Political Transition Processes in Central and Eastern Europe

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helga A. Welsh
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Transition Processes

Moral Blueprint or Neoliberal Gobbledygook?

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 831-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Jezierska
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Transition Processes ◽  
Control Power ◽  
Existing Frames ◽  
Sector Service

Poland is often pointed to as the regional leader of transition processes with regard to the development and sustainability of civil society. This article presents a critical perspective on the direction in which Polish civil society has evolved after 1989. The author reconstructs existing frames of civil society within Polish elite NGO discourse and argues that one specific understanding of civil society—civil society as third sector/service provision—has gained a hegemonic position, marginalizing other conceptions and thus other functions of civil society. Civil society as moral blueprint, civil society as control power, and civil society as neoliberal gobbledygook are identified as coexisting, potentially counter-hegemonic frames. Thus, the quasi-public function, that is, providing services that the state does not, has become the dominant understanding of civil society suppressing its socialization and political functions, once so prominent in Central and Eastern Europe.

States of Contention: State-Led Political Violence in Post-Socialist Romania

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gledhill
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Free Press ◽  
National Salvation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Early Phases ◽  
Opposition Parties

Throughout the 1990s, Romania's transition from authoritarianism was witness to repeated instances of intense collective violence. Specifically, miners from the country's Jiu Valley region descended on Bucharest—attacking civilians, offices of the free press, and the headquarters of opposition parties. This article attends to the strikes of June 1990 and, in so doing, addresses the broader issue of political violence during the early phases of a political transition. As one of the few cases of (nonethnic) transitional violence in Central and Eastern Europe, the miners' strikes have been put forward as evidence of an oft-cited Romanian “exceptionalism.” However, this article's focus on the perceived extrainstitutional threat to the weakly legitimate National Salvation Front government, and the violent response to that threat by the government (which coordinated the miners' attacks), leads to a conclusion in which Romania's posttransition violence is seen as a rational—albeit devastating—manifestation of regular politics, by “other means.”

Gender and social policy: comparing welfare states in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Pascall ◽  
Nick Manning
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Transition Processes ◽  
Soviet Legacy ◽  
The Impact

How are the distinctive gender regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union changing? What is the impact of the transition - and especially of the loss of state expenditure and state legitimacy - on women as paid workers, partners/wives, mothers, carers and citizens? Have women become more familialized as a result of transition processes? The Monee statistical database of 27 countries, and policy questionnaires to 12, show growing social, economic and cultural diversity. But the soviet legacy and the transition processes give these countries common ground too. Equal rights at work and womenÕs need for paid employment remain from the soviet era. But the gap between rights and practice widens. Legal equality in marriage remains, but domestic violence and the domestic division of labour give evidence of unequal relationships. While the soviet state socialized many costs of motherhood and care work, in some countries families are now bearing much heavier costs. Women as citizens now have more freedoms to organize, but action is more focused on coping and survival than on wider politics: women are - broadly - more familialized, more dependent on family relationships if perhaps less dependent in them.

Migration and democracy in central and eastern Europe

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James Tonelli
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Impact

Amidst the political changes that swept through central and eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the right to migrate was synonymous in the minds of many with the establishment of democracy. Although the political transition of the 1990s was preceded in some countries by a relaxation of their strict exit regimes, these were only minor measures in comparison with the profound changes to the system of population control ushered in by the political transition to democracy. A mosaic of migration patterns (ethnically based migrations, return migration, labour migration, transit migration) gathered pace during the 1990s throughout the vast region of the former Soviet bloc. As conflict and war broke out in different areas, notably in the Caucasus and south-east Europe, these migratory movements were inflated by huge numbers of refugees, asylum-seekers and displaced persons. The newly independent states underpinned their political transition towards democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights through membership of the Council of Europe and ratification of international conventions which included important guarantees for the rights and protection of migrants and their families. In May 2004, eight of these countries will join the European Union and after a transitional period become integral parts of the internal labour market with their populations enjoying the full freedom of movement rights of EC law. This article outlines the major migration trends in central and eastern Europe since the extension of democracy across the continent, highlights different aspects of labour migration in the region, including the impact of EU enlargement, and refers to some integration issues. This description is preceded by a series of brief historical, political and legal perspectives.

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