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An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on the topics including discussion of Central and Eastern European politics and international relations; and urge for security touches on the purpose of politics including voting in democratic societies.

This paper argues that some of the difficulties faced by gender equality in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) can be explained by a missing paradigmatic shift to a constructivist understanding of gender. Arguably the most explicit rejection of a constructivist gender perspective was recently served by the Bulgarian Constitutional Court's judgment, closely analyzed in the paper, which found certain provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) incompatible with the Bulgarian Constitution. A constructivist analysis of gender-based violence is capable of offering a range of important contextual insights into gender-based violence, whereas those who only have biology in their analytical arsenal are more limited (for example, sexual predation is thus either an "innate" male sexual drive or a psychologically certifiable deviance). The Bulgarian Constitutional Court, as the paper shows, does not even get as far as debating the insights gender analysis offers, but rather rejects them wholesale merely because the term "gender" is used. While a constructivist, critical (feminist) understanding of gender is under attack globally, this paper shows that the assault is particularly grave in at least certain postsocialist CEE countries, where it is not a mere backlash against a reasonably well-established viewpoint, but a fierce ex ante rejection of a concept not yet understood or debated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, colored as it is by my knowledge and experience of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), I reflect upon the rise of autocracies characterized by electoral pedigree and consider some consequences of these developments. I focus in particular upon its relative invisibility, which is due, among other things, to the fact that autocratic changes proceed incrementally, that their truly invidious effects are triggered by mutual interactions between various discrete changes, that institutions are not formally dismantled but hollowed out of their original meanings, and that assaults upon various pillars of democracy do not proceed at the same pace. To conclude, I draw two lessons from the authoritarian turn in CEE: the first concerns the relative insignificance of formal constitutional design, and the second considers the end of the "transition paradigm." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In managing ethno-cultural diversity, several countries in Central and Eastern Europe refer to the notion of nonterritorial/cultural autonomy in their legislation and policies, and in some of them, namely Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovenia, registered minority voters are granted the right to create their own representational, consultative, or decision-making bodies by direct or indirect elections. While a growing body of literature has examined the functioning of these elected minority councils/self-governments at various levels, numerous features of their elections have not been addressed. Elections, commonly understood as formal group decision-making processes, may fulfill various functions both in theory and practice, and these are highly context-dependent. In this regard, little is known about the role played by minority elections in intra-community relations, and whether and how these elections can contribute to increasing legitimacy and accountability and strengthening the political weight and influence of the respective minority groups. This article seeks to address these issues. Written from a theoretical perspective, but based on electoral statistics and country experiences, it comparatively explores the main issues related to the special minority elections in the five countries of analysis and assesses whether they can be considered successful forms of diversity management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article asks how we begin to assess the connections and mutual influences between television's increasing globalisation facilitated by digital distribution platforms and the globalisation of crisis borne by the failure of the neo-liberal free market paradigm, which has resulted in the rise of nativist nationalisms, xenophobia and authoritarianism. I argue that, considering these contradictory developments as interconnected disrupts some of the epistemological paradigms inherited from the Cold War and simultaneously helps us understand – and demystify – emerging paradigms of consumer empowerment associated with streaming in television and media studies. In particular, I demonstrate the importance of resisting sweeping assessments about the globalisation of the 'HBO-type quality drama' by considering the operations of HBO Europe, whose pioneering localisation practices in Eastern Europe have thrived within increasingly illiberal political conditions in the post-socialist Eastern European region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an analysis of the changing role of research on local governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) within mainstream European studies. It refers to dependency theory (Wallerstein, Prebish) as applied to scientific research. It classifies CEE as being in the semi-periphery of academic research. The empirical analysis consists of two parts: (1) qualitative review of the most important of the comparative studies of European local governments. It includes a discussion on the role of local governments and researchers from CEE in these studies; (2) quantitative based on an analysis of articles published in international journals and citations for those articles in Scopus. The analysis covers 14 countries (all new member states who