Suchergebnisse

Milan Kundera warned that in in the states of East-Central Europe, attitudes to the west and the idea of Europe' were complex and could even be hostile. But few could have imagined how the collapse of communism and membership of the EU would confront these countries with a life that was suddenly and disconcertingly modern' and which challenged sustaining traditions in literature, culture, politics and established views on identity. Since the countries of East-Central Europe joined the European Union in 2004 the politicians and oppositionists of the centre-left, who once led the charge against communism, have often been forced to give way to right-wing, authoritarian, populist governments. These governments, while keen to accept EU finance, have been determined to present themselves as protecting their traditional ethno-national inheritance, resisting foreign interference', stemming the gay invasion', halting Islamic replacement' and reversing women's rights. They have blamed Communists, liberals, foreigners, Jews and Gypsies, revised abortion laws, tampered with their constitutions to control the Justice system and taken over the media to an astonishing degree. By 2019, amid calls for the suspension of their voting rights, both Poland and Hungary had been taken to the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament and had begun to explore ways to put conditions on future EU funding. This book focuses on the interface between tradition, literature and politics in east-central Europe, focusing mainly on Poland but also Hungary and the Czech Republic. It explores literary tradition and the role of writers to ask why these left-liberals, who were once ubiquitous in the struggles with communism, are now marginalised, often reviled and almost entirely absent from political debate. It asks, in what ways the advent of capitalism normalised' literature and what the consequences might be? It asks whether the rise of chauvinism is normal' in this part of the world and whether the literary traditions that helped sustain independent political thought through the communist years now, instead of supporting literature, feed nationalist opinion and negative attitudes to the idea of Europe'.

Over the last two decades, Eastern European countries have experienced extensive changes in geo-political relocations and relations leading to everyday uncertainty. Based on ethnographic cases, this anthology explores how grey zones of governance, borders, relations and invisibilities affect everyday life in contemporary Eastern Europe.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the political history of Central and Eastern Europe has been mainly the story of arise, consolidation, transformation and struggles of new democratic regimes and societies. The handbook offers an instructive approach to that history focusing on the relevance of practices and institutions of direct democracy. It collects 20 political analyses of direct democracy in 20 Central and Eastern European countries after 1989.

This study begins with an examination of the secular institutional transformation of East Germany's local government since the early 1990s following the collapse of the communist regime & during the process of German unification. In its spectacular mix of institutional demolition & reconstruction this transformation bore many traces of what Joseph Schumpeter has called 'creative destruction.' The article addresses the 'performance' of the newly created political & administrative structures of local government a decade after transformation. It argues that the performance of East Germany's institutions & actors has attained the 'normalcy' of West German administrative practice remarkably rapidly. Finally, East Germany's institutional development is considered within a comparative perspective, focusing on other Central & East European countries, particularly Poland & Hungary. 5 Tables. Adapted from the source document.

`The book is well written and clearly structured, bringing together much dispersed material. The most interesting part of the book is the case study of the Czech engineering firm CKD. The case study gives an insight into the continuing processes of transition: transition is a process, rather than a jump from Socialism to capitalism. The author provides solid evidence on the ways in which adjusting to the market has proved painful, and in the end unsuccessful for CKD, which has been merged with another firm. Overall, Transformation at Work provides a valuable insight into the realities of the t

"This important book reassesses a defining historical, political and ideological moment in contemporary history: the 1989 revolutions in central and eastern Europe. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, the authors reconsider such crucial themes as the broader historical significance of the 1989 events, the complex interaction between external and internal factors in the origins and outcomes of the revolutions, the impact of the 'Gorbachev phenomenon', the West and the end of the Cold War, the political and socio-economic determinants of the revolutionary processes in Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, and the competing academic, cultural and ideological perceptions of the year 1989 as communism gave way to post-communist pluralism in the 1990s and beyond. Concluding that the contentious term 'revolution' is indeed apt for the momentous developments in eastern Europe in 1989, this book will be essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates and specialists alike."--Publisher's description

In this volume, based on a colloquium at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University, in Cluj-Napoca, the integration of former member states of the Soviet bloc into the European Union is discussed in its broad historical context. 30 scholars are providing a comprehensive insight into the state of integration of East-Central European countries.