Political and public engagement as topological boundary-making: a critique of ‘Deficit’ approaches in post-communist CEE

ABSTRACT

The attitude of citizens of the post-communist countries of the CEE region towards public and political engagement is described in the literature as deficient: characterised mainly by civic and political passivity, disenchantment or withdrawal to the private sphere. We challenge this narrative and use the example of Czechia to show that not only ‘deficits’ are present, but also that people have a different understanding of what is political. We point to strong technocratic attitudes in CEE and show that technocratic attitudes are associated with restricted views of political, pushing many issues into the non-political but morally conceived territory of engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Social topology
• post-communism
• engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Czech Science Foundation (Grantová Agentura České Republiky - GAČR). Grant number: 19-06841S.

Notes on contributors

Tomáš Dvořák

Tomáš Dvořák, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the Department of sociology (FSV UK, Charles University, Czech Republic). He focuses on topics such as political participation, political parties, populism or direct democracy. He recently published in journals such as Political Studies or Local Government Studies.

Jitka Wirthová

Jitka Wirthová, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the Department of sociology (FSV UK, Charles University, Czech Republic). She works in the sociology of agency, knowledge, and education. Her research focuses on the of politics of expert knowledge and its consequences for engagement in public issues. She has published on relational sociology and social topology of agential patterns. She is coeditor of a the special Issue on Nationalism and Populism in Education in European Educational Research Journal (EERJ).