Civil Society Development In Post communist States

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

Review of the collected volume "The Intermarium as the Polish-Ukrainian Linchpin of Baltic-Black Sea Cooperation" by Francesco Trupia. The review was published in Eastern European Politics (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21599165.2020.1715367) on January 21, 2020.

Religious groups can reinforce, complement, or undermine authoritarian domination. This article investigates whether high-status Protestant churches act as democratising civil society organisations by gathering hundreds of Protestants openly outside state structures to change church registration policies. In so doing, they also seek to curtail state domination over religion and, by extension, over all groups in society.

In 2003 and 2018, mass protests triggered the collapse of authoritarian regimes in Georgia and Armenia, respectively. In both
cases, civil society organizations (CSOs) played an important role in laying the groundwork and organizing the protests. Following
the toppling of semi-autocratic leaders, reform-oriented governments took over in both countries. Yet, the way civil society
engaged the new rulers differed considerably. Whereas in Georgia, former civil society leaders were absorbed into the new
government, Armenian civil society has kept its distance from the new political leadership. In this paper, we attempt to explain
why state-society relations after the revolutions have developed in different directions in these two Soviet successor states. We
argue that three conditions explain differences in engagement with the new governments: CSOs’ pre-revolutionary cooperation
with the political opposition, Western governments’ support for civil society before and after the democratic transitions, and the
degree to which CSOs are rooted in and represent the general public. As a consequence, Georgia's post-revolutionary regime
lacked the checks and balances that CSOs usually provide, allowing it to sacrifice democratization on the altar of modernization. In
Armenia, in contrast, CSOs have maintained a critical stance and continued to hold the government accountable.

The main objective of this paper is the analysis of the development of Think Tanks and Public Policy Centers in Russia and other post-communist countries. Think Tanks are small practically oriented research teams comprising both academic researchers and experts who are familiar with political practices and capable of implementing proposed solutions to topical problems in social and political life. In the community of Think Tanks, which usually carry out commissions we can distinguish one type, the activities of which are based on a socially signifijicant idea, i.e. the promotion of development in post-authoritarian and postcommunist states by encouraging truly public and open policy. In early 21st century such organizations were named "Public Policy Centers" (PPC).

A rare and lost preface to Animal farm; novella written by George Orwell. This preface better known as Freedom to Press was written by Orwell himself and It gives equal cult to the topic which Orwell tried to heed on. I just edited it into readable PDF.

Civil society, third or non-profit sector is a multilayered phenomenon. Despite the intensive growth of civic associating during the nineties and the first decade of the 2000s, the civic space in Slovakia has not become a matter of a broader reflection by political and economic elites in their search of solutions to pressing issues in public policy. The state and civil society relationship in Slovakia after the collapse of communism in 1989 oscilated between the indifference and statism, the belief that the state is the most legitimate and effective actor in the public arena. In some periods, the relationship has worsened and became more tense and adversariar when the civil society space was subjected to attacks from ruling politicians. Until today, civil society in Slovakia remains to be a residual category, that is to some extent underestimated, even unwanted by other policy actors and surrounded with many misunderstandings and myths that are shared among the public.

Občianska spoločnosť, občiansky sektor, tretí či neziskový sektor je mnohovrstevný fenomén. Napriek intenzívnemu rastu občianskeho združovania počas deväťdesiatych rokov 20. storočia i prvej dekády 21. storočia u nás, téma občianskej spoločnosti sa nestala témou širšej spoločenskej reflexie zo strany politických či ekonomických elít pri hľadaní riešení v oblasti verejnej politiky. Celkovo však na Slovensku v období po roku 1989 vzťah štátu k občianskej spoločnosti osciloval medzi nevšímavosťou a etatizmom, čo je presvedčenie, že len štát je schopný a oprávnený konať vo verejnom priestore. Vzťah medzi neziskovým sektorom a štátom sa v niektorých obdobiach po roku 1989 vyostroval až do istej animozity a občianska spoločnosť bola vystavená predmetom útokov zo strany vládnych politikov. Priestor medzi rodinou, štátom a trhom tak ostáva aj naďalej reziduálnou, do istej miery nechcenou či podceňovanou kategóriou, o ktorej panuje veľa mýtov, nedorozumení i neporozumenia, ktoré by nemali ostať nepovšimnuté.

