Politics With a Human Face ― Identity and Experience in Post-soviet Europe

Politics with a Human Face presents a holistic understanding of political identity formation in post-Soviet Europe, arguing that since politics is fundamentally a human affair, in order to adequately understand politics, and especially political identity formation, one needs first to understand its human side.

Drawing on the thought of Plato, Dilthey and Gadamer, the author employs empathic understanding as an inductive approach, together with visual and historical analysis, to inquire into the role of human experience in post-Soviet politics. As a result, the book offers a theoretical premise for assessing the role played by non-rationalistic factors, such as associative symbolism, human experience, political images and historical narratives, in both domestic and foreign politics.

A study at the juncture of politics, sociology, philosophy, history and anthropology, Politics with a Human Face explores a number of cases, including Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia, as well as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, examining issues of liminal transition, ‘far-right’ movements, victimhood, ethnic conflict and political paradoxes. Seeking to shed light on the region’s agency and perception of both its own political and existential situation, and that of the surrounding world, this book constitutes a timely and original contribution to understanding post-Soviet European politics.

Arvydas Gri?inas is a researcher at Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.