joined the EU from 2004 onwards, plus the Balkan countries: Albania, Macedonia, and Serbia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to critically analyze the main theses of Aviezer Tucker's book The Legacies of Totalitarianism. A Theoretical Framework. Tucker's views on the political transformation in East-Central Europe are juxtaposed to the conclusions of Janine J. Wedel, and Andrzej Zybertowicz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common popular and scholarly opinion of Islamophobia in the so-called 'Visegrád Four' or 'V4' (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) sees it as caused by circumstances unique to Eastern Europe. Specifically to blame, it is alleged, is a distinctive local history of intolerance, especially antisemitism, and the fact that under socialism these countries were exempt from the post-war soul-searching that took place in Western Europe. Kalmar's paper, instead, decentres Islamophobia in the V4 by considering it less as a limited regional phenomenon, and more in terms of how it is linked to Islamophobia in other European Union member states and the United States. As elsewhere, foremost among the conditions that encourage Islamophobia in the V4 is the alienation of certain publics on the periphery, which is an effect of global neoliberal policies. These have generated, along with Islamism and Islamophobia, a reinvented, essentializing discourse of difference between Eastern and Western Europe. In spite of that alleged difference, however, Islamophobic populism in the V4 is not just a regional threat to liberal democracy, but targets all of the European Union and the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the upheavals in Poland that foreshadowed the economic illnesses and political unrest throughout Eastern Europe, posing threats of regional instability that could draw in the superpowers. Factors responsible for the diversity in Eastern Europe; Impact of the rise and decline of powers that produced population migrations and political boundaries.

The article discusses the approach taken by Western businesses when dealing with Eastern European countries. The author feels that the experience and negotiating skills developed by Western firms when dealing with East Asia in the early 1970s should be utilized to build foundations for successful investments in Eastern Europe. Reasons for foreign firms to be attracted to Eastern European countries are discussed. Primarily, Eastern Europe features new markets and has a large demand for Western goods. Although the prospects of political liberalization and market-based economies emerging in Eastern Europe hold great promise, Western business leaders must understand that efforts such as obtaining government approvals are likely to cause delays.

This article analyzes circulation in the ranks of Polish parliamentary elite and at the same time serves as detailed description of the evolution of the political scene in the 1989-2011 period. I use the East European Parliamentarian and Candidate dataset (EAST PaC) for Poland to look at “supply” side of political representation, that is statistics on candidates and mandates, but not on the votes and parties’ aggregated results, thereby showing consecutive elections from the point of view of political actors. At the same time this proves to be a convenient mode of describing changes to the Polish political life, as through this personalized perspective we can better observe political mergers, splits, spin-offs, and demise. During the analyzed period, replacement among parties’ leaders was much less pronounced than it was for the average parliamentarians. Throughout the period many key politicians were constantly present in the political competition, assuring more political continuity than it would seem from the total circulation ratios. While party labels were switched relatively often, major political vectors did not change as much as it may appear to external observers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This special issue chronicles and explains the whirlwind of national politics and elections in Ukraine, Poland, and Hungary from the fall of Communism to the present. The foci are the main political actors: parties, candidates, and parliamentarians. The larger context is the electoral laws, party systems, and social structures in which they operate. All authors in this special issue rely on the East European Parliamentarian and Candidate (EAST PaC) data that contain the universe of candidates who stood for national parliamentary elections from the 1990s to the 2010s. EAST PaC data are free to the public, available in Poland’s Social Data Archive (Archiwum Danych Społecznych). Articles in this issue spotlight electoral politics across nations and time, with a focus on countries recently undergoing great political turns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Vistula Scientific Quarterly / Kwartalnik Naukowy Uczelni Vistula is the property of Vistula University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The dissolution of Soviet-type socialism has been often taken to signal various ends: the end of history, ideology, and revolution; the foreclosure of the symbolic and epistemic space of emancipation opened up by the French, Russian, and anti-colonial revolutions. Yet, the celebrations of the march of liberal democracy and capital have soon given way to alarming observations about a new wave of right-wing populism that feeds on the contradictions of inequality and freedom, largely generated by neoliberal capitalist globalization. Based on my field research in Poland, my paper engages with this familiar problem, which is often discussed as the 'crisis' of liberal democracy, or 'dedemocratization.' I show how the ends of communism and revolutionary politics have contributed to the social environment of emptiness, nihilism or the void, in which right-wing groups were able to thrive and claim to be the real voice of