ABSTRACT
In Eastern Europe theoretical and ideological priorities have been cast in a language rooted as much in a rejection of "real socialism" and its ideological underpinnings as it is in an as yet dimly perceived appropriation of liberal democratic and laissez faire slogans. Citizens' charters of various kinds flourish on the political landscape, and citizenship infects the discourse of parties from all ends of the remaining spectrum. This chapter draws attention to an aspect of this process extant in Eastern Europe where the normal temporal sequence of post-Enlightenment citizenship gains was reversed in the transition from post-Communism. The two most powerful concepts in the political vocabulary of Eastern Europe are those of "civil society" and "citizenship." Critically, the achievement of citizenship is not just the positive attainment of rights but is also about the rejection of a certain type of fusion of rights characteristic of feudalism.
