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The study of (post)socialism has always had a complicated relationship with comparative education. Tracing the changing emphases of research on (post)socialism during and after the Cold War, this chapter highlights how (post)socialist studies moved from being highly politicized during the Cold War, to becoming subsumed by convergence and modernization theories after the collapse of the socialist bloc, to reemerging as a part of broader “post” philosophies reflecting the uncertainties and contradictions of social life. This chapter proposes to treat post-socialism not only as a geographic area, but also as a conceptual category that allows us to engage in theorizing divergence, difference, and uncertainty in the context of globalization. It is a space from which we can further complicate (not clarify) our understanding of ongoing reconfigurations of educational spaces in a global context, and ultimately challenge the evolutionary scheme of thought and established concepts of Western modernity. For comparative education and social theory more broadly, post-socialism can thus become a challenge (or an agenda) for future debates – whether theoretical or methodological – about global processes and their multiple effects on education and societies today, in the past, and in the future.

This chapter examines the changing state–university–student relationships in post/socialist China since the late 1980s. We begin with an introduction to four salient themes in scholarship on Chinese post/socialism that are highly relevant to higher education: globalization, gradualism, civic society, and a critique of holism. These themes help us explain interrelated educational trends that affect the state–university–student relationship: the globalization, “massification,” and stratification of higher education; the redefined role of the state in university governance and management; higher education marketization and privatization; and the quest for meaning and (e)quality in and through higher education. Our general argument is that during the “socialist” period the main relationship central to higher learning was between the state and students. Universities were agents of the state; from a legal point of view, indeed, universities did not have an independent status from the state. In the “post-socialist” era the university–student relationship has become more significant. We examine this reconfiguration through two case studies, one on the development of college student grievance and rights consciousness, and the other on reforms in higher education student services administration. When looked at from the point of view of the state, we see that appropriation and implementation of policies and regulations shaping student rights and services are in partial contradiction with state policies to accelerate economic growth and bolster party authority. From the point of view of universities, we see institutions grappling with how to deliver on forward-looking structures and actions while navigating between the state's policy mandates and growing expectations and demands of its student and business stakeholders. From the point of view of students, we see how constrained agency, uncertainty, and the power of the credential motivates social praxis. At all levels of the state–institution–student relationship actors are employing a kind of pragmatic improvisation (one of the salient features of post/socialism) captured by the well-known Chinese proverb “groping for stones to cross the river.” This saying is an apt metaphor for the tentative searching by state, institution, and individual for a safe foothold in the post/socialist world.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenge of interpreting the growth in arbitrage opportunities at the Ukrainian‐Romanian border within a rural Ukrainian border community. The author illustrates that whilst the proliferation of economic activity through the border has provided a boost to the local economy, it has also led to the development of discursive performance around these practices within rural Ukrainian communities, which both mitigates the potentially negative impacts of economic growth in Romania and also reflects emerging views of consumption as a cultural competence.

The paper draws on more than 18 months of participant observation in three rural communities on either side of the Ukrainian‐Romanian border between September 2007 and May 2010.

The discursive performance of consumption has emerged as an important means for the production of values amongst the low income households of Diyalivtsi (pseudonym). As part of this performance, the villagers of Diyalivtsi differentiate themselves from their Romanian neighbours through critical analysis of Romanian consumption practices, which are viewed through the prism of cross‐border economies.

This is one of the first papers to consider how the diverse economies of post‐socialism are (re)performed in the communities in which they have become embedded. Rather than seeking to theorise or quantify cross‐border economies and the practices of trading and consumption, it illuminates the social aspects of them for rural Ukrainian communities.

This paper represents an editorial for this special issue on “Surviving post‐socialism”, with a particular geographical focus on countries located in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In total, six articles are included in this special issue, which seeks to contribute to the existing body of literature on surviving post‐socialism in general and in particular, across all the papers included, paying particular attention to the role of informal economic relations and practices, as fundamental parts of wider economic relations across the FSU and CEE regions. Whilst the papers included in this special issue demonstrate the richness of empirical data which can be generated, also they demonstrate how authors, located in different academic traditions – sociology, political economy and anthropology – can clearly contribute to debates regarding the role of informal economic relations in a number of theoretical and conceptual ways.

This paper attempts to synthesise the main contributions of the six papers within the special issue and in particular seeks to engage with core questions relating to how the empirical findings in these papers contribute to relevant wider theoretical and conceptual debates.

This paper finds that there is a high degree of linkages between the six papers, in particular relating to the issue of the intermeshing of formal and informal economic spheres.

The value of this paper is that it provides an introduction, overview and clear and concise summary of the remaining six papers in this special issue on “Surviving post‐socialism”, outlining the special issue's core aims and contributions.

This chapter examines Cuba's unique experience of socialism/post-socialism in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Cuban case of post-socialist transformation is extremely instructive, both for what is anomalous about Cuban post-socialism and for what is similar to other post-socialist contexts. Cuba's experience raises a set of questions regarding how social science and education researchers should conceptualize “transformation” and it also suggests that considerable attention to be paid to the ways that change and transformation are represented and contested in the local political discourse. Cuba's unique position vis-à-vis neoliberal and state socialist modes of governance puts lie to any claims that there are any necessary and predetermined “paths” of post-socialist political and economic transition. Cuban education has changed over the past two decades in connection with regime legitimation strategies, projects of national self-determination, and global economic pressures – a combination of interests, actors, and institutions that suggests that it is the particular intersections and trajectories of both “local” and “global” transformations that demand analytic attention in post-socialist, as well as in any other, political, cultural, and social setting.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an important nexus of formal/informal economic activity in Russia: “normative” workers (in waged formal employment) by virtue of a strongly embedded work‐related social identity and characterized by a significant number of weak social ties, move with little “effort” between formal and informal work.

