Editor's Introduction

since 1988, social research has published 20 issues that have explored political transitions occurring in various countries and regions in the world. The series began with two issues examining Central and East Europe on the cusp of the dramatic changes that led to and accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Those were times of great optimism and even euphoria over the unexpected collapse of the Soviet empire and the promise that democracy would flower where totalitarianism and oligarchy had reigned. Most of the issues that followed were prompted by changes that seemed to promise greater democracy and respect for human rights, as with our 2005 issue, "South Africa: The Second Decade," and our 2012 issue, "Egypt in Transition."

Alas, it will be news to no one that we are now living in far darker times, and the trend in many places around the world—from Hungary, Turkey, and Poland, to China, Brazil, Venezuela, and here in the United States—is in the opposite direction. So, while in this most recent examination of political transitions, we asked our authors to examine political trends in countries that we looked at earlier in the series, the current trends appear to be towards increased inequality, repression, and a diminution in respect for human rights rather than towards increasing freedoms.

The current issue is inevitably limited in scope and fails to consider many countries—for example Turkey or Latin American states—where these trends are painfully evident, but it does include papers on several Central and East European countries and Russia, as well as Iran, China, Egypt, and South Africa. Perhaps in the near future we will be able to extend our focus and address many of the other places in the world where the changes taking place are also in what seems very much the wrong direction.

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in addition to papers focused on the transitions we are now witnessing, this issue includes a talk given by Jan Gross on his receiving the 2019 Courage in Public Scholarship Award from the Transregional Center for Democracy here at the New School for Social Research, accompanied by the introductory remarks given by Ira Katnelson. The paper given by Jan Gross recounts and seeks to explain the grievous failure of the Poles to acknowledge the large part they played in the slaughter of Jews during the Second World War, and so seems an appropriate addition to this issue on darker times.