social change and justice, as opposed to the liberal establishment. To explore the way that void has been historically and materially constituted, my paper traces the shifting conditions of collective action or revolutionary practice in Poland and Eastern Europe since the 1960s. Specifically, I focus on the tragic dissolution and absorption of the massive 'Solidarity' worker movement into neoliberal state building in the 1990s and thereby engage with the often-invoked dialectic between insurrection and constitution, or movement and institutionalization that haunt the revolutionary struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that what is at stake in debates about the difference between eastern and western Europe in the context of migration and asylum politics is the definition of a politically- and ethically-acceptable threshold of “too many,” which takes on concrete contours in relation to historically-formed understandings of coherent selves and viable polities. The argument derives from placing analysis of the alleged political and ethical failures of eastern Europe alongside those limits of refugee/migrant intake that are considered politically legitimate and ethically justifiable from the mainstream liberal democratic perspective. The essay proposes that in order to understand the European political landscape in relation to migration, it is necessary to undertake relational analysis of the different configurations of the Europe-wide tension between inclusion and exclusion, as well as analysis of the modes of power that differentiate between these configurations of inclusion and exclusion on moral grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses a common argument that tracks the historical roots of Israeli politics in the non-democratic political tradition of Eastern Europe. This popular picture is expressed in Yonatan Shapiro's monolithic depiction of a political society shaped by a domineering, hierarchical party, which only practiced procedural democracy. The article asserts that the political culture of the Yishuv and the State of Israel during its early years was a vibrant democratic culture whose members engaged in intensive struggles and self-examination of their political order. Two junctures of these many struggles are explored: the struggles that concluded with Mapai splitting in 1942-44, and the struggles of the early 1950s. They revolved around widespread, resounding demands in Mapai for an effective party-based democracy that would provide a foundation for inclusive democracy in the entire society. They expressed a democratic ethos based on conflicting principles of unity, authority, and participation and the various democratic systems of political representation that stem from these principles. Understanding this is a necessary condition for understanding how the state of Israel could become one of the few democratic states created following WW II, and how it managed to survive as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basis of this paper is the study of legislative acts of such counties as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Ukrainie and Russia, related to national security, public order and interests of state prosperity in order to prevent disorders or crimes, to protect health and morality, to safeguard rights and freedoms. The objective of the paper is to assess whether the national legislation meets in this field contemporary requirements, and what are differences in comparison with the legislation of other countries. Our results show that the laws of above mentioned countries are supplemented in due time as much as possible taking into account needs and financial resources of corresponding state. The laws have also similar objectives and tasks. There are some distinctions in application of legal provisions, which, after discussion, would be usefully to introduce into normative regulations of the Republic of Latvia. The norms of law must be clearly defined; the commensurate restrictions must be appropriate for achievement of particular objective, as well as socially necessary. Moreover, the authors of the paper offer concrete proposals taking into account human rights, contemporary situation on the international scene, as well as potential of respective state institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public administration is, especially in Eastern Europe, declaratively reformed to comply with European standards and trends. In order to define the mainstream topics and milestones of administrative development, a focused content analysis as a case study has been conducted with regard to Europeanization in 223 articles published between 2011 and 2014 in the leading specialized journals in Slovenia and Croatia (International Public Administration Review and the Croatian and Comparative Public Administration). The methodology of content analysis has been applied in order to gain objective and comparable results in the field and on the cross-national scale. The main findings reveal that Europeanization is the common thread in both journals and countries. However, based on the Slovenian and Croatian case study, one can claim that in Eastern Europe public administration is in earlier developmental stage, as countries are still often dealing with rather basic restructuring instead upgrade of good administration principles as in the West. Moreover, the declared internationalization of public administration and best practices exchange are fragmented and underdeveloped. The Eastern European countries should consequently intensify their efforts to a more advanced and systemic understanding of the European standards to cope with modern challenges in our globalized society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for the permanent deployment of substantial combat forces in Eastern European NATO states, primarily in the Baltics and Poland, have been part of the debates on strategy among the member states for years. In