Розглянуто процес еволюції українського суспільства та прояву громадської позиції під час цієї еволюції. Проаналізовано науковий дискурс довкола поняття громадянське суспільство. Відзначено необхідні фактори для успішного розвитку і функціонування громадянського суспільства в Україні.

Moments of mass mobilization astound us. As a sea of protesters fills the streets, observers scramble to understand this extraordinary political act by 'ordinary' citizens. This study presents a paired comparison of two 'moments' of mass mobilization, in Ukraine and Argentina. The two cases are compared and analyzed on a cross-temporal and an inter- regional basis, thereby offering two critical cases in response to assumptions that the processes and patterns of mobilization, and democratization politics more broadly, are region specific. This study challenges political science's focus on elites and structural factors in the study of political participation during democratization.

The conclusion applies the model of mass-mobilization developed from the two cases to the Arab Spring (Egypt) and EuroZone Sovereign Debt Crisis (Greece) protests. The epilogue assesses the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine in comparative context.

Contents:

PART I

1. Introduction: The Shock and Awe of Moments of Mass Mobilization

2. Theoretical Framework for Comparative Analysis of Mass Mobilization


PART II

3. Mapping Moments and Movements in Ukraine and Eastern Europe 1920-2004

4. Mapping Moments and Movements in Argentina and Latin America 1920-2001

PART III

5. Setting Precedents: Medium-term Structural Factors in the Mobilization Process

6. Context is Only Part of the Puzzle: Short-term Structural Factors in the Mass Mobilization Process

PART IV

7. The Activist and Elite Interaction and Information Exchange Game

8. The Duty to Protest: Participation of 'Ordinary' People in Mass Mobilization

9. Conclusions: Understanding Revolutionary Moments and Movements

Epilogue: It Happened Again: The 2014 EuroMaidan Mass Mobilization in Ukraine

The focus of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it outlines the geopolitical rationale behind contemporary Russian expansionism, as well as presents the asymmetric mechanisms utilized by Russia to solidify its authority in the post-communist space. The four commonly used theoretical frameworks explaining Russian expansionism were described and critically assessed. Apart from this, the Russian and foreign political philosophic thought of the 19-21 centuries was referred to, to trace the evolution of the Russian Byzantium-type governing tradition and national identity. On the other hand, the paper assesses the features of post-colonial Ukrainian political culture and unveils premises for the emergence of its statehood in the 1990s. The major differences between Russian and Ukrainian political cultures and identities are emphasized. Finally, the hypothesis tested is that a democratic Ukraine – strengthened by cooperation with its Western allies – will become an obstacle of Russian expansionism in the future.

Civil society in Serbia was described as “suppressed” during previous undemocratic regimes. After being one of the main actors in the initial process of democratizing Serbia, civil society failed to gain influence in the new circumstances. Although the new legal environment does not pose obstacles to the work of CSOs, civil society is facing new problems: a lack of international financial support, an underdeveloped local economy without incentives to support the work of CSOs, and passive citizens who rarely engage in social or political activism. Two opposing trends are currently shaping the role and position of civil society in Serbia: European Union integration processes, which are enabling greater influence on the part of CSOs, and the diminishing democratic standards of the last few Serbian governments (with specific emphasis on media freedom, transparency and accountability), which have narrowed the political space for civil engagement. In circumstances
that can still be described as transitional, a new generation of civil society actors and leaders have emerged with new approaches and ideas. Some of them became more visible during the 2014 flood crisis and the refugee crisis in 2015, when civil society once again showed its full capacity to respond and assist in extraordinary circumstances.

