Theoretic sociology and post-socialism

Abstract

The post-socialist sociology in Croatia is scarcely able to give adequate answers to the pressing questions raised by the latest developments in post-socialist societies. It turns out equally inadequate when explaning the phenomena the Croatian society is beging exposed to at this particular time. The reason lies widely in the fact that societies emerging after socialism cannot be analyzed in terms of established rules and fully grasped categories. Paraphrasing Lyotard's thesis on postmodernism, the article adopts the view that the post-socialist period should be thought of as the paradox of pre-future, since its situation is the one in wich the rules of "what is going to be created" are, at the same time, operating and being made. In the light of such a definition of the social reality of which we only know with certainty that it comes after socialism, it is clear that only theoretical sociology can offer competent explanation of die new "rules in forming" and of their causes, rooted in the previous reality. Therefore Croatian sociology should turn to theoretical analysis of its own premisses, instead of engaging in new and new empiric researches that are always liable to ideological instrumentalizing, and that - in time perspective - speak more eloquently about the initial hypothesis of researcher than of the subject researched.