Skhidna Yevropa yak laboratoria sotsialnykh nauk

Sociologists had been facing tremendous difficulties in conceptualizing the changes in Eastern Europe after 1989. The politically attractive concept of transition turned out to be a scientific blind alley. It only superficially took the varieties in societal development into account. The fashionable concepts of cultural trauma or civilizational deficits neglected the structural dimensions of change. A return to long neglected concepts of society and societal change became unavoidable. Concepts of societal transformation took the lead in the efforts to describe, explain and eventually prognosticate the ongoing processes. However, it became increasingly clear that the focus on the transformation of particular societies did no more correspond to the social situation and the needs of social sciences. Methodological societalism had to be replaced by methodological globalism. The present paper exemplifies this methodological and theoretical shift by focusing on conditions, manifestations and effects of four global trends: upgrading the rationality of organizations, individualization, spreading of instrumental activism and universalization of value-normative systems.