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The introduction to this special section discusses the state of the art in recent historiography on peace movements during the 1970s and 1980s, and recent attempts to conceptualise Southern Europe as a geographical or political space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines transnational activism by coalitions of national minorities in Europe from the early 20th century to the present, setting this within the broader 'security versus democracy dilemma' that continues to surround international discussions on minority rights. Specifically, we analyse two organisations – the European Nationalities Congress (1925–1938) and the Federal Union of European Nationalities (1949–) – which, while linked, have never been subject to a detailed comparison based on primary sources. In so far as comparisons do exist, they present these bodies in highly negative terms, as mere fronts for inherently particularistic nationalisms that threaten political stability, state integrity and peace. Our more in‐depth analysis provides a fresh and more nuanced perspective: it shows that, in both cases, concepts of European integration and 'unity in diversity' have provided the motivating goals and frameworks for transnational movements advocating common rights for all minorities and seeking positive interaction with the interstate world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what impact the European Convention on Human Rights has made in the post-Socialist environment in Latvia. It looks at various levels: the judiciary, the legislature and the executive, with the aim of identifying areas where the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights have made an impact on the democratisation of the country. It also attempts to explore whether this young democracy may offer fresh input in return for the Convention system. Particular attention is paid to the domestic application of the European Convention on Human Rights by the Latvian Constitutional Court and the Latvian Supreme Court. This is the extended article written for the book The Impact of the ECHR on Democratic Change in Central and Eastern Europe: Judicial Perspectives edited by Iulia Motoc and Ineta Ziemele, published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. It reflects the state of affairs as on 1 January 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security threats Europe is now facing, such as hybrid warfare, propaganda campaigns and information warfare, frequently include a digital dimension. At the same time, digital tools offer an immense potential for change in the European neighbourhood, not least in their ability to equip and inspire pro-democracy protesters, particularly those facing a repressive security apparatus. Digital policy cannot therefore become an afterthought but needs to be deeply integrated into Europe's foreign policy and diplomatic efforts. Furthermore, the US's long-held Internet hegemony is beginning to fade, placing the EU in a good position to lead global Internet governance initiatives and ensure that they develop along open and liberal lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the European Commission has responded to external criticism and demands for the democratisation and reform of the way it uses expert groups in EU policy making. The article analyses the nature and character of the Commission’s dialogue with its critics and the degree and extent to which it was prepared to adapt its existing internal processes and procedures to the reform agenda. Recent theories inform us that organisations respond in different ways to external criticism and demands for reform, including full adaptation, evasion, institutional decoupling and reinterpretation. The main findings suggest that the Commission was not completely resistant to changing its approach to the use of expertise. The Commission reinterpreted its critics’ demands by introducing reforms that defused this external pressure, while protecting the effectiveness of its existing internal ideology and processes. These findings serve to enhance the Commission’s image as an increasingly normalised bureaucracy and reinforce the importance of knowledge and expertise as a key source of Commission legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Mediterranean region was a central geo-political and cultural space of Ancient Europe, its cultural imprint reaching up to the present. Yet, throughout history, and especially at the time of industrialisation, the European 'centre' moved steadily northwards, whilst the south gradually became 'peripheral'. For that reason, the north has exerted a certain centripetal effect upon the south, which has in turn led to the gradual blurring of some of the ancestral links with the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. Yet, democratic transitions (in the literature characterised by a succession of stages - from liberalisation to transition and consolidation), which had occurred in Europe in some cases quite recently, seem now to be emerging around the whole Mediterranean Sea. In general, they are the result of an intricate mixture of typified endogenous and exogenous factors, thus allowing not only for case study research but also for comparative approaches. Mechanisms of diffusion across regional spaces have emerged before in other cases and under common circumstances, resulting in the dissemination of patterns across state borders. Such an effect can also be hypothesised for the Mediterranean region, notably for the potential attraction exerted by the northern border upon the southern border. Departing from a comparative approach that relies upon indicators available in the literature and data from international observers, the paper addresses contemporary démocratisation processes in the Mediterranean region, seeking to identify similarities, differences and eventually dissemination mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas of the rule of law and constitutionalism have become an intrinsic part of any process of democratisation around the world. This was equally the case in the radical changes that occurred in East-Central Europe (ECE) around the year of 1989. The adherence in the region to a form of "new constitutionalism" has been frequently seen as an indispensable contribution to the processes of democratisation. However, in this too little attention has been paid to the dilemmas, tensions and perverse effects that may emerge in the institutionalisation and practice of new constitutionalism, not least in terms of an enduring tension between constitutionalism as an ordering and stabilising device and democracy as an uncertain and indeterminate process of verification of public views on the common good. The experiences in ECE since 1989 with regard to new constitutionalism are ambiguous. It is undeniable that an emphasis on a higher law with entrenched rights and robust constitutional review has involved important "corrections" of certain outgrowths of democratic politics and in this prevented forms of "tyranny of the majority" or the endangering of the guarantee of universal rights. But it is equally true that new constitutionalism has been adopted at a price, not least with regard to the emergence of more widespread, publicly shared constitutional cultures as well as in terms of underexplored potentials of democratic constitutionalism and endorsement of civic engagement in the region. Democratic dilemmas and perverse effects have emerged in terms of domestic tensions, in particular regarding democratic debilitation, but also stem from tensions with legal orders beyond the national arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Post-autocratic transitions are often followed by constitutional conflicts between state powers. With respect to the question of rule of law in young democracies, clashes between the executive and legislative branches, on the one hand, and the judiciary and constitutional courts, on the other, as well as those between ordinary and constitutional courts are particularly virulent. All these conflicts have massively affected the key distinction between politics and law that had been mainly violated in the previous autocratic regimes. Based on Niklas Luhmann's theory, this article presents a systems-theoretical approach in order to explain