INTRODUCTION

This chapter develops the main theoretical argument of the book, an inductively derived and historically based “experiential” approach to societal continuity and change. This dynamic approach treats individuals as agents who make choices based on their prior experiences and their ongoing reinterpretations of those experiences. It focuses on the creation and reinforcement of social patterns in the communist and post-communist periods. Since the purpose of this chapter is not to conduct a literature review, I do not supply extensive citations or references. Moreover, although I explain the basic causal logic of the experiential approach in this chapter, I develop it inductively throughout the rest of the book, within the specific context of this project and its findings.

The starting point and core of this book is an empirical finding on civil society in post-communist Europe. As I will develop and document more fully in subsequent chapters, the essence of this finding is that post-communist citizens have extremely low levels of membership and participation in voluntary organizations today. Moreover, when compared to that within other regions in the world, the variation among post-communist countries is relatively small. Within post-communist Europe, the similarity in levels of organizational membership is especially striking in light of the wide political, economic, and cultural differences among the countries today. In order to understand the common weakness of post-communist civil society, we need to consider the common elements of the communist experience and its enduring legacy.