Workshop: "Experts in Transition: Political Epistemologies of East-Central Europe, 1980s–2000s"

9–10 July 2026 | Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana

In recent years, research into experts and expertise under state socialism has evolved from national case studies embedded within broader narratives of ‘Cold War expertise’, through to transnational histories of knowledge production, and on to a renewed appreciation for detailed descriptions of the political, social and epistemological contexts of expertise as developed within and for the purposes of socialism. In particular, research in social history and the history of labour, the history of science, and intellectual history has been examining the role of experts in the political economy and class structure of socialist countries in the region. This has also inspired efforts to revisit the conceptual and theoretical approaches to expertise, drawing on the historical legacies of anti-capitalist political epistemologies from East Central Europe. At the same time, new research has focused on the 1980s and 1990s as part of broader processes of transformation, combining perspectives on shifts in global capitalism and the development of international expertise with accounts of political, economic and social change in the semi-peripheries and theories of elite transformation. Taking stock of this scholarship and bringing together approaches developed by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie research project “Trans/Socio: Transnational Sociology and Concepts of Social Expertise in Eastern Europe, 1970s–2000s” (Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana) and the project “Political Epistemologies of Central and Eastern Europe” (PECEE), the “Experts in Transition” workshop explores expertise at the end of state socialism in East Central Europe from three interconnected perspectives. Focusing on socialist experts, the experts of transition, and expertise after the end of socialism, we examine different understandings of the expert and the role of expertise through periods of transformation.

Download the programme here.