the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, the defence capabilities of the Eastern European allies must undoubtedly be strengthened. However, in light of the yet-to-be-implemented measures that the allies decided upon at the Wales Summit, a more general shift of international security challenges towards 'hybrid' warfare scenarios, Russia's centrality in the Middle East peace process and the long-term viability of the Alliance, permanently deploying substantial combat forces in Eastern Europe would not strengthen the security of Europe and the coherence of NATO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study investigates the assumption that citizens expect the democratic institutional system to operate in accordance with values and norms that are deeply embedded in public thinking of their country. As individual-level trust towards the institutional system is built mainly on these norms and values, our results show that differences between Eastern and Western European public thinking lead to asymmetries regarding the bases of institutional trust. Specifically, degree of income inequalities and perceived quality of welfare services seem to be more important factors in the postsocialist region in comparison with Western Europe. Furthermore, in accordance with the approach of motivated social cognition, we could also confirm that those with a higher level of conventionality motivation lean on normative ideological elements to a greater extent when they are indicating their personal level of institutional trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Berlin Wall collapsed a quarter of a century ago. This anniversary led to publication of studies about the success of Central and East European transformation. Some of them maintain that the region became ‘normal,' and nearer to their Western neighbors. In reality, the region still belongs to the periphery of Europe with a mostly dual economy and low level of income. Modern sectors and the entire banking industry are subsidiaries of Western multinationals. The political system is often authoritarian. Democratic forms often cover non-democratic contents. Corruption, tax evasion and other symptoms of peripheral political behavior are quite common. Transformation is so far not accomplished and will certainly require two or three generations to achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a June 18-19, 2015 conference in Marburg, Germany on the history of democracy in eastern central Europe in the interwar period hosted by the Herder institute for historical eastern central Europe research and the Hannah Arendt institute for totalitarianism research. Topics of presentations delivered included the 1917 democratic revolution in Russia, the hybrid democratic-monarchic governments of Albania, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, and women's suffrage in Eastern Europe.

The international study of fascism has, over the last 25 years, experienced considerable consolidation. Inspired by influential theoretical publications of Roger D. Griffin and others, a new sub-discipline, “comparative fascist studies,” has emerged that proceeds from a largely common conceptualization of fascism. It explicitly includes and particularly promotes the cross-cultural, as well as inter-epochal investigation into ultra-nationalisms outside Central and Western Europe after the year 1945. The concepts, approaches and hypotheses of this new sub-discipline are well-suited to be applied to the study of inter-war and post-Soviet right-wing radicalism in Eastern Europe. However, before comprehensive classification and informative comparison becomes possible, the putative fascist phenomena of Eastern Europe need more thorough descriptive analysis, field research, and empirical investigation by researchers, in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing up in Bulgaria during the “transition” years, as a then fifteen-year old, I spent the summer of 1990 queuing up at the neighborhood newsstand waiting for the daily delivery of freshly printed newspapers. Shortages of goods, including food and gasoline, caused long lines in front of many stores, but the crowd waiting at the kiosk was eager to read about the latest political developments, and especially popular were the newspapers published by the newly established opposition parties. While there was no scarcity of political news via television and radio, there was always something special about the print media, much of which, including entertainment weeklies, were such a novelty. Twenty or so years later, I spent another summer among newspapers, in the archives of the National Library in Sofia, poring through the pages and—with no digitization of archives—collecting photographs of news articles published before each of the national legislative elections since 1990. Much has changed in the media environment since then, yet the study of media in post-communist societies and especially its relations to voters, parties, and politics in general is still in its infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the study of post-communism has transformed comparative politics by adding a substantial role for external actors to existing theories of democratization. The big, overarching finding is dramatic: external actors can, under certain conditions, tip the balance in favor of democracy by offering strong rewards to elites, conditional on complying with tough requirements. External actors can also influence the performance of the state—and how the state treats its citizens. The main causal player is the European Union. This simple finding is consequential for all three major strands of democratization theory. The article goes on to explore how the leverage of the European Union has shaped the trajectories of political change in the new and credible future EU members in East Central and South Eastern Europe. The great variation among existing and candidate members can be largely explained