This essay focuses on a paradoxical transformation that happened within Soviet ideological discourse at the very end of perestroika, around 1990-91. The Party's attempts to revitalize Soviet ideology by returning to the original word of Lenin unexpectedly produced the opposite result. The unquestionable external Truth from which Soviet ideological discourse drew its legitimacy-and that had always been identical with Lenin's wordsuddenly could no longer be known. This shift launched a rapid unraveling of the Soviet communist project. At the center of this unexpected transformation was the search for the true Lenin-a kind of Lenin that Soviet party theorists, bureaucrats, historians, and scientists hoped was still hidden in the midst of his unpublished texts and unknown facts of his biology, life, and death.

This paper dwells in a large space of encounter between theorizing poverty and the poverty of theorizing, through operating with ‘theory’ as means for [and end of] activating tropes as, and for, political interventions. In the first part, I explain how the paper weaves that space of encounter (the theoretical tools), why it weaves it on (and for) a vigorously located empirical background (The Romanian Carpathians), and what are the stakes of the whole enterprise. Then, the second part unpacks the cultural circuit of poverty, resource management, and industrialisation in the Romanian Carpathians along three relations (industrialization and poverty, justice and poverty, patriotism and poverty) creatively activated by the communist practices of governmentality, so as to make scarcity more bearable. The rather optimistic conclusion signals the need to consider the body an effective site of resistance to the practices of governmentality, and alternative directions of thinking scales and regions, and insists on the politics and potentialities of critical theorizing.

Key words: governmentality, materialist semiotics, environmental transformation, human and natural resources, poverty, development, justice, nationalism

Have there been changes in political institutions, parties, leaders, and regional political orientations in Ukraine after the "Orange Revolution"? If so, are the changes revolutionary or evolutionary? Most previous studies refer to the 2004 presidential elections and mass protest actions as a revolution. To test this claim, this article analyzes political changes in Ukraine. Survey data are used to compare changes in pro-Russian and pro-Western orientation, support for major parties in the 2002, 2006, and 2007 parliamentary elections, and support for leading presidential candidates since the 2004 presidential elections. The implications of these changes for development of democracy in Ukraine are also considered.

This report is a comparative look at five pooled funds among US and European private foundations and bilateral agencies to support civil society in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War. The Environmental Partnership for Central Europe, the Baltic-American Partnership Fund, the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkan Trust for Democracy, and the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation were established between 1991 and 2007 with varying donors, geographic mandates, structures, strategic priorities, and legacies, yet all with the same broad aim. With the benefit of hindsight, what can be learned about how to build a vibrant civil society that can endure over the long run, is embedded in the culture, and is supported from within?

This research draws on the authors’ past experiences, desk research and more than 250 interviews with the pooled funds’ donors, board and staff members, grantees, and independent experts and observers from 15 countries. The report examines the impact of these five partnerships and trusts from the point of view of the institutions, policies, cultural change and grantee organizations that they left behind. The heart of the report is a series of lessons for funders grouped under four headings: the Power of the Pooled Fund Model; Building Trust in Civil Society; Enhancing Sustainability and Capacity; and, Four Special Cases. In the end, the authors, three longtime former US foundation practitioners, offer a call to philanthropy to rethink practices to support and nurture civil society organizations and fund over longer time horizons.

Civil society has emerged as a central force in peacebuilding and is contributing to the reframing of discourse around the concept. Despite the interest in Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) peacebuilding activities, little has been done to suggest a functional perspective to CSOs contribution to peacebuilding. What seems to exist is a largely descriptive account of civil society peacebuilding initiatives based on its forms and actors rather than its functions. It is within this context, that this paper, examines, civil society and peacebuilding. It provides an analytical framework to better understand the functions of civil society and sketches their growing involvement in peacebuilding. The thesis sponsored by this paper is that a functional analysis of CSOs in peacebuilding would enable stakeholders and funders to better analyze existing and potential forms of CSOs engagement in peacebuilding. The paper argues that civil society contributions to peacebuilding can be categorized in a variety of ways, but stakeholders and particularly donors largely employ actor-oriented perspectives which have often denied the concerned public knowledge of the contributions of CSOs to peacebuilding. It proposes to move toward a functional perspective; centered on the roles that CSOs can play in peacebuilding. The paper identifies the functional perspective of CSOs to include: protection, monitoring/early warning; advocacy/public communication; socialization, social cohesion; intermediation/facilitation and service provision. It maintains that these seven functions encompass the core roles of civil society and that taken together offer a suitable framework to better understand the potential contribution of civil society to peacebuilding.

