The article is a brief comparison of the documentation system of the Communist Party ruling Poland from 1944 to 1989 and in Kazakhstan from 1918 to 1991. Despite considerable geographical remoteness, there are strong similarities between them in terms of party organisation, office rules and provisions regulating archives. This was caused by the reflection of Soviet models in communist Poland after 1944. The regaining of sovereignty by Poland in 1990 and independence by Kazakhstan in 1992 led to the transfer of documentation from party archives to the state archive service in both countries. As a result, it was possible to study and make them publicly available.
Interest groups constitute a specific civil society voice in democratic politics. They operate in a situation of constant friction between two main strategic goals: keeping the organization alive and exerting political influence. This article explores both topics, examining factors conditioning the group's tendency to cooperate with others as well as the degree to which such cooperation facilitates access to policy-making apparatus, exploring the post-communist environment of four selected Central Eastern Europe (CEE) countries and three policy areas: energy, healthcare and higher education policy. The authors aim to apply and examine the interest groups' cooperation patterns from the EU level to the CEE regional level. The article finds strong support for somewhat weak cooperation between interest groups in the region. However, even such moderate cooperation clearly affects the possibility of access to both the ruling parties and the parliaments. In particular, the cooperation of groups in the field of joint statements may turn out to be a form of remedy for the weaknesses of interest groups in the region.
Providing insight in political reality and morale beyond increasingly illiberal governments in CEE, this paper offers an ethnographic perspective on democratic opposition during the process of de-democratisation. Analysing the motivation and purpose of being politically active based on a limited group of members of the Hungarian Momentum Movement Party, it highlights how relating to past, present and future as well as other Hungarian parties and the West they strive to realise a '21st century European normality'.
The paper offers a thorough analysis of the main types of party systems and their changes in the post-Soviet countries between 1992 and 2019. The evolution of the main criteria concerning the party systems classification has been analyzed. We use a database of all parliamentary elections which took place in the post-communist countries since 1992. This article concludes that the majority of party systems of the post-Soviet countries are not stable and suffering permanent changes. On this basis, 16 party systems that continue to exist in the post-communist countries from 1992 to 2019 are almost half-assigned to the predominant party types. Our findings indicate that Kyrgyzstan and Moldova have moved from a predominant party type to a multiparty type. Russia, Armenia, and Ukraine have changed their party systems from a multiparty type to a predominant party type. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan remain in the predominant party system since the first elections. Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries have remained in the multiparty types since the first elections.
The collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989 required settlement with the past on many levels. This applies especially to settlements with communism. In the first years after change of the regime, many legal solutions were adopted to align accounts with the past, but in parallel the communist party was allowed to function. Only very few communist functionaries responsible for crimes were sentenced, however, many symbolic changes were carried out. It took more time to create the institutional framework - institutions dealing with the period 1948-1989 in Czech history. In recent years, the importance of this topic in Czech public life has increased again. The purpose of this article is to analyze legal, formal and institutional solutions and their functioning in the practice of the Czech Republic. The legal acts, institutions as well as the effects of their functioning and actions in the last 30 years have been examined.
The book by Luciano Bardi, Wojciech Gagatek, Carine Germond, Karl Magnus Johansson, Wolfram Keiser, Silvia Sassano, "The European Ambition. The Group of the European People's Party and European Integration" is the result of the six authors' cooperation and research on the evolution and activities of the Christian Democratic Group (CD) and then the European People's Party (EPP). It constitutes a contribution to a series of publications analyzing the evolution of the European political groupings and their unique influence on the politics and development of the European Union. In the first part of the work, Wolfram Keiser characterizes the genesis, nature and evolution of the CD/EPP Group. In this chapter, author does not shy away from showing the political and historical background of the decisions made by the EPP. In the second chapter we find an in-depth analysis of the impact that the EPP had on the development of further institutional reforms and preparation of the EU treaties, including an exceptional impact on the constitutionalization and strengthening of the position of the European Parliament (EP). Carine Germond in the third part analyzes the role of the Group in creating and conducting policy within the European Union. She chose four most important areas: economic and monetary policy, social, ecological/environmental and agricultural policy for her analysis. Chapter four offers considerations on the impact and shaping of another important sphere – the EU's external relations, including foreign security and defense, trade (including foreign trade), development policy and finally the EU enlargement policy. In chapter five, Luciano Bardi deals with the EPP from the perspective a political party and its influence on the development of the European party system. He placed the analysis of the EPP's position as a key actor on the European Parliament's party scene in the context of the EPP's role in relations with EU institutions, in the foreground with the EP, but also with the Commission and the European Council. The work is based on the analysis of program documents, election manifestos of one of the most important political groups at the pan-European level, which have still the greatest influence on political decisions made in the EU. It must be stressed, this is valuable and very interesting work, and the reader will certainly not be disappointed with this publication.
