The Earthquake, Civil Society, and Political Change in Turkey: Assessment and Comparison with Eastern Europe

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kubicek
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
The State ◽  
Positive Experience ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central

Civil society has been widely celebrated as instrumental in democratization, but in some countries it remains poorly developed. Such was the case in Turkey, but many hoped that the 1999 earthquakes would lead to an invigoration of civil society and subsequent political liberalization. Examining this claim shows that Turkish civil society has not been able to sustain the energy it enjoyed immediately after the earthquake because of factors within civil society itself and the attitude of the state. This relative failure is then contrasted with the more positive experience of civil society in East-Central Europe. The comparisons reveal some limits to the utility of a civil society approach to democratization. I conclude by assessing the ability of other actors and factors to fashion political reform in Turkey today.

Customary Law and the Influence of the Ius Commune in High and Late Medieval East Central Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Korpiola
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Ius Commune ◽  
Italian Law ◽  
South Eastern Europe

Secular law remained largely customary and uncodified in east central Europe. While much of south-eastern Europe had remained Christian ever since Roman times, most of east central Europe was Christianized during the high Middle Ages. The Baltic region came later, Lithuania only being converted after 1387. South-eastern Europe was influenced first by Byzantine and then Italian law. In much of east central Europe secular law was based on Slavic customs, later influenced by canon law and German law. The Sachsenspiegel, Schwabenspiegel, and German town law spread to the whole region alongside the German colonization of east central Europe. Towns functioned as conduits of German and learned law. Certain territorial rulers actively promoted Roman law and (partial) codification, while the local nobility preferred uncodified customary law. In addition to foreign university studies, the fourteenth-century universities of Prague and Krakow, cathedral chapters, and notaries helped disseminate the ius commune into the region.

scholarly journals Modernist architects and the age of extremes in Eastern Europe, 1920-1950: Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-414
Author(s):  
Martin Kohlrausch ◽  
Daria Bocharnikova
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Sociotechnical Imaginaries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Social Visions ◽  
Post War ◽  
Ideological Tensions

This article demonstrates the social and political impact of modernist architects in Europe’s age of extremes beyond the narrower confines of architecture. In East Central Europe with its ideological tensions, massive socio-political ruptures and eventually the establishment of communist regimes, architects’ social visions and the states’ aspirations led to intense interactions as well as strong controversies. In order to unravel these, we stress the relevance of modernism as a belief and knowledge system. In so doing we point to often unacknowledged continuities between the interwar and the immediate post-war period thus re-politicising the work of modernist architects as a project of worldmaking in the context of competing ideologies and sociotechnical imaginaries.

Introduction: The State of Democracy 20 Years on

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Rupnik ◽  
Jan Zielonka
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
The State ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
The European Union ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Eu

The countries of East-Central Europe (ECE) embarked on a democratic transition in 1989 were proclaimed consolidated democracies when they joined the European Union (EU) in 2004. Today most of the new democracies are experiencing “democratic fatigue” and some seem vulnerable to an authoritarian turn. The EU, seen as the guarantor of the post-1989 democratic changes, is experiencing an unprecedented economic, financial, and democratic crisis with the combined challenges of technocracy and populism. The article explores the different approaches to the study of democracies in ECE, their specific features and vulnerabilities, and tries to provide an interpretation of the premature crisis of democracy in ECE in a broader transeuropean context.

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