Why has the EU’s promotion of Rule of Law (RoL) triggered different and largely surface-thin reforms across countries subject to a similar frame of enlargement in the Western Balkans (WB)? We hypothesize that the domestic (non)enforcement of EU promoted rules depends on the mobilization of politically autonomous constituencies of change – organized advocacy groups and autonomous state institutions – which amount domestic accountability. The empirical investigation focuses on the prosecution of political corruption as empirical foci to assessing the travails of EU-promoted rules in the domestic context. Specifically, we trace the role of (1) EU’s RoL promotion strategy, (2) political resistance and (3) domestic accountability in explaining different records of prosecution of political corruption in Albania and Croatia.

Since gaining independence in 1991, the post-Soviet authoritarian state of Kazakhstan started a process of renegotiating and reconstructing its national identity. The country, which is home to 125 di erent ethnic groups, began its transition from the mentality of a Soviet national identity to a new form of Kazakhstani national identity built upon the concept of a single Kazakh ethnic identity, language, religion and culture. This article discusses the place of Oralmans – the Kazakh returning diaspora, who were encouraged from 1991 to come back to their historical motherland by the Kazakhstani government – in this process of national identity reconstruction. Oralmans became the recipients of a number of favorable policies including medical assistance, education and housing. The focus is the Zhanaozen crisis of 2011, which, the authors argue, became a catalyst for re-examining the policy towards Oralmans and generated public debate about Oralmans, their place in the post-Soviet Kazakhstan, the di erences between the Russi ed Kazakhs and the traditional Kazakhs (Oralmans), and the ongoing debate about the reconstruction of the Kazakhstani national identity. This article is based on data drawn from a media content analysis that looked at the role of social media in Kazakhstan taking the Zhanaozen crisis as a case study.

This chapter analyses the issue of democracy in Ukraine and major factors which determine the prospects for democracy in the one of the largest European countries. The research question is as to how Ukraine fares in terms of common democracy criteria. The related question is as to which factors or obstacles affect democracy in Ukraine, specifically after the “Euromaidan.”  The major measures of democracy, such as the Polity and Freedom House indexes, show that Ukraine did not turn into a democracy as a result of the “Euromaidan.” The Polity index and various evidence, specifically concerning the violent political transition during the “Euromaidan,” suggest a relative movement towards greater authoritarianism. Such development contrasts with relative democratization of Ukraine after it gained independence following a collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and after peaceful mass protests and an additional round elections during the “Orange Revolution” prevented an attempt to seize power with help of falsification of election results.

However, the changes in the state of democracy in independent Ukraine and the application to Ukraine of various factors, which previous studies identified as promoting or hindering democracy, indicate that consolidated liberal democracy or consolidated autocracy are unlikely to take root in Ukraine. Such factors include the economic development level, semi-democratic political values, historical legacies, political institutions, political leadership, civil society, and European Union integration. The effect of Ukrainian diaspora on democracy in Ukraine is a factor that requires further research.

