Appunti sulla transizione democratica dell’89

Abstract

The concept of transition has been a strategic tool to explain and give political foundation to 1989. Using it to characterize in real-time that period of history, historiography (following political science) has built a formidable key to understanding and regulating the present and the future: the transition of post-communist societies towards liberal-democratic regimes is thus shown as – more than a simple process or the origin of a set of processes – a unitary and global fact, historically necessary. Through analysis of its application to history, the essay reflects on the politically active function performed by the concept around ’89, with its intrinsic ambiguities and epistemic fragility. The function, fundamentally rhetoric and persuasive of that model, however, has already appeared evident immediately after ’89, especially in the profound differences in timing, manner and content highlighted by the processes of socio-institutional transformation in several countries in transition; the result has been the questioning of political transitological science itself. Nevertheless, today that representation retains again all of its strength in public discourse.