The paper presents extensive ethnographic data from the Russian provinces on workers and diverse economic practices. It utilizes participant observation and semi‐structured interviews from periods of fieldwork over the course of a year (2009‐2010).

This study traces the theoretical debates on the informal economy from 1989 to 2008 and argues for a substantivist position on household reproduction that focuses on the interdependence of social networks, employment, class‐identity and (informal) work. The findings demonstrate significant performative and spatial aspects of embedded worker identity, including the workspace itself as a contested domain, that facilitate movement between formal‐informal work.

The originality of the paper resides in its ethnographic approach to informal economies under post‐socialism and the substantivist evaluation of diverse economic practices in Russia as supported by formal work‐based shared identities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the emerging practices of the “tourism of the ordinary” in the wider frame of post-socialist transformation of Serbia’s capital city – Belgrade. By sourcing the inspiration in cultural studies and classics of the studies of the ordinary, focus is directed to the patterns of tourism consumption of practices, places and people that do not fall in the category of tourism attraction. The attention is drawn to New Belgrade (Novi Beograd in Serbian), residential part of Belgrade built predominantly after the Second World War. New Belgrade lacks proper tourism infrastructure, commoditized attractions and consumerable tourism experiences on a large scale. Nevertheless, this part of the city is slowly becoming explored by tourists individually or in organized walking or cycling tours. Visits to New Belgrade are most often connected to alternative or hip visitors and have the allure of both urban exploration and cultural practice, as the tours are offered by specialist architectural organizations or individual guides. By introspecting the case of New Belgrade, this paper attempts to address the prospect that ordinary exist only in relation to the attraction and that its appeal comes from the fact that what is ordinary to someone is attraction to another.

As far as specific approach is concerned, some archival and librarian materials have been analyzed in order to map the territory that is being researched (New Belgrade) and to frame the significance of potential heritagisation (Harrison, 2013) on the built environment and its territory. Further, relevant websites and both primary and secondary resources have been consulted. This mostly refers to the websites of Tourist Organization of Belgrade (TOB) and the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Belgrade as two most relevant bodies connecting the urban fabric of the city and its tourism valorization.

In this paper, the authors have tried to demonstrate how tourism of the ordinary might be conducted in urban environment that lacks no tangible resources, whose physical physiognomies are not insignificant and which, in another, alternative tourism regime might be considered attractions. However, in the specific set of characteristics spanning from contested past to ambiguous contemporary valorization, New Belgrade remains an uncharted part of the city for much of the mainstream tourism, leaving its charms for very few visitors, most often engaged in interest of the “ordinary.”

Although Belgrade is experiencing steady rise in numbers regarding tourist arrivals, length of stay and on-site expenditure, New Belgrade is nowhere to be seen on the map of tourism offer, as per Belgrade’s Tourism Organization. TOB’s official web page, at the time this piece is written, in the section Attractions, mentions nothing regarding New Belgrade. Among 13 entries – 12 are historic sites of more than a century behind them and one is a lake and outdoor destination.

This chapter explores the case of post-socialist education transformations in Nicaragua. While less commonly known to have been a full participant in the Cold War, Nicaragua's conflict with the United States during the 1980s was underlain by a socialist/capitalist struggle. Education reforms in Nicaragua thus present an important example of a complex interplay between socialism and post-socialism in the context of Latin America. The case of Nicaragua is also significant because of its recent reelection of the same government that was in power during the socialist period, thus reflecting a reemerging mix of capitalist and socialist elements in education. The analysis focuses on important political periods in the last 30 years and responds to the following questions: What are the post-socialist education transformations that have occurred in Nicaragua? And, how have the directions of the reforms been shaped by international, national, and local political and economic factors? Drawing on qualitative policy analysis and interviews with various groups of education stakeholders, the findings highlight three specific dynamics of reforms. These dynamics highlight the complex nature of the reform processes, including the Nicaraguan government's relationship with and the role of international donor organizations, differing notions of “local participation” that signify the shifting role of civil society, and continuities and discontinuities in policy processes.

This article evaluates the coping practices adopted by households in East‐Central Europe following the collapse of the socialist bloc. Drawing upon the New Democracies Barometer (NDB) survey, it is here revealed that although a common assumption is that post‐socialist societies have under gone a transition to greater reliance on the market, an analysis of household coping practices provides little evidence that this is widely the case. Instead, households in most post‐socialist societies continue to rely heavily on a multiplicity of economic practices in order to secure their livelihoods with little, if any, shift over time towards the use of the formal economy in general and the market in particular. The outcome is a call for recognition and appreciation of the heterogeneous economic practices being used by households in East‐Central Europe and for greater consideration to be given to the contributions of the in formal sector in securing livelihoods.

This paper aims to employ the concept of subjectivity taken from Lacanian psychoanalysis and Slavoj Žižek's idea of the law, enabled via its “inherent transgression”, to critique the premises of neolibertarian theory about the market's superior ways of organizing society.

An alternative conceptual framework is being developed and applied to the analysis of the transition from a planned to a market economy in former socialist countries using the example of informal payments in the health system in Russia. The proposed schema builds on the idea of the subject eternally divided between the imaginary conceptions of the self/the other, and the socio‐symbolic order, which is offered to theorize on the role of phantasy in this transformation.

The applied (psycho)‐analytic schema reveals why the totalizing discourse of the market is no less tyrannical and no less totalitarian in its intent than the socialist ideology it opposes. The central argument is how dominant ideologies are made of, and stand for, an unattainable phantasy, as it was demonstrated in both socialism and the market.

By re‐engaging psychoanalysis to understand social and political projects and by unearthing the imaginary underpinnings of the symbolic order, the study argues for considering the phantasmatic dimensions of political and organizational transformations in management studies.