""The analysis showed that the Ukrainian media system, like the media in Europe (and the rest of the world), are undergoing the processes of commercialization, tabloidization, and concentration of media ownership. What is specific to Ukraine, however, is that the concentration of market ownership is predominantly conditioned by political and not just commercial interests.
The comparison of the Ukrainian media market with the markets in Central and Eastern Europe showed that Ukrainian commercial media have much more in common with the media of south European post-communist countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia) than with the media in Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic. Compared to the “advanced” new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, Ukraine has not managed to create a large and developed media market, where the high profits of media enterprises can ensure their independence from political interests. Like the countries of Southern Europe and some post-Soviet countries (excluding the Baltic states), Ukraine has an underdeveloped media market with a low advertising budget. As a result, most of its private media are unable to cut the links that make them economically dependent on political interests. As is also the case in the countries mentioned above, the Ukrainian market hosts too many media, further impairing both their profitability and their autonomy. The market “overpopulation” in all of these countries has essentially the same cause—media owners set up or maintain media businesses not in quest of financial success but to exercise political influence.
What is specific to Ukraine, however, is the predominance of oligarchs as owners of its media. These industrial-financial magnates are “external” to the media industry, because their main business interests are not in the media but in steel, coal, energy, banking, and other spheres. They see media ownership as a means to further their economic interests, which depend extensively on
political decisions. They use the media to gain political weight in order to influence these decisions. Oligarchic ownership of Ukraine’s major media considerably constrains their autonomy. Because they are politics-driven rather than market-driven, Ukraine’s most important media enterprises are anything but politically independent.
Significantly, oligarchic ownership of the media enhances the risk of introducing centralized control over the media. When a media market is divided between a few owners highly dependent on politics, it is easier to get their compliance to serve a ruling political group than would be the case if media owners were more numerous and more independent. The past decade of media history in Russia and recent events in Ukraine give convincing proof of this.
The Ukrainian media market differs from media markets in Central and Eastern Europe in two other ways. First, the privatization of the media is still incomplete and thus there are a large number of state-owned and municipal media. Second, it is in competition with the powerful presence of a neighboring (Russian) media market supported by a larger readership and a larger advertising budget. Both these features distort market competition in Ukraine and reduce the sustainability of the majority of its players.
What is common to the media in Ukraine and such countries as Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, or Albania is that in all of them the state makes recurrent attempts to exert pressure on private media. The means of influencing the media market in Ukraine and these other countries include flawed and frequently changing media legislation and licensing policies, and, in addition, the widespread misuse of the law by the government.
An important obstacle to the development of a strong Ukrainian media market is the general disregard for the law in the country. The unhealthy situation whereby the law does not protect freedom of the press, but is used to punish of critically minded media, aggravates the condition of the national media market and restricts the independence and pluralism of the opinions voiced in it.""

This study examines ethno-cultural associations—public institutions representing interests of minority groups—and discusses their role in the development of civil society in ethnically rich Kazakhstan. Minority
associations developed in Soviet times inherited Soviet-era property and certain charitable and social practices. The Soviet footprint translates into hierarchy and state subordination. Based on interviews with representatives of associations and their visitors in Almaty, the study focuses on their quotidian activities and attempts to explain why these associations are providers of various resources for civil society development. The findings show evidence of the state being a part of the institutional synergy in the civil sphere. As part of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan and being “government-organised NGOs,” ethno-cultural associations add their voice on “togetherness” and “unification” of diverse nationalities and to the official rhetoric of the new patriotic act. Despite transparent loyalty to the authorities and lacking a formal political
agenda, cultural and social activities of these associations remain relatively autonomous. The study concludes that their real non-decorative functions deal with creating unionism, providing opportunities for social capital development, and fostering an understanding and appreciation of ethnic diversity. These associations have a potential to bridge the gap between communities while providing platforms for civic exchanges and being intermediaries between the public, the state and their kin states.

What can we learn about civil society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia from studies on activism within the region's urban spaces? In this article, we argue that studying urban activism in CEE offers useful insights for general theory building about the importance of uneventful protests, the formation of agency and the processes of becoming active in the public sphere (conceptualized here as "political becoming"), and the enabling role of informality in collective action in adverse contexts. By contributing to our understanding in this way, these insights help to advance relational and process-based conceptions of civil society.

