In this paper included in the conference “The Language of (Perma)Crisis: Discourses and Politics of the ‘New Normal,’” Ljubljana, 26-27 September 2024, I presented exploratory research on the contribution of sociologists at the articulation of the analytical language on the state socialist period and the transition from socialism in Romania. Specifically, I traced the uses of the concept of crisis before and after 1989 in the main sociological journals of the time: Viitorul social (in the late 1970s and 1980s) and Sociologie românească and Revista română de sociologie (1990s and early 2000s). The 1980s were a period of extreme austerity in Romania, and the social costs of transition were exceptionally high in the 1990s. I asked how these were reflected in expert discourse on crisis, considering the intertwined temporalities of crisis discourse: from the constraints on reflecting the present in the late socialist period, to the retrospective analysis of the recent past in the 1990s, the contemporaneous reflection on the present of transition, and the projections about the future before and after the end of socialism.
Some of the preliminary findings of this research are that:
- Before 1989, crisis discourses were mostly synchronous with the periods of socioeconomic deprivation, but they were geographically removed. 1981 and 1982, the years with the most occurrences of the term crisis, overwhelmingly reference the crisis of the capitalist West. When the term is applied to socialism, a distinction is made, for example, between “growth crisis” (socialist development) and “culture in crisis” (capitalist decline). Non-synchronous discourses on the local context refer back to the interwar period.
- After 1989, there is limited retrospective analysis of late socialist crisis, and the evaluations are mixed. Late socialist crisis is defined as a “crisis of failure” – that is, the inherent inability of socialism to offer an efficient developmental model. Some of the reasons for the post-1989 crisis are found in the socialist period, there is discussion of continuities in terms of social inequalities, but there is also recognition that some of the social problems of the 1990s are not inherited, but the result of transition.
- 1990s crisis discourses are hypersynchronous, peaking in 1993. There is explicit and incessant discussion of contemporary crises especially from 1992: the post-totalitarianism crisis; worsening economic crisis; crisis of values; “transition and reform transformed into a general crisis”; institutional crisis; political crisis; housing crisis; the crisis of the media; poverty and the crisis of underdevelopment. 1993 is the year with the most occurrences, almost double than the second highest, as sociologists advance analyses of the transition program: on the one hand there is criticism of market economy fundamentalism, anti-communism, and the destruction of state power; and on the other hand there is continued discussion of the crisis of failure of the socialist regime.
- There is very limited projective analysis of different scenarios for the future. On the one hand, there were definitely voices critical of the complete discreditation of the socialist period and of the reform measures that discontinued previous arrangements – such as workers’ participation at leadership; and there was almost immediate discussion of the social costs of transition – poverty, unemployment, inequality, decreased quality of life. On the other hand, there was also optimism about change and about the redemptive qualities of crisis: as one sociologist put it, “economic improvement and exiting the crisis will take place in a society built on different laws, principles, and values than the ones of the totalitarian society from which we exit.”