Re-enchanting Modernity in the East and West: Comparative Perspectives on the Legacy of 1968. An Author Meets Her Reviewers: A Symposium

From the Editors

No good scholarship should go unpublished. Yet, in the field of journal publishing, it happens constantly. We do not mean here rejections of fine papers due to poor judgment by editors. This happens—although we want to believe that EEPS does not often fall into this trap. Here instead we refer to scholarship generated within the institutionalized process of peer review. Writing an assessment of a paper submitted to a journal is a form of scholarship. Yet reviews are only read by a handful of readers: a couple of editors and the author or authors of the work being evaluated. Of course, not all reviews are truly fine scholarship. Many, perhaps most, are limited to a series of loosely organized remarks and comments. But, quite often, a reviewer goes out of his or her way to engage with the author in an intellectual debate. This sometimes takes the form of mentoring, in the most noble sense of this concept. And because both reviewer and author are anonymous, status and seniority become irrelevant, making such mentoring truly egalitarian. Sometimes the back-and-forth between the referee and the author — who enjoys the privilege of accepting or rejecting suggestions and of submitting his/her rebuttal of reviews—takes the form of a conversation that in itself constitutes scholarship that is worthy of a much broader audience. Lastly, in some instances, what a reviewer sends to the editors is an essay so well written and so thoughtful that it could be instantly forwarded to the printer.

As the editors of EEPS, we often lament the fate of our reviewers. They are hardly ever properly rewarded or even recognized. Academic institutions tend to ignore this service to the profession in job evaluations and tenure or promotion processes. Some journals occasionally publish, as a form of recognition, a list of the scholars who contributed reviews for a given volume. At EEPS, we have decided against this practice, as it might potentially lead to the disclosure of a referee’s identity (e.g., when the number of experts in a subfield or a geographic area or language is so small that they must know each other, if not in person then by reputation). Reviewers receive little tangible compensation for the time and effort invested in a review. To be fair, SAGE, EEPS’s publisher, offers for each completed review sixty days’ complimentary online access to all the journals it publishes (and there are many) and a 25 percent discount on all SAGE books ordered online. For our colleagues based in the region, whose institutions can seldom afford online journal subscriptions, this may be an opportunity to acquire published articles. However, most scholars in western Europe and North America usually have access to these journals through their institutions anyway.

At EEPS, we have recently instituted a new practice. After reaching a final decision—reject or accept—on a manuscript, we send a note to the reviewers, with all the reviews, still anonymous, appended. This at least gives the reviewers an insight to the editorial process and some satisfaction that their efforts contributed to the outcome (or frustration, if their recommendations were not followed). We are negotiating with SAGE to institutionalize another practice: providing reviewers with a PDF copy of the reviewed article when it is published online. We would prefer to do it ourselves, with a personal note, but given the volume of published articles (about sixty per year) and the constant flow of new submissions (more than two hundred per year) this is simply not feasible.

Such are some of the considerations that led to the idea of publishing this symposium. When we first received and assessed Nina Witoszek’s submission, “Re-enchanting Modernity in the East and West: Comparative Perspectives on the Legacy of 1968,” our initial reaction was quite similar to that expressed by David Ost in his review (see below). The manuscript does not conform to the structural requirements that we typically demand from research articles (and that we preach in workshops, as Ost reminds us). Its research questions are presented very broadly. They are not anchored in a specific body of theoretical considerations; rather, the author engages literature on many diverse subjects in a manner that often presumes the reader’s knowledge of these works. Key concepts remain undefined and/or unreferenced. The choice of sources is unbalanced: on the Eastern side, they come almost exclusively from Poland, leaving aside the arguably more consequential Czechoslovak experience. Above all, the case is not tightly argued and supported. Instead, we see the author’s reflections, some quite provocative, some less so. In short, what we received was not a research article but an essay.

It is not that EEPS never publishes essays. We do. During the current editors’ tenure (since 2014), we have published quite a few. Perhaps the most spectacular is the case of a special issue devoted to Václav Havel’s Power of the Powerless, ¹ composed of seventeen short essays. The only other special issues we have published, Whither Eastern Europe? Changing Approaches and Perspectives on the Region in Political Science ² and Class after Communism ³ (the latter guest-edited by Ost), are also composed not of typical research articles but of shorter papers presenting their authors’ reflections. Most other essays we have published were commissioned by us. Such was the case with the special section “Expectations, Surprises, Disappointments: Past Editors of EEPS Reflect on the Post-1989 Developments in the Region.” ⁴ In a very few cases, we have accepted unsolicited essay submissions (see “Is Liberal Democracy Already History?” by Elżbieta Matynia ⁵ or “Weasel Words and the Analysis of ‘Postcommunist’ Politics,” a symposium edited by Michael Bernhard ⁶ ).