During Hugo Chávez's presidency, Venezuelan society underwent a sudden—and vicious—split between the Chavistas and the Opposition. What accounts for the extreme intensity of the split? How did differences so quickly become irreconcilable? What role did the media play? Answering these and related questions, Ana Mallén and María Pilar García-Guadilla explore how participatory democracy led to profound social polarization in Venezuela. (Forthcoming April 2017)

Statistical analyses of the voting results from all national parliamentary and presidential elections held between 1991 and 2006 and survey data concerning attitudes towards major historical issues confirm the existence of strong and persistent regional cleavages in post-Soviet Ukraine. Western Ukrainian regions, which differ significantly in terms of their historical legacies
from regions in Eastern Ukraine, are much more supportive, compared to Eastern Ukraine, of pro-nationalist and pro-Western parties and politicians, and they are much less supportive of pro-Communist and pro-Russian parties and politicians.
        Similarly, Eastern Ukrainians, compared to Western Ukrainians, express much more favorable attitudes towards the incorporation of Eastern Ukraine by Russia in the seventeenth century, the Bolshevik Revolution, the whole period of Ukraine’s inclusion in the Soviet Union, the past Communist political system, Russian tsars, and Soviet political leaders. People from Western Ukraine are much more likely than the residents of other regions to
regard the artificial famine of 1932/1933 as a result of deliberate Soviet policy directed against ethnic Ukrainians. Western Ukrainians demonstrate much more favorable views than their Eastern Ukrainian counterparts towards the UPA and historical Ukrainian nationalist and pro-independence leaders.
        Regression analysis shows that historical legacies, linked to different historical experiences before Soviet unification, have the largest effect, compared to other factors, on electoral behavior and on attitudes towards historical issues. Keeping other factors, such as ethnicity and the level of economic development constant, the history of Austro-Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, and Czechoslovak rule is the biggest determinant of the regional pro-nationalist/pro-Western vote index, the pro-Communist/pro-Russian vote index,  and individual attitudes towards the past Soviet political system. Catholic religion and Ukrainian ethnicity also affect the regional electoral behavior indexes but to a lesser extent and less consistently than the historical legacy does. Age, education, Catholic religion, and gender are significant
determinants of attitudes towards the Soviet political system. However, their effects are weaker compared to the effects of historical legacy variables.
    This study concludes that the regional political cleavages in post-Communist Ukraine reflect primarily cultural differences that emerged as a result of distinct historical experiences in Ukrainian regions in the periods before World War I and World War II. These findings imply that the regional differences in electoral behavior and attitudes towards major historical issues will not disappear in Ukraine in the near future.

This chapter analyses the specific development of civil society in Georgia from the Tsarist Empire in the 19 th century until today. I will try to answer the question what was and is its specific function and role configured during its modernisation path, which significantly differs from Western ones. After one successful, but almost forgotten precedent of adapting Marxism to the needs of local communities in the beginning of the 20 th century under Georgian Menshevik Social-Democracy, today still requires an indigenization based on citizenship and less on ethno-cultural traits inherited from the Soviet nationality policy in order to de-politicize the nation.

This article concerns the extent to which corrupt behavior is dependent on the organizational power structure and the resources available for illegal exchange. This qualitative study is based on 42 in-depth interviews with organizational actors in different organizations in Hungary. Four core themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (a) isolated corruption at the bottom, (b) the middle level’s own corruption, (c) “technicization” when middle-level professionals and expert groups are used to legalize the corruption of the dominant coalition, and (d) “turning-off controls” when organizational elites intentionally deactivate internal and external controls to avoid detection.

Для советских людей обвал советской системы стал одновременно абсолютной неожиданностью и чем-то вполне закономерным. Это драматическое событие обнажило необычный парадокс: несмотря на то, что большинство людей воспринимало советскую систему как вечную и неизменную, они в принципе были всегда готовы к ее распаду. В книге профессора Калифорнийского университета в Беркли Алексея Юрчака система «позднего социализма» (середина 1950-х – середина 1980-х) анализируется в перспективе этого парадокса. Образ позднего социализма, возникающий в книге, в корне отличается от привычных стереотипов, согласно которым советскую реальность якобы можно свести к описанию, основанному на простых противопоставлениях -- таких как: официальная/неофициальная культура, тоталитарный язык/свободный язык, политическое подавление/гражданское сопротивление, публичная ложь/скрытая правда и т.д.