Colonization of the Social Sciences in Eastern Europe

By drafting the professional trajectories of some Hungarian composers in the 19th and 20th century, in the first essay Miklós Hadas outlines the perspectives of Eastern European social sciences, differentiating between four models of modernizing national arts and sciences on the semi-peripheries. Referreing to Béla Bartók’s oeuvre as a model-case, Hadas asserts that a scholar can be capable of contributing to the construction of a paradigm of universal validity starting out from ‘differentia specifica’ of his indigenous topic.
The subsequent essays are organized around a provocative article written by two Hungarian sociologists, György Csepeli and Antal Örkény, and an American political scientist, Kim Lane Scheppele who claim that social science research in Eastern Europe is basically done from Western (mainly American) funds and under the leadership of Western scholars who employ Eastern counterparts as apprentices or informants whatever their reputation is in their home country. The essay uses strong metaphors (AIDS viruses, contamination, colonization) to intice a much needed debate on the status of social sciences in Eastern Europe. 
Three responses follow the article. Rudolf Andorka completely disagrees with Csepeli and his co-authors and argues that there are significant improvements in the conditions for pursuing social scientific research in post-socialist societies and cites abundant examples of successful cooperation between Western and Eastern European sociologists. Zuzana Kusá mostly agrees with the arguments presented in the essay and makes corroborative remarks based on her own experience and institutional perspective. She points out that Slovak sociologists have ceased to exist as an intellectual community; and discusses how macropolitical interests can still interfere in sociological research. 
Alaina Lemon and David Altshuler criticize the opening article for its generalizations and inaccuracies. They argue that the main thesis – on the exploitation of Eastern social scientists by their Western colleagues as mere data-collectors – is inadequate to describe the practice of ethnographic fieldwork. Lemon and Altshuler emphasize the reciprocal theoretical influence: numerous fields in “Western “ social sciences and humanities are indebted to the work of Eastern European scholars. At the end, the authors of the first essay respond to their critics, and acknowledge some of the generalizations they made for the sake of the argument and clarify their points with more detailed examples.