But more often than not we have resisted publishing essays (Irena Grudzińska Gross alludes to this in her comments below). An academic journal applies criteria to an essay that are different both from those applied by literary and cultural magazines and those that journals use for research articles. The journal editors must balance the value of the essay itself, that is, the quality of writing, but above all the message (how important is it? how universal? how durable in time?) against the expectations of our multidisciplinary and international audience. A beautifully written essay on a matter of limited significance may find a better place in a literary magazine. Opinions expressed in a commentary on current events are unlikely to stir heated debate when published with us, given the journal’s long production cycle. An essay on an issue of paramount importance in a given locality, requiring an intimate familiarity with the context (cultural, political, social, legal, etc.), is unlikely to arouse the interest of a broader audience. Publishing such a piece would do disservice to the author and the cause he or she represents, as the message, no matter how sharp, insightful, and well argued, would likely be underappreciated or misunderstood by unprepared readers—if not outright ignored.

Enter the reviewer. For research papers, we typically seek two reviewers, one expert in substantive matters, but not necessarily familiar with the (local or regional) context, and the other well acquainted with the context, but also competent in the subject. In the case of essays, reviewers also act as spokespersons for the journal’s audience. The most desirable are scholars who are well-versed in both the substance and the context, but somehow (physically, intellectually, emotionally) distanced from the subject matter. In these reviews, we hope to find an assessment not only of the significance of the topic, the originality of author’s thoughts and the rigor of presentation, but also the universality of the message and the potential contribution to ongoing intellectual debates or the likelihood that the essay would open new ones.

When we decided to launch the peer review process in this case, it was because of the significance and universality of the subject matter. The 1968 generation is slowly leaving the stage, but debates over its legacies rage as never before. Arguably the focal point of these debates is the relationship between the ideas and values of this generation, as expressed originally and evolved over time, as well as the policies promoted and implemented by the sixty-eighters active in politics and the public sphere on the one hand, and the wave of populism surging in the East and the West on the other. EEPS has not ignored these debates. In the November 2019 issue, we published a special section, “Generation ’68 in Poland (With a Czechoslovak Comparative Perspective).” ⁷ The idea came from the editors and we solicited submissions—essays and research papers—from a diverse group of scholars. So the choice of reviewers for Nina Witoszek’s manuscript (in which there are no references to any of the articles in this special section) was easy. We invited three of the contributors, Irena Grudzińska Gross, David Ost, and Kristina Andělová. They made a perfect match here, representing different academic disciplines and, as we expected owing to their diverse backgrounds and personal experiences, equally different perspectives.

Irena Grudzińska Gross herself was one of the key participants in the Polish 1968 movement. Exiled from the country, she entered the milieu of sixty-eighters in the West. Ever since, she has remained an insider of this group on both sides of the east–west divide. Always well informed on developments in Poland, after the lifting of the Iron Curtain she reentered Polish academia, without however abandoning her American academic career (until quite recently she taught at Princeton). She has spoken of 1968-related matters often and forcefully. Trained in literary studies, she has published on a wide range of literary, historical, and cultural subjects. A long-time member of the EEPS editorial board, she immediately preceded the current editors at the journal’s helm. Her 2019 essay was titled “1968 Is Not What It Used to Be.” ⁸

David Ost may be considered, age-wise (born in 1955), a borderline case in relation to the 1968 generation. Born and educated in the United States, he is a political scientist, with a strong sociological bent. He has become one of the top experts on Polish politics and society and on post-communist transitions across eastern Europe. An outsider with a keen eye, familiar as much with the broad background as with the nuances of Polish politics, his numerous publications, many translated into Polish, have become subjects of debate, often heated, there. As a member of American academia, he is also well versed in US intellectual, political, and cultural developments, in particular on the post-1968 Left. He is a long-time member of EEPS’s editorial board, a frequent author and reliable reviewer for the journal, and a mentor at EEPS-sponsored workshops. His 2019 essay, titled “‘Down with 1989!’—The Peculiar Right-Wing Backlash against 1968 in Poland,” ⁹ directly addressed the matter of the relationship between the current outburst of nationalist populism and the legacies of 1968.

Given their experience and intellectual credentials, both Grudzińska Gross and Ost would have made perfect referees for this submission regardless of their contributions to the 2019 special section. As the editors, we felt fortunate that we could consult two current members of the editorial board on a submission that in its form veered away from the usual standards of an academic research article, while addressing issues likely to arouse the interest of many readers. They offered us perspectives anchored in two branches of academia, humanities and social sciences, that typically apply different criteria in the evaluation of academic work. The bulk of the journal’s audience falls into these two categories of scholars.

