever closer European Union has lost its attractiveness in East Central Europe. Drawing on current political and cultural debates in East Central Europe, the paper argues that it is the asymmetrical nature of the transformation and the process of Europeanization that is causing new divergences in Europe today.