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The foreign direct investment (FDI)-led development path of the East-Central European (ECE) countries has been queried most recently. Using mainly the evidence of Hungary and Poland the paper analyses one of the potential reasons of this strategic turn: the struggle between political elites. One elite was bound to the strong presence of multinational business and the institutions of the 'competition state'. Their positions were challenged by another political elite that allied mainly with local bourgeoisie. One main arena of conflicts is the economy where political elites try to widen their influence in order to gain financial support. New forms of rent-seeking and corruption became possible after the V4 accession to the European Union (EU) when the flow of financial aid increased. Aid was channelled to partisan firms in public procurement tenders that made legal corruption possible. Political and social control over this practice declined with the demise of classic program parties' role in politics and the raise of populist 'business firm' political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the embeddedness of János Pilinszky’s work (poetry and journalism) in world literature, and on the integrative, intercultural mediating role of his work, which has so far been only partially discussed by the reception. Seen from this angle, the oeuvre is essentially a European-scale, intercultural, transnational oeuvre, embedded in world literature. The paper analyses also the (East-)Central European references in Pilinszky’s texts, highlighting his interest towards marginality in a broad sense, this interest being reflected most importantly in the author’s rhetorical strategies, in the language of his poetry. The idea of the ‘European’ is also present in Pilinszky’s essays, and it is media- ted, the article argues, through the idea of evangelical aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The radical right party family is the fastest growing party family in Europe. Initial research centered on East Central Europe has shown that radical right parties receive higher levels of support in reaction to the success of parties that support ethnic minorities. However, the strength of radical right parties can vary considerably within a country. This paper breaks new ground by investigating the subnational factors in ethnically diverse East Central European countries that contribute to the vote share that a radical right party receives within a community. We test hypotheses drawn from the literature on ethnic competition, economic deprivation, and institutional constraints using an original dataset to explore subnational variation in support for radical right parties in national elections since 2000 in Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia. Our research yields two main findings about countries with politically mobilized ethnic minority communities: First, radical right support is lower in ethnically diverse subnational units, and second, radical right support increases after ethnic minority parties have been in government in subnational units which experienced economic decline relative to other subnational units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study intends to identify those levels of public sphere at which the public choice seems to be optimal, according to the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, and depending on the scale of public works investments and the historical period, legal context. 20th century Transylvania -- with an area that could comprise in it twice the Belgium's and one whole Netherlands -- being part consecutively of Austria-Hungary, Romania, Hungary (its Northern part) and again Romania (since 1947 People's Republic of Romania) is a good terrain to analyze in the long term the specificities of public administration, public-private investments and the efficiency of public works in different time periods on local, regional and country level, continuing with the comparison of cross-border, trans- and international level public works based on public procurement. The durability and warrant of final product as public goods are also an actual topic, mainly because most of these public goods and historic public buildings approach their lifetime limits and need urgent restoration, nowadays their renovation frequently being financed by the local and state authorities with funds from the European Union's Cohesion or Regional Development Funds. According to a classic Romanian public law and accountability law principle (local-regional) cooperatives had certain facilities in being involved in implementing public works on (local-regional) level without breach in the general law of competition. Based on the local roots of any cooperative and their ideal functioning according to universal principles (democratic structure, delegation of votes, autonomy inside a network or a hierarchical structure with their own supervising and coordinating non-lucrative offices, together with proper financial centers), it was a general rule and many parts in the world it still works as such, except for the neo capitalist oriented former East-Central Europe, where all the preexisting cooperative structures were dismantled and there are no countervailing powers or checks and balances on this market of public works. The historical examples (in a comparative Romanian-Hungarian or Transylvanian Saxon) will surely help in understanding the logic of public procurement policies and investments, works and the efficiency of realizing/ creating public goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of transitional justice appears when authoritarian regimes transform into democracies—a topic that has been studied for many years. One main focus has been the question of the responsibility of the former ruling elite and their subordinates, and in particular, criminal responsibility. After the collapse of communism in Europe, secret police informers were perceived as sharing responsibility, alongside the regime's functionaries. The first steps toward bringing them to justice were taken in March 1990 in Czechoslovakia. The process was called "lustration," harking back to an ancient tradition of cleansing newborns of evil. In the jargon of the Czechoslovak security apparatus, "lustrace" meant checking an individual's secret police records. The best known example of lustration took place in Germany, but the basic idea was carried out in all post-communist Central European countries. This kind of transitional justice was not associated with criminal responsibility, and—except in Poland—the courts were not involved in lustration, which was conceived of as a purely administrative procedure. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, only the Baltic states adopted lustration legislation; in other post-Soviet states, such initiatives failed. A similar situation emerged when Yugoslavia disintegrated, where the ethnic wars overshadowed society's memories of communist wrongdoing. Lustration was unique to post-communist states and was not seen in any other transitional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the case of the interwar Yugoslav Sokol (Sokol Kraljevine Jugoslavije), this article examines the complex relationship between the discourses of organic nationhood and political socialization in what was the largest voluntary association in the country. While Sokol typically projected a vision of itself as an apolitical entity--as it claimed to represent the organic national body--this article will explore the dynamics, as well as contradictions, between such discourses and the socio-political reality they aimed to describe and eventually alter in their pursuit of improving the 'national body.' In conversation with scholarship on the conceptual history of modern East Central European nationalisms, including the social history of ideas and movements and political socialization more specifically, this article provides insight into the contextual, conceptual history of nationhood by focusing on selected thinkers engaged in Sokol, against the backdrop of particular mass practices and modes of political socialization in the organization. The tension between the involvement of the masses in the allegedly apolitical formations and the reality of subjecting them to political socialization en masse provides the central axis around which the argument is organized. The article concludes that their concept of nationhood was intimately intertwined with that of democracy and simultaneously posited against (party) politics and statism. Moreover, it demonstrates that Sokol was rooted in notions of civilizational hierarchies and directly linked to producing modern political subjects for the new Yugoslav state by means of the gymnastic and educational practices they promoted and conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The war in Ukraine has accelerated Europe's decoupling from Russia in the energy sphere. Nuclear energy is no exception. Most East Central European countries traditionally reliant on Russian nuclear technologies and services are diversifying away from Rosatom to seek alternative vendors. This paper analyzes the difficulties and risks associated with the decoupling process. Despite a range of apparently available options, East Central European countries pursuing decoupling may struggle to find both technically competent and (geo)politically viable nuclear energy vendors to fulfill their new-build, maintenance, and fuel supply needs – a concerning scenario given the importance of nuclear energy to the energy security and decarbonization agenda of the region and wider Europe. Avoiding this scenario requires efforts from all actors. First, Western vendors must improve their capacity to deliver viable reactor designs as well as competitive fuel and maintenance services to the region's existing reactors. Second, regional nuclear industry stakeholders must further develop local expertise and equipment manufacturing capacity while exploring non-Western vendor options. Last but not least, local and international political actors must reduce their interference in the technical and commercial process of vendor selection so as not to exclude the most competent suppliers based on their country of origin. • Nuclear-reliant East Central European states are decoupling from Rosatom services. • As favored alternatives, U.S. and French reactor vendors lack key technical capacity. • China has reactor design, equipment, and fuel solutions but is barred by geopolitics. • Stagnation of the regional nuclear sector would harm energy security, decarbonization. • The solution for local actors lies in local capacity and pragmatic vendor selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Kresy' [ borderlands/outskirts ] is a sentimental term used by Poles to denote the lands of today's Western Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. The Polish rule in that region has rarely been discussed in terms of colonialism. In this article, I employ the framework of postcolonial theory within the context of Polish rule in 'Kresy'. The article juxtaposes anthropologist Józef