https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755231206291 Cultural Sociology 1–8 © The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/17499755231206291 journals.sagepub.com/home/cus White But Not Quite: Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt: A Rejoinder By: Ivan Kalmar, University of Toronto, Canada Email: i.kalmar@utoronto.ca White But Not Quite proposes an innovative theoretical framework, introducing some new notions and building on others now being developed by a growing community of progressive researchers. I feel deeply honored that some of the most important among them have agreed to participate in this symposium. I am grateful to Bolaji Balogun for convoking this group of accomplished scholars, as well as contributing to the symposium himself, and I am thankful to Cultural Sociology for publishing the resulting conversa- tion. 1 The book’s topics range widely. No reviewer could be expected to cover them all. Nor am I able to respond to everything in all of the five reviews, each of which presents a distinct perspective. What I will do here is outline the main goals and analyses of White But Not Quite, articulating these with the reviewers’ comments and questions in mind. Eastern Europeanism The focal point of the book is what I call ‘Eastern Europeanism,’ a set of discourses and practices that establish and express western superiority over, and domination of, ‘Eastern Europe.’ I liken Eastern Europeanism to discourses of colonial domination, and refer to it as a form of racism. Illiberalism in Central Europe is a misguided reaction against Eastern Europeanism. It is a revolt that is itself racist. The first task faced by the book is to dismantle the assumptions of Eastern Europeanism. Like all racisms, Eastern Europeanism typically (though not always) flattens difference, so that the individuals, the groups, and the regions targeted by it are imagined as all the same. One example is the uncritical lumping together of Central and Eastern Europe. I begin the book by countering this Eastern Europeanist insensitivity to difference, by detailing Central Europe’s distinctive history and ideological projects (chs 1–3), and then by examining the empirical evidence of its economic, cultural, and political difference from the rest of ‘Eastern Europe’ (ch. 4). The data do show that in many important ways Central Europe is similar to areas of ‘Eastern Europe,’ but the demonstrable similarities are not enough either to generate a consistent East–West divide, or to place Central Europe squarely on the eastern side of such a divide. Often, East–West difference is pro- duced not by the evidence, but by confirmation bias. 1206291CUS 0 0 10.1177/17499755231206291Cultural SociologyBook Review Symposium book-review 2023 Book Review Symposium: Rejoinder