State Socialist Experts in Transnational Perspective. East European Circulation of Knowledge during the Cold War (1950s–1980s): Introduction to the Thematic Issue

Abstract

State socialist experts were at the center of Eastern Europe’s internationalization from the mid-1950s until 1989. They acted as intermediaries between their states and other national, regional, and international environments. The contributions integrate national milieus within broader frameworks mostly circumscribed by inter- and nongovernmental specialized organizations (the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe; the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; International Theater Institute, or the un Commission on Population and Development). The issue is an innovative initiative to identify within four fields (economy, demography, theatre, and historical studies) state socialist experts’ contributions to international debates and institution building. We argue that these groups were fundamentally characterized by their transnational dynamism. The resultant forms of mobility and transfer resituate specific systems of knowledge production from Eastern Europe within the larger story of postwar globalization. The collection also includes an anthropological study about the internationalization trajectories of lower-ranked professionals and the resilience of their expertise ethics after 1989. Socialist experts’ mobilities can be circumscribed at the intersection of multiple phenomena that defined the postwar: national settings’ impact on inter- and supra-state interactions; Cold War politics; the tribulations of international organizations; and global trends determined by the accelerating interconnectedness of the world and decolonization. Our findings de-center established narratives about the Cold War and they show how representatives from the East participated in and sometimes determined the conditions of Europeanizing and globalizing trends in their respective fields within particular organizations.

Socialist fragments East and West: Towards a comparative anthropology of global (post-)socialism

“…However, while some have analysed the extent to which the boundary between 'socialist' and 'capitalist' practices is much more fluid than is commonly assumed (Pine, 1998;Yurchak, 2006) and how socialist forms and practices endure in post-socialist contexts (West and Raman, 2009), there has been little attempt within anthropology to make 'socialism' itself a point of comparison across the boundary dividing a putatively 'capitalist ' West and 'socialist' East. The literature which attends to the global mobility of socialism and the interconnection of capitalist and socialist modernities provides a starting point for such a project. Via accounts from the fields of economy, demography, theatre and historical studies, Iacob et al (2018) show socialist experts' contributions to international debates and institution building in the post-Second World War era. Other researchers have been interested in analysing the contacts and knowledge transfers within international organizations (Iriye, 2002), and between socialist countries and the so-called 'developing' or 'Third' world (Apor and Iordachi, 2013;Sluga, 2013).…”

“…The literature which attends to the global mobility of socialism and the interconnection of capitalist and socialist modernities provides a starting point for such a project. Via accounts from the fields of economy, demography, theatre and historical studies, Iacob et al (2018) show socialist experts’ contributions to international debates and institution building in the post-Second World War era. Other researchers have been interested in analysing the contacts and knowledge transfers within international organizations (Iriye, 2002), and between socialist countries and the so-called ‘developing’ or ‘Third’ world (Apor and Iordachi, 2013; Sluga, 2013).…”

Social science and Marxist humanism beyond collectivism in Socialist Romania

“…Hungary in Fleck, Duller, and Karady, 2019). Reflection on the intertwined history of knowledge in the social sciences East and West has been articulated especially in studies of economic thought that have either investigated the co-production of neoliberalism or the history of collectivist economic ideas (Bockman, 2011; Gagyi, 2015; Kovács, 2018); as well as in scholarship that has taken a transnational perspective to knowledge production (Iacob et al , 2018; Marks and Savelli, 2015).…”