by different domestic conditions, even though there are many areas where the EU’s use of its leverage could have been improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay outlines theoretical visions or paradigms that have underpinned empirical and historical work on the great transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Such paradigms shaped “sociological imaginations” and analytical lenses through which scholars generated important questions and developed their research interests and projects. The study of post-communism was influenced by three such paradigms: the first focused on the immediate communist past as the main constraint on post-1989 transformations; the second attempted to transcend the specificities of post-communism and integrate the study of the region with the general comparative politics enterprise; and finally, the third signified the return to a disciplined exploration of historical and cultural contexts and their role in shaping the outcomes of transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question “Whither Eastern Europe?” prompts the author to reflect upon the interplay of area studies and political power in the United States. Concerns about the future of East European studies tend to originate outside of academe: in the real or imagined declining relevance of Europe in the U.S. foreign policy orbit. Sadly, perhaps, as the region’s complex history and contemporary politics seem to attest, it is highly unlikely that it will lose its strategic importance anytime soon. Therefore, the most important dimension of East European continued significance might be the normative one. Whither to/for whom? Who are the audiences that we are addressing and what is our responsibility to them? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is again a divided continent. When it comes to governance, political economy, or values, two contrasting poles have emerged: one Western, liberal, and democratic, another Eastern, statist, and autocratic. The dividing line between them has become ever sharper, threatening to separate Europe into two distinct worlds. This new divide in Europe arises from a clash between two geopolitical concepts for the continent: One is the Western project of a “Europe whole and free,” an enlarging zone of economic cooperation, political interdependency, and democratic values. The other is the Russian project of a “Eurasian Union” to rival the European Union. This article shows how these two sides of Europe have grown further apart in their conceptions of the European space, their values, governance, and economic models. It explores the reasons for the belated Western responses to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s program to divide Europe. The Russo-Georgian war was a turning point, but the West took a long time to recognize the full implications of Putin’s policy. The current confrontation between Russia and the West is not exactly like the Cold War. Russia’s position is weaker. And the battle will be fought out primarily with economic instruments. However, it is clear that this conflict places Central and Eastern Europe back on the front lines of a divided Europe, raising any number of demons from the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the theoretical rationale (and funding opportunities!) for considering Eastern Europe as a distinct region diminish as we move farther away from the momentous events of 1989, the value of including East-Central European countries in comparative studies has only increased. This article outlines how comparative studies of political behavior involving East-Central European countries have evolved in the author’s own research from comparative studies including Russia along with four East European countries, to more broadly based comparative studies including multiple East European countries and former Soviet Republics, to studies where behavior is analyzed in both East European countries and more established democracies, and finally to large cross-national studies focused on questions related to post-communist politics (namely, the legacy of communism on post-communist attitudes and behavior) but relying on the comparative analysis of survey data from countries around the world. In a way, the research has come full circle, from studies of East European political behavior to better understand East European political behavior, to studies including East European countries to better understand general questions of political behavior not specific to post-communist countries, to now the most extensive comparative studies that are, however, designed once again to better understand East European political attitudes and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the organisation of Euro 2012 in Poland is an extension and intensification of wider tendencies in the reconfigurations of statehood occurring in Eastern Europe. Contrary to free market mantras, the case of the Euro reveals ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ as involving a vital role for the state, but one where statehood is stretched in different, often incompatible, directions. The configurations of deregulation and reregulation involved reveal an emergent scalar hierarchy of monopoly manipulation and collusions, the outcomes of which are new patterns of spatial differentiation. The analysis of Euro 2012 helps to piece together the contradictory features of statehood as they emerge both in relation to, and as an element actively involved in, producing this configuration. Such research is important both for a view of the further transformations of statehood in Eastern Europe and also to ask what light the evolutions of statehood in Eastern Europe, as evidenced in the organisation of Euro 2012, throw on the turbulent realignments of the international configuration currently underway, particularly in terms of an ambivalent role of the notion of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]