Borders Breached: The Transnational in Eastern Europe since Solidarity

• Published in: Journal of modern European history 2010-01, Vol.8 (2), p.179-195
• Main Author: Kenney, Padraic
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cold wars; Communism; Hidden Paths within Socialism; International borders; Political protests; Political revolutions; Post Communist period; Postcommunism; Social movements; Solidarity; War
• ISSN: 1611-8944; 2631-9764
• DOI: 10.17104/1611-8944_2010_2_179

This article reconsiders the history of the late Cold War and the early post-Cold War eras as shaped by transnational forces. It proposes an understanding of the transnational as created by individual and group actors crossing borders and engaging in diffusion of ideas, styles and methods of political action. The era centred around 1989 differed, in its transnationality, from the preceding era of protest in 1968, when interactions across borders were less important than were common structural factors in accounting for coincident activism. From the mid-1970s, international agreements, economic migration and the conscious decisions of local actors and social movements facilitated the emergence of a network of activism in Eastern Europe; this network is one of the most important features of Communism’s demise. Since 1989, the imprint of that network can be seen in subsequent democratic transformations, in the changing attitudes of Europeans toward their neighbours, and even in the discourse surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq.