Introduction: Politics and Current Challenges of Demography in Central and Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-892
Author(s):  
Tsveta Petrova ◽  
Tomasz Inglot
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Demographic Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Europe Today

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Politics and Current Demographic Challenges in Central and Eastern Europe,” guest-edited by Tsveta Petrova and Tomasz Inglot. In this article, we introduce a multidisciplinary and multimethod, special section on the intersection of politics, policy, and the current challenges of demography in Hungary and Poland. We argue that aging, declining fertility, and migration as well as their politicization all deserve urgent attention as some of the most pressing concerns for most of Central and Eastern Europe today. Accordingly, we first use European Commission data to paint a comparative picture of the demographic challenges that the region faces. We then introduce the article contributions in the special section that examine aging, declining fertility, and migration. Next we turn to the question of the politicization of these demographic challenges. We discuss how the proposed special section speaks to two important but previously rarely linked debates taking place within the social sciences today: (1) the voluminous literature on the demographic changes and policies in Central and Eastern Europe, including their ethnic and cultural dimensions, and (2) the expanding scholarship on the rise of nationalist populism and decline in the quality of liberal democracy in the region. Lastly, we summarize the arguments of the contributing authors, who pay closer attention to policy responses to and the politicization of the demographic challenges faced by Central and Eastern Europe.

scholarly journals Introduction: Travelling from West to East: Think Tank Model Adaptation to Central and Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542094683
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Jezierska ◽  
Serena Giusti
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
The Social ◽  
Short Period ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

This article is part of the special section “Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe” guest-edited by Katarzyna Jezierska and Serena Giusti. This is an introduction to the Special Section on Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe. Apart from this introduction, the Section includes four articles, which explore the nature and conditions of think tanks operating in Belarus, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Poland. Think tanks are usually understood as institutions claiming autonomy whose main aim is to influence policy making based on the social analysis they produce. The most apparent blind spot in extant think tank research is its predominant focus on the English-speaking world. We argue that by focusing on think tanks in non-Western contexts, we can better understand think tanks. When studying the diffusion of the organizational form of think tanks to new contexts, it is not enough to maintain the “sender” perspective (the formulation of the institutional characteristics of think tanks in the contexts in which they first emerged). We need to complement or even modify that perspective by also taking into account the “receiver” perspective. In other words, internationally circulated ideas and institutional patterns are always interpreted and translated in local “receiving” contexts, which coproduce, reformulate, and readjust the blueprint. Our focus in this Section is therefore on the translation and local adaptation of the think tank institution in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, a region that has undergone deep changes in a relatively short period.

Social Quality in a Transitive Society

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriy Heyets
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Quality ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Quality Approach ◽  
The Welfare State

Nearly 30 years of transformation of the sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomical and financial, sociocultural and welfare, and socioenvironmental dimensions in both Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, has led to a change of the social quality of daily circumstances. On the one hand, the interconnection and reciprocity of these four relevant dimensions of societal life is the underlying cause of such changes, and on the other, the state as main actor of the sociopolitical and legal dimension is the initiator of those changes. Applying the social quality approach, I will reflect in this article on the consequences of these changes, especially in Ukraine. In comparison, the dominant Western interpretation of the “welfare state” will also be discussed.

scholarly journals On the Demographics and the Severity of the Social Security Crisis

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 1001-1028
Author(s):  
Emin Gahramanov
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Demographic Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intertemporal Consumption ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Pension Benefits ◽  
Changing Demographics

Abstract Changing demographics across the world threatens the sustainability of pension benefits. Yet there is widespread sentiment among some business and policy analysts that in the presence of population ageing, more elderly people would mean more old-age consumption and robust business opportunities across all spending dimensions. In this paper we look at a micro-level analysis of intertemporal consumption/saving behavior, and find that in the presence of notable heterogeneity with respect to the consumer impatience and rationality degree, different demographic challenges and likely policy responses would imply greatly varying and significant consumption changes at old age. We also touch upon the associated issues of welfare analysis and transitional effects and discuss various complexities and challenges for policy implications and economic projections.

Populist Nationalism and the Challenges of Divided Nationhood: The Politics of Migration, Mobility, and Demography in Post-2010 Hungary

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 962-983
Author(s):  
Myra A. Waterbury
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Europe Today

This article uses the case of post-2010 Hungary to investigate the ways in which the concomitant trends of mobility, migration, and demographic decline may intersect to both challenge and bolster the discourses and policies of nationalist, populist governments in Central and Eastern Europe today. Using an expanded conception of “divided nationhood,” it explores the tensions and continuities in the Hungarian government’s populist discourse of protecting the nation as it is projected onto different national populations: Hungarians within Hungary, Hungarian emigrants, and Hungarian minorities in neighboring countries. While fears of migration and population decline provide useful fuel for the particular brand of populist nationalism we see in places like Hungary, the ability of leaders to offer a coherent and effective narrative of protection for the nation becomes significantly more complex when there are multiple internal and external populations to protect. The article highlights the strategies that the FIDESZ government has employed in order to (1) mobilize antimigrant rhetoric while marginalizing Hungarian emigrants; (2) respond to demographic deficiencies while supporting a conservative, populist narrative; and (3) maintain its access to symbolic, political, and demographic resources within the Hungarian minority communities. These strategies include a discursive reconceptualization of migration as something that comes only from outside Europe, the use of social and economic policies to selectively privilege key segments of the nation and exclude others, and the creation of a regional Hungarian nation with Budapest at the center.

White Knights On Chargers: Using The US Approach To Promote Roma Rights In Europe?

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 1431-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morag Goodwin
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Positive Part ◽  
American States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Europe Today ◽  
The U.S

North Carolina has, like most American states, played its (not always positive) part in the struggle against what Clinton, back in 1997 when the U.S. had more domestic concerns on its mind, called “America's constant curse”. But racial discrimination is not, of course, simply America's curse. Europe, for all its self-righteousness of late, has certainly not escaped it. Despite the prevalence of racial discrimination right across the geographic expression of Europe, this paper shall concentrate on a particular set of countries – those termed Central and Eastern Europe – and on a particular group – the Roma, widely acknowledged as the most marginalised and discriminated in Europe today.

German Migrations: Between Blood and Soil

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 137-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Brinkmann
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Frankfurt Am Main ◽  
Bundesrepublik Deutschland ◽  
Ethnic Germans ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Cultural Belonging

Dieter Gosewinkel, Einbürgern und Ausschließen. Die Nationalisierung der Staatsangehörigkeit vom Deutschen Bund bis zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001)Daniel Levy, Yfaat Weiss, ed., Challenging Ethnic Citizenship: German and Israeli Perspectives on Immigration (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2002)Barbara Marshall, The New Germany and Migration in Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000)Jan Motte, Rainer Ohliger, Anne von Oswald, ed., 50 Jahre Bundesrepublik – 50 Jahre Einwanderung: Nachkriegsgeschichte als Migrationsgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus, 1999)David Rock and Stefan Wolff, ed., Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic since 1945 (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2002)Stefan Wolff, ed., German Minorities in Europe: Ethnic Identity and Cultural Belonging (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000)

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