Political Ideologies in Post-Communist Europe: Consensus or Disunity?

The aim of this paper is to explore the politics of ideology formation in relation to the emerging democracies and market economies in the post-Communist world. It will examine the formation of a multitude of ideological tendencies against the backdrop of de-Communization, marketization, democratization and European integration of the region. The basic premise of this preliminary study is that, contrary to the rhetoric that there is no alternative to a narrow, neo-liberal economic dogma, post-Communist transition has generated a distinctive ideological competition between socialist, neo-liberal and national-traditional concerns. The analysis sheds light on the conditions for the meergence and re-orientation of the various ideological tendencies at the lvel of political practice, and the prospects for consensus-building from the ideological perspective.