the occurrence of these constitutional conflicts. The central argument reads as follows: constitutional conflicts between politics and law will occur under two circumstances-- if a constitutional order allows the decision of legal questions based on political criteria or vice versa, and if a constitutional order allows the judiciary or the constitutional court to decide political questions based on political criteria. This argument is further substantiated by means of two exploratory case studies with a special emphasis on post-socialist transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. The main results are eight detailed hypotheses on the question of when, in constitutional orders, and under what circumstances are constitutional conflicts to be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on EU democracy promotion is fragmented into a number of sub-literatures, and this makes it difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding of this area of EU activity. Surveying these literatures and their various strengths and weaknesses is a necessary first step to a fuller understanding of what makes EU democracy promotion work most effectively, a task that is all the more vital given the increasingly challenging global environment that democracy promotion now faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the cooperation of European institutions (the EU, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE) in democracy promotion affects the success of European conditionality on party financing in the East European Neighbourhood. It examines the two major European-level factors, the determinacy of requirements and the rewards, based on the Ukrainian, Moldovan and Georgian case studies and a cross-case comparative analysis before and during Action Plans' period. The paper shows that there exists a European-level influence on party financing changes in line with the European standards set by the Venice Commission. Also, the cooperation of European institutions in democracy promotion contributes to the success of the common European leverage in the field of party financing. Although the EU lacks a specific party financing conditionality in Action Plans, the reference to the standards set by the Council of Europe and the OSCE increases indirectly the determinacy of its requirements and offers domestic elites a clearer picture of its demands. At the same time, the EU's merit in the joint European influence on party financing lies in its increased leverage on aspiring European members, even in the case of low credibility of EU membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been paid in the recent scholarly literature to Europe's old religious conflicts - particularly those that stem from the Reformation. Yet for a long time religiously informed conflict was the principal source of internal state division and the major perceived threat to state stability and security. This article looks at the institutional changes and cultural renegotiations that allowed traditional religious oppositions, rivalries and conflicts to fade in most contemporary European societies. Focusing on the Czech, French and Irish cases, it argues that neither modernisation, democratisation nor secularisation were enough to resolve deep-set tensions. The long-term resolutions involved a restructuring of polity and nation in a way consistent with minority, as well as majority, culture. In the past - and perhaps also in the present - such opportunities were rare and demanded choice, strategy and political fortune. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political science has been detached from philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular. The latter has also ‘celebrated its purity’. But should political philosophy cooperate with empirical political science? This article argues that since political philosophy is part of the study of politics, if it does not cooperate, political philosophy might lose its relevance, create a distorted notion of politics, and commit a methodological mistake. It is further argued that democratising political philosophy is the way to encourage such cooperation.European Political Science (2009) 8, 37–46. doi:10.1057/eps.2008.12 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the findings of the comparative survey on attitudes (beliefs, preferences) of 222 Slovenian and 230 Finnish early childhood teachers (Turnsek 2005). They have completed the questionnaire on aspect of democratisation of early childhood education, which consisted of attitude (Likart) scales and questions of ranking the preferences. The descriptive statistics were made, cluster analysis, analysis of variance (Chi-square test, t-test) and two-way Anova/Manova analysis. One half of the Slovenian teachers are pro-democratic oriented; the percentage of teachers whose attitudes are extremely pro-democratic is higher (17.9%) than of those with extremely counter-democratic attitudes (9.3%). Their beliefs are in moderate correlation with the level of education, but not with working experience... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European church-state relations are the result of a long democratisation process. The immigration of the Muslim population during the second part of the twentieth century to Western Europe and the democratic transition of the Eastern European political systems after 1990 raise questions on the importance of religious bodies in the public space and their influence on existing church-state relations. This article analyses whether these developments would continue the traditional separation of church and state or put the clocks back towards a new sacralisation of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps the most notable feature of "democracy" today is its almost universal acceptance as the only legitimate form of government. Most examples of open dissent against this view are so patently self-interested as to command little respect. Yet however attractive it may be, the development of modern democracy has been largely an incremental product of Europe and its colonial diaspora, which embody quite specific cultural and social assumptions. Now these states have become dedicated to democracy's extension around the world. This paper examines the nature and success of these attempts to extend democracy. It asks, in particular, whether the culture of a robust civil society on which democracy relies can be successfully exported and what challenges it faces from more traditional social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's post-communist states have experienced widely differing degrees and trajectories of democratisation and (economic as well as political) liberalisation. Outcomes have frequently been explained and/or conceptualised in cultural or 'civilisational' terms - i.e. mainly with reference to 'culturalist' or 'essentialist' conceptions of allegedly prevalent 'mentalities', attitudes, belief-systems, value-systems and so-called 'political cultures'. This paper highlights the major objections to explanations and conceptualisations of this kind and advocates an alternative explanatory and conceptual framework that draws on Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993) while also taking on board various critical responses to his highly influential ideas and to much of the thinking and research he has precipitated. Making Democracy Work (MDW) is most famous for its use and elaboration of conceptions of social capital, trust, norms of generalised reciprocity, networks of civic engagement and civic community, and for arguing that these have been the key determinants of political and economic outcomes in modern times. However, such phenomena have largely been dependent rather than independent variables, more akin to cultural attributes than to structural determinants. They are far less crucial than Putnam's lucid (but largely neglected) conceptualisation of the ways in which the emergence of more horizontally structured political, social and economic power-relations has increased the scope for and viability of liberal democracy and liberal market economies and, conversely, the ways in which vertically structured political, social and economic power-relations have limited the scope/potential for democratisation and liberalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]