Working Group on ‘Risk, Health, and State Socialism: Central and Eastern Europe, 1950s-1980s’

While much of this historiography has focused on liberal democracies, less attention has been given to how concepts of risk operated in state socialist contexts. Building on recent studies in the history of medicine and health, we invite scholars to join a working group examining risk, health, and medicine under state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. To what extent did state socialist regimes recognize certain health and medical issues as ‘governable’ through risk? What kinds of practices and ideas emerged in response? And were there differences or similarities between state socialist and liberal democratic models of risk in healthcare and medicine? Our aim is to take an exploratory approach to discuss whether, and in what contexts, the concept of risk can be applied to state socialism, and to examine the risk-related practices, ideas, and technologies observed in healthcare and medicine in state socialism.