Sociologies in Post-Socialist Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards Conceptual and Analytical Framework

While sociology shows continued interest in its impact on the real world, there is virtually no research on its impact on one of the major recent transformations, namely the post-socialist one in Central and Eastern Europe. Aiming to fill this void, this chapter sets the conceptual and analytical framework for research on the topic. We suggest the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) as the starting point, with a view to focus on how sociologies (re) create social, political, and economic imaginaries and thus formulate a particular conception of society. CPE provides the tools to explore evolutionary mechanisms and selectivities that produce hegemonic discourses. We then present results of preliminary empirical exploration, which revealed two key dimensions shaping the impact of sociologies—status of the profession and transformative power—and on this basis, develop four ideal types of sociologies’ role in societal transformations: activators, voyeurs, fellow travellers, and marginals. We conclude with four temporal phases with respect to the challenges faced and topics covered—the nascent phase, the reflective phase, the reorientation phase, and new crises and challenges—and two modes of sociology that are changing over time: sociology as a crisis science and sociology as a reflexive science.