scholarly journals Democracy revisited? Prospects of (liberal) democracy (not only) in the East-Central Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 793-814
Author(s):  
Ladislav Cabada
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Capture ◽  
Hybrid Regime

Abstract Scholarly debate about the prospects of democracy have undergone a fundamental change in the last three decades. While the period of the 1990s might be distinguished by extensive optimism, in the 2000s we can observe a distinct change towards a more restrained perception. Furthermore, the last decade might be evaluated as pessimistic in the social sciences on the grounds of economic recession after 2008 as well other crisis in an economic, societal and political senses. The rather distinctive terms used for the expression of doubts about the pro-democratic development and consolidation, such as ‘semi-consolidated’, ‘new’ or ‘young’ democracy, or de-democratisation, were replaced with more dramatic expressions such as illiberal democracy, democratic backsliding, hybrid, regime, soft dictatorship and ‘the light that failed’, as Krastev described the recent image of East-Central Europe in an almost dystopic manner. While in the 1990s the Slovak version of democratura – Mečiarism – was perceived as the exception, in the late 2010s populist neo-illiberal regimes became the dominant shape of regimes in (East)Central Europe. This review essay presents three recent analyses of the democratic backsliding and state capture (not only) in East-Central Europe and frames this presentation into the more extensive literature review.

Social Participation and Health among Ageing People in East-Central Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Makai ◽  
Viktória Prémusz ◽  
Kata Füge ◽  
Mária Figler ◽  
Kinga Lampek
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Social Participation ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Ageing Population ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Social

Abstract In this study we examined the health of the ageing population of East-Central Europe. Data derived from the 6th round of the European Social Survey. The aim of our research was to examine the most important factors that determine ageing people’s health status. We paid particular attention to the social ties of our target group.

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.

The Joy of Everyday Life: Microhistory and the History of Everyday Life in the Socialist Dictatorships

2008 ◽  
Vol 34-35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 185-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Apor
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social History ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Cultural Behavior ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Generation

In the last two decades, historians have faced difficult methodological challenges in exploring former party archives in East Central Europe and in reconstructing the political history of communist regimes. A remarkable answer to this challenge has been provided by a new generation of historians who turned their attention to the social history of socialist dictatorships in East Central Europe, and took a peculiar interest in the “small,” the “mundane” and the “insignificant” of everyday life under communism. Their laborious research has focused not on high politics, but on local communities. Their works deconstructed the life-styles, living conditions, fashion and dressing, leisure, tourism and consumption, sexual habits and childcare of ordinary people. The current study provides a historiographic overview of the major thematic and methodological orientations of the history of the everyday life in socialist dictatorships. It focuses on two distinct but overlapping directions of research: the analysis of the daily habitual organization of communist societies; and the communist authorities’ attempt at a micro-politics of everyday life. The study argues that, while the new social history of the socialist dictatorships has greatly added to our understanding of significant aspects of the social and political structure of these countries, it has also constructed a representation of everyday life as essentially impertinent to power. In doing so, it ignored the capacity of habitual social and cultural behavior in producing techniques of control and discipline.

scholarly journals Neighbourhood Policy vs. Remembrance Policy: Romania and Hungary

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Barna Bodó
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Situation ◽  
Determining Factor

Abstract In East-Central Europe, the past has always been a determining factor as a framework for interpretation: the social construction of the past often serves (served) current political purposes. It is no wonder that in the countries of the region, often different, sometimes contradictory interpretations of the past have emerged. In today’s European situation, however, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are perhaps most keenly faced by the transformation of Europe, with unclear, chaotic ideas dominating political and intellectual markets instead of previous (accepted) values – in the tension between old and new, Europe’s future is at stake. The question is: what role the states of Central and Eastern Europe play/can play, to what extent they will be able to place the neighbourhood policy alongside (perhaps in front of) the policy of remembrance and seek common answers to Europe’s great dilemmas.

Deconsolidation of Democracy in East Central Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 431-436
Author(s):  
Attila Ágh
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
European Studies ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Conceptual Frame ◽  
State Capture ◽  
East Central European

In the early 1990s consolidation was the key term and conceptual frame in the democratization theories of the East Central European (ECE) states. However, this concept has been more and more questioned and finally rejected by the 2010s and the term deconsolidation has been introduced instead. Nowadays, there is an age of uncertainty in democracy studies that necessitates the reconceptualization of both European studies and democratic theory. In the recent deconsolidation process the trend towards ‘transitions to authoritarian rule’ has been observed in the ECE states in general and in Poland and Hungary in particular, where state capture has been extended to full-fledged ‘democracy capture’. Poland and Hungary will serve in this chapter as exemplary cases of deconsolidation of democracy.

Reconceptualizing the Social: East Central Europe and the New Sociocultural History

2008 ◽  
Vol 34-35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantin Iordachi
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Future Research ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe

This introductory essay reviews recent debates on social history, with a focus on the revival of this field of studies in post-communist East Central Europe and its potential impact on rejuvenating approaches to the social history of Europe. The first part of the essay provides a brief overview of the emergence of social history as a reaction to the dominant political history of the nineteenth century and its crystallization in different national schools, and highlights recent responses to the poststructuralist and postmodern critiques of “the social.” The second part focuses on traditions of social history research in East Central Europe, taking Poland and Romania as main examples. The third part summarizes the main claims of the articles included in this issue and evaluates their implications for future research. It is argued that, at first glance, post-communist historiography in East Central Europe provides the picture of a discipline in transformation, still struggling to break up with the past and to rebuild its institutional framework, catching up with recent trends and redefining its role in continental and global historiography. The recent attempts to invigorate research in traditional fields of social history might seem largely obsolete, not only out of tune with international developments but also futile reiterations of vistas that have been for long experimented with and superseded in Western Europe. At closer scrutiny, however, historiography in East Central Europe appears—unequal and variegated as it is—as a laboratory for historical innovation and a field of experimentation, and interaction of scholars from various disciplines and scholarly traditions, in which old and new trends amalgamate in peculiar ways. It is suggested that the tendency to reconceptualize the “social” that we currently witness in humanities and social sciences worldwide could be not only reinforced but also cross-fertilized by the “social turn” in East Central Europe, potentially leading to novel approaches.

scholarly journals Political mobilization in East Central Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Brunnbauer ◽  
Peter Haslinger
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
Thematic Section ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

This article provides an introduction to the special thematic section on political mobilization in East Central Europe. Based on a brief presentation of the main arguments of the individual articles, the authors discuss the recent political volatility in East Central Europe. They highlight the tension between fierce political rhetoric and populist policies on the one hand, and low levels of voter turnout and overall political participation in the region on the other. The authors argue that recent cases of successful as well as unsuccessful political mobilization in East Central Europe point to structural re-alignments in the region's political landscape. In particular, the parties that are successful are those that manage to communicate their visions in new ways and whose messages resonate with nested attitudes and preferences of the electorate. These parties typically rally against the so-called establishment and claim for themselves an anti-hegemonic agenda. The introductory essay also asserts that these developments in East Central Europe deserve attention for their potential Europe-wide repercussions – especially the idea of “illiberal democracy,”which combines populist mobilization and autocratic demobilization and finds adherents also in more established European democracies.

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