Obrębski's ethnographic writings about Polesia region (a part of 'Kresy' that was polonised in the most extreme manner) with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – a Polish-British author born and raised in 'Kresy', that during his time was subjugated by Russian Empire. The figure of Conrad, whose ambivalent relationship with colonialism was pointed out by many postcolonial scholars starting with Chinua Achebe, becomes a point of departure to think about what Maria Janion describes as 'the paradoxical Polish postcolonial mentality': the ambivalence of being a colonised coloniser. The article is an attempt of contribution to the ongoing debate about identity and dependence in the East Central Europe region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to analyse several concepts that expressed different perceptions about the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The article proves that the choice of terminology is crucial in the discussion of the political and cultural identity of the region. The starting point is the Enlightenment concept of Eastern Europe, which suggested the backwardness and secondary status of this region. This concept is confronted with the concept of Slavophilism, inspired by Romanticism. The article argues that this idea, which initially expressed the ambitions of the region's independence, later became an instrument of Russian imperialism. In the concept of Central Europe, as the article proves, there is a certain ambiguity: on the one hand, it contains elements of German liberal imperialism, a special role, especially economic, played by Germany in this region. On the other hand, intellectuals from this region gave the concept of Central Europe an idealized meaning that still inspires many authors writing about the region. Finally, the author analyses the concept of and East Central Europe, which is most justified by academic knowledge, but does not inspire political imagination to such an extent. In conclusion, the article refers to the relevance of some of these concepts and their interpretative potential, which depends on the current political situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including forced migration in Eastern and Central Europe; multiethnic character of the region, on labor migration and Timothy Snyder's book "Bloodlands" on migration history.

Focusing on the relationship between the access of political parties to direct public funding and electoral support for anti-political-establishment (e.g. populist, extremist) parties (APEp), this article tries to fill an important gap in the literature. Whereas previous contributions, mostly focused on the United States or established democracies in Western Europe, have presented contradictory findings, our study of 19 new democracies in East Central Europe clearly shows that the absence of state subsidies for political parties boosts support for those with an anti-political-establishment character. More importantly, and taking into account the minimum legal payout threshold that grants parties access to public subsidies, our results show that the more restrictive the regulations and the greater the difficulties faced by parties in obtaining state help, the higher the support for APEp. Our findings have obvious implications for the development of post-Communist party systems and the future of legislative (party funding) reform in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late nineteenth century, cities from the Austro-Hungarian, Prussian and Russian Empires gained new importance and developed ambitions to become regional and/or national centres. City museums became key vehicles with which to advance this project. Before 1918, modern urbanism was tightly interwoven with projects of nation building. After the First World War, and within the context of newly independent states, this interdependence between urbanism and nationalism was further enhanced as cities served as national capitals and important representatives of the new state. Providing case studies of Warsaw, Prague, Zagreb, Gdańsk (Danzig), and Gdynia, this special issue examines the modernising role of city museums in multi-ethnic East Central Europe, from the late nineteenth century to the 1930s. It provides important insights into the interplay of modernisation, urbanism, and nationalism, as well as the negotiation of community and identity at various levels. Urban heritage is often regarded as a product of recent postmodern economic and societal changes. Exploring the history of these city museums shows that the uses of the urban past, and the relevance to urban history in the present, have longer historical trajectories. This issue aims to provide the incentive for further, synchronically and diachronically comparative and complementary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: East Central Europe; early modern period; Riga; Vilnius; Prague; coexistence; Counter-Reformation EN East Central Europe early modern period Riga Vilnius Prague coexistence Counter-Reformation 1409 1414 6 10/12/21 20211101 NES 211101 O'Connor, Kevin C. (2019). The subtitle of Central Europe is a bit misleading, as the overwhelming focus of the book involves Bohemia and Moravia, with Prague itself the subject of a number of chapters. East Central Europe, early modern period, Riga, Vilnius, Prague, coexistence, Counter-Reformation As Kevin O'Connor rightly observes, cities such as Riga rarely figure in larger, sweeping accounts of Europe despite their role in such central events as the Northern Crusades and the Hussite Wars. [Extracted from the article]