The aim of this paper is to make an overarching evaluation by looking at historical policy of the Party of Democratic Action (Stranka demokratske akcije, SDA) in Bosnia and Herzegowina at the turn of the 20th and 21st century and trying to (analytically) examine the main directions of this policy. Therefore paper will try to focus on the major historical figures and trying to analytically to indicate the reasons of the revival the Ottoman traditions in the public life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Considering this issue I wonder what events and historical figures were promoted and which were censored by Bosnian politicians. What role in Bosnian historical politics was played by Srebrenica and the leader of Bosnian Muslims, Alija Izetbegović. The results of these studies indicate that it was primarily the conflict in Yugoslavia that contributed to the revival of Ottoman traditions among Bosnian Muslims. Only after the war did the historical policy gain institutional support and help the ruling party mobilize the electorate. Since then, the pillar of historical policy has become the martyrdom of the nation, the Ottoman past as well as the cult of the leader of Bosnian Muslims, Alija Izetbegović. Also, the authorities aimed to convince the inhabitants of Bosnia that in their lives the period of communist Yugoslavia brought many negative consequences. This pejorative image was supported in the mass media and education.
The Greek Civil War of 1946-1949 divided the Greek society into allies of the monarchy and supporters of the Communist Party of the Greece-led Transitional Democratic Government of Free Greece. The military arm of the leftist center was the Democratic Army of Greece. Until some time, the communist forces were actively supported by the countries of the Eastern Bloc: Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. However, the Stalin-Tito conflict, which intensified from 1948 onwards, contributed to the defeat of the Democratic Army of Greece, caused by the overwhelming military advantage of the monarchist forces. In mid-1949, a decision was made to evacuate partisan units and the civilian population that had been under their control to Albania. Also, Poland, a country that suffered greatly as a result of World War II, helped Greece. First, by providing food, military and medical equipment, and later by accepting over 13,000 children and adults, fighters and civilians from the areas covered by the war, all terribly tired of war and wandering. The group of migrants was organized from scratch, provided medical and social care, work, education, and access to culture. Migrations of people in search of shelter from conflicts, persecution, and poverty are not only a contemporary problem of the European Union. This article presents the reforms initiated by the government of the Polish People's Republic as a result of the escalation of the crisis in the Balkans. In Poland refugees from Greece found completely new living, civilization, cultural, geographical, and economic conditions. Gradually, they managed to settle in this foreign country. Today many of them are grateful to Poland for their help.
This study of the struggle between the government of the Polish People's Republic and Solidarity in the years 1981-1984 discerns three key actors in Polish politics: the Communist party leadership and security apparatus, the arrested leaders of Solidarity, and the bishops and advisers of the Catholic Church. The PRL government made strategic decisions in this period regarding repression and liberalization. Following initial advanced preparation for the trial of eleven arrested leaders of Solidarity and KSS KOR, the government attempted to coerce the arrestees into leaving Poland, thus weakening the movement's legitimacy. The article demonstrates how the interaction between the leaders of the two sides – mediated by bishops and advisers – produced a new dynamic and a shift in the existing political mechanism. What was once a mass movement transformed into a more regular, staffed organization with a greater role played by leaders, who symbolized the continuity of the movement and enabled Solidarity to weather the period of repression. The article shows the changes and tensions in the Solidarity movement, along with the changes that were occurring in parallel on the side of the government and the mediating third actor, i.e., the Catholic Church. This case study of the strategic clash that occurred at the beginning of the 1980s illustrates the transformations that took place within the government and Solidarity – transformations that would prove crucial to the transition process in 1988-1989.