In our third reviewer, Kristina Andělová, we were looking for—and found—a spokesperson for this audience. Two generations younger than the sixty-eighters, she looks at the legacies of 1968 through the lens of intellectual history. Her research article in the 2019 special section was titled “Czechoslovak Generational Experience of 1968: The Intellectual History Perspective.” ¹⁰ For us, it was important to gauge how the ideas expressed in the essay might resonate with scholars who do research on the subject, out of their own intellectual curiosity, free from any previous emotional, political, or personal entanglements.

From such a diverse group of reviewers, we expected diverse opinions on the manuscript. The reality, demonstrated on the pages that follow, exceeded our expectations.

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We have been considering publication of some exemplary reviews for a long time, both as an educative tool and in recognition of their scholarly value. In fact, there is a precedent. Herbert Kitschelt, the reviewer of the special section “Political Parties in Eastern Europe,” guest-edited by Kevin Deegan-Krause, ¹¹ himself suggested that he would give up his anonymity and submit his slightly edited and expanded comments as a postscript to the section, which appeared in the February 2015 issue of the journal. ¹² The case of this symposium is obviously different. None of the reviewers expected that her or his writing would become public. But regardless of their form, the three reviews taken together present an illustration (as noted by the author herself in her response) of the various ways in which reviewers engage in intellectual debate with an author. It’s not only that Grudzińska Gross is enthusiastic, Ost anything but, and Andělová falls somewhere in between these extremes (incidentally: all three reviewers were invited at the same time). They bring into the debate different disciplinary and intellectual traditions; they place the author’s ideas in different historical and theoretical contexts. Doing so, they demonstrate to the author both the limitations or flaws of the manuscript and its potential and suggestions on how to develop it further, refine, and improve. And, if they push the author in different, maybe even opposite, directions, that is ultimately a matter for the author to consider and resolve. Under normal circumstances, if the resolution results in a revision and resubmission of the manuscript, the debate continues, toward another round of reviews, and, eventually, the final resolution: the editors’ decision to accept or to reject the manuscript.

Our decision to go public with this debate had a twofold objective. The first, fairly obvious, was to offer our audience an opportunity to have a closer look at the peer review process. The need for more transparency in this respect—or even some basic information—has been evident from our encounters with actual and potential authors, reviewers, and readers at workshops and conferences, and in the correspondence we receive. In our judgment, this case provides a perfect illustration of the structure of the process and the many challenges that authors, reviewers, and editors face. From the form of the manuscript, to the discipline-specific expectations of the reviewers, to their application of different intellectual frames of reference—everything is here. Our overriding concern has been to demonstrate our commitment to peer review not as a process that is adversarial in its nature but rather, as Kristina Andělová put it in her comment, “a safe place where all, the author, the reviewers, and the editor, work together and trust each other.”

The second objective is related to our understanding of the mission of this journal. We do not see EEPS as a mere clearing house for scholarly manuscripts, with the role of the editors limited to selecting appropriate reviewers and issuing editorial decisions. In that case, adherence to the research paper template would be the only option. However, we also strive for EEPS to maintain its long-established role as an accessible forum of expression for the community of experts, researchers, and students dealing with matters East European. To cultivate this role, we need to find room on the pages of the journal for debates on the important issues of the day. Our special issues and sections, essay collections, and stand-alone reflections are meant to contribute to this end. Our special section devoted to the legacies of 1968 drew attention to a matter that now, over fifty years after that year of upheavals, deserves—and is receiving—another round of critical evaluation. In the development (reviews and revisions) of this manuscript, we saw an opportunity for another contribution to this debate: a contribution made not just by the author, but the reviewers as well.

We approached the author and the reviewers, asking for their opinion on the project and their consent to make their identities public, with the understanding that this consent could be withdrawn at any time before the publication. After receiving everybody’s consent, we asked the author to resubmit the article in its original form, with only slight edits for forms of expression, not substance, and to submit her response to the reviews. To the reviewers, we also offered the opportunity to make slight edits in the reviews and, after they had seen each other’s reviews, to add a brief comment. Once all the participants were de-anonymized, one of the reviewers had a further reaction, which we decided to include at the end. The outcome: the original paper, the reviews and comments, and the author’s response, are here for you to see. Now it is up to you, the reader, to take a stand—and decide what the next step should have been, if the paper had been resubmitted with revisions: accept? reject? or revise and resubmit one more time?

Krzysztof Jasiewicz      Wendy Bracewell