Suchergebnisse

This book dissects'from both philosophical and empirical viewpoints'the peculiar developmental challenges, geopolitical contexts, and dystopic stalemates that post-Soviet societies face during their transition to new political and cultural orders. The principal geographical focus of the essays is Ukraine, but most of the assembled texts are also relevant and/or refer to other post-Soviet countries. Mikhail Minakov describes how former Soviet nations are trying to reinvent, for their particular circumstances, democracy and capitalism while concurrently dealing with new poverty and inequality, facing unusual degrees of freedom and responsibility for their own future, coming to terms with complicated collective memories and individual pasts. Finally, the book puts forward novel perspectives on how Western and post-communist Europe may be able to create a sustainable pan-European common space. These include a new agenda for pan-European political communication, new East-Central European regional security mechanisms, a solution for the chain of separatist-controlled populations, and anti-patronalist institutions in East European countries

Abstract
This paper compares the mass protests in Ukraine (the Euromaidan of 2013–14) and Belarus–2020 in the recent decade. The author tests the hypothesis that social movements successfully challenge the ruling groups if protests are sufficiently supported by Western governments, if autocratic regimes are not strong and consolidated, and if the regional tendencies are supportive of the protesters' cause. Based on the comparative analysis of the two cases, the author concludes that the hypothesis is in general correct for Eastern Europe, but should be more nuanced: it should pay attention to the external influences of both Western states and Russia; it should note that the strength of an autocracy may create new opportunities for the challengers; and that it should take into account the changing nature of regional tendencies, which can be of democratization, autocratization, or some mixture.

The contributors to this collection explore the multidimensional transformation of independent Ukraine and deal with her politics, society, private sector, identity, arts, religions, media, and democracy. Each chapter reflects the up-to-date research in its sub-discipline, is styled for use in seminars, and includes a bibliography as well as a recommended reading list. These studies illustrate the deep changes, yet, at the same time, staggering continuity in Ukraine's post-Soviet development as well as various counter-reactions to it. All nine chapters are jointly written by two co-authors, one Ukrainian and one Western, who respond here to recent needs in international higher education. The volume's contributors include, apart from the editors: Margarita M. Balmaceda (Seton Hall University), Oksana Barshynova (Ukrainian National Arts Museum), Tymofii Brik (Kyiv School of Economics), José Casanova (Georgetown University), Diana Dutsyk (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), Marta Dyczok (University of Western Ontario), Hennadii Korzhov (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute), Serhiy Kudelia (Baylor University), Pavlo Kutuev (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute), Olena Martynyuk (Columbia University), Oksana Mikheieva (Ukrainian Catholic University), Tymofii Mylovanov (University of Pittsburgh), Andrian Prokip (Ukrainian Institute for the Future), Oxana Shevel (Tufts University), Ilona Sologoub (Kyiv School of Economics), Maksym Yenin (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute), and Yuliya Yurchenko (University of Greenwich).

The editor of this book has brought together contributions designed to capture the essence of post-communist politics in East-Central Europe and Eurasia. Rather than on the surface structures of nominal democracies, the nineteen essays focus on the informal, often intentionally hidden, disguised and illicit understandings and arrangements that penetrate formal institutions. These phenomena often escape even the best-trained outside observers, familiar with the concepts of established democracies. Contributors to this book share the view that understanding post-communist politics is best served by a framework that builds from the ground up, proceeding from a fundamental social context. The book aims at facilitating a lexical convergence; in the absence of a robust vocabulary for describing and discussing these often highly complex informal phenomena, the authors wish to advance a new terminology of post-communist regimes. Instead of a finite dictionary, a kind of conceptual cornucopia is offered. The resulting variety reflects a larger harmony of purpose that can significantly expand the understanding the "real politics" of post-communist regimes. Countries analyzed from a variety of aspects, comparatively or as single case studies, include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine