Post-peasant progressivism as a kind of populism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 1989, the dominant characteristics of civil society in Eastern Europe have been associated with voluntary activism and organizations located between the state and the sphere of the household, mushrooming especially in the urban setting and pursuing what has been teleologically projected as the climax of post-socialist consolidation: secular-liberal cosmopolitan democracy. Apparently non-civil, illiberal, or even reactionary citizens’ actions and associations have been developing alongside those cultivating liberal democracy. Our Slovak examples show that to identify existing civil society in the societies of Eastern Europe, the bulk of whose inhabitants are post-peasants – rural and nominally urban citizens valuing and practicing the country life – we need to pay attention to the populism that we call post-peasant progressivism, mobilizing the autochthonous civil society in and of the country. The dividing line between reactionary and progressive elements of this village civility is blurred from the perspective of the dominant characteristics of Western civil society, but the potential of this rural civil society for progressive transformation remains high in these post-peasant communities.