The Meaning of Liberalism provides a new perspective on the continuing debate about how liberalism should be defined and what it means in countries with an established parliamentary system, particularly in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.

The key question this book addresses is: will the specific experience of communism and its aftermath give birth to a new distinct current of liberal thought, or will it simply enlarge the scope of the Western liberal debate? The authors argue that liberalism cannot be reduced merely to private property and market prices, but needs a very complex set of institutions and corresponding law.

Contributors come from both sides of the former Iron Curtain and they highlight the richness and diversity of liberalism and discuss different perceptions of liberal thinking in the East and West in the post-modern world.

Zdenek Suda is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing mainly in branches of political sociology with focus on Central and Eastern Europe, and the sociology of work and of education. He also devoted considerable attention to the problems of modernization and globalization.

Jirí Musil is Professor of Sociology at the Central European University in Budapest and Warsaw and at Charles University in Prague. He was the first Academic Director of the Prague College of CEU. He is a member of the “Academia Europea” and “Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea” and a founding member of the Czech Learned Society. His main professional fields are urban and regional sociology and sociology of culture.

Foreword

Introduction




Part 1. Contemporary State of Liberal Theory

Citizenship & moral individuality

Liberal values, Liberal guilt & the disaster for politics

Liberalism, value & social cohesion

Value of liberalism

Communitarianism in Practice: The Threat to Individual Rights from the Imtitutionalist Interpretation of the German Basic Law

Part 2. Liberalism in the West

Limits & the crisis of liberal politics

Social & cultural problems in contemporary Europe: On Recent Challenl{eS to Liberal Ideas

Two dilemmas of liberalism, Historical Exhaustion and Internal Division in a World of Globalization

German difficulties with liberalism: A Historical Outline

Part 3. Liberalism in the East

The Burdens of the Past

Liberalism in Central Europe after 1989

Can Weak-State Liberalism Survive?

Neo-Liberalism, Post-Comniunist Transformation, and Civil Society

Constitutional Transformation in Post-Communist Central Europe: A Liberal Revolution

Law, Tradition and Liberalism in Practice: Quo Vadis, East Central Europe




Contributors

Name index