Postsocialism is the academic study of states after the fall or decline of socialism, especially in Eastern Europe and Asia. The "socialism" in postsocialism is not based on a Marxist conception of socialism but rather, especially in the Eastern European context, on the idea of "actually existing socialism". Scholars of postsocialist states maintain that, even if the political and economic systems in place did not adhere to orthodox Marxist ideas of "socialism", these systems were real and had real effects on cultures, society, and individuals' subjectivities. Scholars of postsocialism often draw from other theoretical frameworks like postcolonialism and focus especially on the evolution of labor relations, gender roles, and ethnic and religious political affiliations. The idea of postsocialism has also been criticized, however, for placing so much emphasis on the impact of socialism while the term socialism remains difficult to define, especially if extended beyond Eastern Europe.
Overview
Postsocialism focuses on the lasting cultural and social effects of actually existing socialism, and how the legacies of socialism interact with the free-market or neoliberal policies of the 1990s. As an analytical framework, postsocialism emphasizes the importance of the socialist state and provides a critical perspective on the “Western economic and political forms” that arose in its place. Although the terms postsocialist and postcommunist are mostly interchangeable, postcommunism focuses more on the institutional and formal changes, whereas postsocialism is generally more concerned with culture, subjectivities, and everyday life.
Postsocialist scholars, like postcolonial theorists, are concerned with the tensions between Western scholarship, including their own, on the regions they study and the local scholarship. Postsocialist scholars have framed some of their studies in response to structural models projecting a “transition” between a socialist state and a democratic market economy. Postsocialist scholars criticize these studies, known as “transitology,” for being teleological, based excessively in Western ideas, and simplistic. Instead of "transition," postsocialist scholars prefer to describe “transformations” resulting from the end of socialism, avoiding the implicit endpoint contained in “transition” and allowing for many different changes to happen simultaneously and in complementary or contradictory ways.
Some postsocialist scholars, like Katherine Verdery, posit that the turning point of 1989 should be considered a turning point not just for formerly socialist states but for the world more broadly, because the existence of these “socialist” states was central to geopolitics, global economics, and to the self-definition of non-socialist states as well.
Postsocialism and academic fields
Postcolonialism
Like postsocialism, postcolonial theory provides a critical perspective on the cultural and social legacies of a hegemonic system, focuses on continuities through periods of structural political change, and critiques mainstream Western scholarship. Scholars of postsocialism such as Katherine Verdery, Sharad Chari, and Jill Owczarak, have all explored the potential overlaps between postsocialism and postcolonialism and the ways that these theories can inform one another.
There are some key differences between postsocialism and postcolonialism. First, although influential thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire wrote texts during the height of decolonization, postcolonial studies emerged as a field largely in the 1980s, while postsocialism emerged in the mid-1990s, only a few years after the fall of most communist states. Owczarzak claims that postcolonialism has a clearer theoretical grounding while most studies of postsocialism are geographically unified because they focus on Eastern European states. Notably, Arif Dirlik had developed the concept of postsocialism in the context of Chinese studies prior to the fall of socialism in Eastern Europe, but did so based on a significantly different definition of postsocialism.