New Edited Volume from Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Susann Worschech, and Jeffrey C. Alexander

Written By Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky

We’re happy to share a new book edited by our colleagues Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Susann Worschech, and Jeffrey C. Alexander: Post-Transformation and the Civil Sphere in Central and Eastern Europe.

About the Book

Post-Transformation and the Civil Sphere in Central and Eastern Europe offers a distinctive examination of civil society and democracy in a region shaped by the legacies of state socialism, democratic transition, and profound social change. Drawing on Civil Sphere Theory and introducing post-transformation as a framework for understanding contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, the volume brings together ten case studies exploring polarization, democratic backsliding, memory, emotions, and emerging forms of democratic resilience. Across different national contexts, the contributions examine how civil solidarity is created, challenged, and transformed. Particular attention is paid to tensions between institutionalization and informality, trust and mistrust, and competing understandings of collective “we-ness.” In doing so, the book provides a comparative perspective on how the democratic “software” of Central and Eastern European societies continues to develop against diverse socialist and post-socialist legacies.

About the Editors

Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky is a professor of sociology at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic and Faculty Fellow at Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology in the United States.

Susann Worschech is a social scientist, senior researcher at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany and scientific coordinator of the KIU. Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) – Berlin.

Jeffrey C. Alexander is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Yale University in the United States, founder and Director Emeritus of Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology, and co-editor of The American Journal of Cultural Sociology.

Jaworsky, B. N., Worschech, S., & Alexander, J. C. (Eds.). 2026. Post-transformation and the civil sphere in Central and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-26519-7

Table of Contents

  1. Post-transformation and the Civil Sphere in Central and Eastern Europe

    1. From Civil Brothers to Anticivil Others

    2. Societalizing the Energy Crisis

    3. Transformation as Incorporation

    4. The Polluting Colony

    5. From Ideals to Reality

    6. Deliberative Innovations and the Civil Sphere

    7. Metamorphoses of Civil Solidarity in Wartime

    8. Literature in Dialogue with the Civil Sphere

    9. Surva Winter Carnivals, Civil Repair, and Nested Solidarity

    10. Polarization, Moral Binaries, and Antagonistic Emotions

    11. The Struggle Between Liberal Democracy and Illiberal Autocracy

Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky

Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky is associate professor of sociology at Masaryk University, Brno (Czech Republic), and Faculty Fellow at Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology. She is a cultural sociologist in the tradition of the Strong Program, who focuses on the meaning-making process in her research on international migration. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her M.A., M.Phil., and PhD from Yale University. Recent books include The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration (with Carlo Tognato and Jeffrey C. Alexander, eds., Palgrave, 2020) and Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice (with Victoria Shmidt, Routledge 2021), Besides civil sphere theory, her current research focuses on in-depth cultural sociological analysis and reconstruction of public issues such as perceptions of migration, and the cultural sociology of conspiracy theories.

https://www.cstnetwork.org/jaworsky-bio
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