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Research Office
13 December 2018

Is the Transition Over?

“Transition” has become a convenient trope or “buzzword” expressing both uncertainty and hope. It means not only the passage from one place or state or set of circumstances to another but also a sense of clarity, sadly missing, about this passage. On 6–7 December, a joint colloquium, organised as part of the Institute’s cooperation programme with the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), explored the multiple shades of this concept. The event was placed under the scientific responsibility of Honorary Professor Andre Liebich, who sums up below the gist of the various interventions.

The conference that launched the colloquium was given by Ranabir Samaddar, Distinguished Chair, Calcutta Research Group, and former IWM fellow. He approached the question of transition through a critical postcolonial viewpoint, pointing out that it is easier to speak of transition in political terms than in terms of political economy. Transition, he argued, is a condition rather than a period.

Almost thirty years after the fall of communism, countries of the former Soviet bloc, notably Hungary and Romnia, discussed respectively by former IWM fellows, Professor András Bozóki of the CEU and Dr Mihaela Herbel of Babes-Bolyai University, are still sometimes referred to as “in transition”.

The colour revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa have engendered what is sometimes referred to as a transition towards regimes more in keeping, or perhaps not, with Western norms. The “transition” there in general was treated by Professor Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, head of the International History Department at the Institute. The Tunisian experience was covered, in somewhat more optimistic terms, by Dr Zuzana Hudáková, of the Institute’s Global Governance Centre and a former fellow at the IWM. Professor Cyrus Schayegh, of the Institute’s International History Department, chaired the session giving a historical and Iranian dimension to the discussion.

In the third panel, devoted to India, Dr Adil Khan, McKenzie Fellow at the Melbourne Law School and formerly of the Institute and of the IWM, and Professor Shaila Seshia Galvin, of the Institute’s Sociology and Anthropology Department, both dealt with agrarian transformations as part of the country’s transition.

The last panel, on China, was chaired by Professor David Sylvan, of the Institute’s Political Science Department. Dr Ling Li, of the University of Vienna and a former IWM fellow, outlined the elements of party control over the politics of transition in China, whereas Professor Sungmin Rho, of the Institute’s Political Science Department spoke of the economic crisis in China, provoked, inter alia, by a growing labour shortage.

Professor Shalini Randeria, of the Institute’s Anthropology and Sociology Department and rector of IWM, served as chair of the India session. She pointed out that transition was a global phenomenon affecting not only those parts of the world discussed here but the world as a whole. Her point will be recalled by all the participants in this event.

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