ABSTRACT This article investigates the construction of victimhood of victims of communist repression of the 1950s in Germany and Czechoslovakia. It traces this process from imprisonment, through pre-1989 articulations of victim status, to its reconfiguration in the two decades after 1989. Drawing on the concepts of victimhood, self-categorization and social polarization, the article argues that suffering is not an immutable outcome of historical events, but rather a socially constructed and constantly negotiated category, shaped by political opportunities, memory regimes and organizational actors. The analysis focuses on two key victim organizations: the Association of Victims of Stalinism in Germany and the Confederation of Political Prisoners in the Czech Republic. The findings indicate that, while German victims gradually transitioned from heroic anti-communist narratives to a more moderate discourse centred on legal recognition and compensation, Czech victims remained highly polarized, continuing to present themselves as heroic and morally superior. These differences are explained by different historical experiences, political contexts, competition with other victim groups and the degree to which memory politics were institutionalized. The article argues that collective victimhood functioned as a form of political capital, the mobilization of which led to different patterns of memory and political engagement in post-communist societies.

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the constitutional legitimacy of Albania from the viewpoint of “stability for the right reasons.” In accordance with the theory of sovereignty across generations proposed by Alessandro Ferrara, and using the findings of critical normative constitutionalism. This paper asserts that the constitutions adopted by the post-transition states of the Western Balkans, Albania among them, were written under conditions of political emergency, political bargaining among elites, and foreign pressure that have ensured stability but fall short on the moral level of legitimacy. The result of a modus vivendi among these elites, not the result of an overlapping consensus that emerges through public justification, these constitutions show a tendency towards a permanent incongruity between the sovereignty of the people and the content of the constitutional norms. The paper focuses on Albania as its prime example. It investigates the constitutional foundation from 1998 and amendments, particularly from 2008, which ambiguated the borderline between constituent power and constituted power, thereby weakening the transgenerational features of constitutional power. The paper uses concepts formulated by Ferrara about sequential sovereignty and vertical reciprocity and shows how the people’s reinterpretation according to populist ideology diminished constitutional allegiance and ownership in Albania.

ABSTRACT This article examines the private and semi-public life of János Kádár, General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (1956–1988), as a site where political legitimacy was cultivated through everyday practices. Drawing on archival records, memoirs, and visual materials, it analyses how Kádár’s personal habits, leisure activities, and spatial environments were consciously shaped to project an image of modesty, discipline, and endurance. The study situates Kádár’s self-fashioning within the broader symbolic politics of state socialism, showing how gestures of restraint and selective privilege reinforced affective ties between ruler and ruled, even amidst structural inequality. By interpreting these practices through the lens of ressentiment theory, the article demonstrates how personal conduct functioned as an instrument of power and a micro-foundation of authoritarian resilience.

ABSTRACT Informal payments have long been embedded in the Romanian healthcare system. However, Eurostat data indicate a sharp decline in reported informal payments, from 28% in 2013 to 9% in 2023, with a ten-percentage-point drop in 2023 alone. This paper examines the factors behind this change from the perspective of healthcare users. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 27 patients from various regions of Romania and using the constructivist grounded theory framework, the study investigates participants’ perceptions of and experiences with informal payments, as well as their views on the causes behind the decline. The reduction in informal payments can be attributed to salary reforms for medical staff, the expansion of private healthcare, migration opportunities for health professionals, anti-corruption efforts, and patients’ greater exposure to foreign healthcare systems. Higher salaries reduced the financial need for informal payments, while private healthcare and migration allowed dissatisfied practitioners to leave the public system. At the same time, reforms and anti-corruption campaigns contributed to denormalizing the practice. The study shows that in order to curb informal payments, it is necessary to concurrently address the structural and cultural determinants of the practice.

ABSTRACT Exploring the emergence of illiberal democracies in Central Europe necessitates a renewed perspective on the region’s post-1989 development. This study examines the illiberal tendencies present in the media during the 1990s, which many contemporary political actors seek to revive. The media serves as a key battleground between the dominant post-1989 liberal consensus and the current wave of illiberalism in post-communist Central Europe. The study traces the origins of these illiberal media tendencies within the broader process of democratization during the 1990s. The study argues for a continuity between these historical disputes and the contemporary trend towards illiberal media governance in Central Europe. It underscores the need to understand the distinct trajectories of media development in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Employing a Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD), it also identifies cross-national differences in the establishment of public service media, the liberalization of media markets, and the professional autonomy of journalists.

ABSTRACT In the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe published a detailed analysis of the concept of black (dysfunctional) pedagogy, its historical and philosophical roots, and the pertinent legal aspects. Among other things, they found that individuals may internalize behaviours associated with black pedagogy through cultural and historical transmission. The legal aspects of black pedagogy are not primarily rooted in the regulation of education and the activities of those who participate in it, but to the emergence and development of fundamental rights for youth. In this study, we analyse university students’ and athletes’ previous experiences with black pedagogy, focusing on the role of physical education teachers and coaches. Data collection took place with students studying at the Hungarian Department of Physical Education and Sports Faculty of Babeş-Bolyai University (N = 228), using a Hungarian language, paper-based questionnaire consisting mainly of open-ended questions. Results confirmed that black pedagogy was experienced by students with harassment being most often caused by teachers between the ages of 31 and 50. In our sample, the incidence of psychological or emotional abuse was highest in secondary schools.

ABSTRACT The smart village concept has evolved from the smart city concept, known in Europe for decades, while smart villages are a more recent development. Smart approaches involves innovative territorial development support, often enabled by modern technologies. Smart villages can better manage their natural resources, improve energy efficiency, support local entrepreneurship, and promote tourism and cultural heritage preservation. The goal of smart solutions is to increase the quality of life of the rural population while fostering sustainable and resilient local communities But can the smart village concept be seen as an analogy to the smart city concept? The paper attempts to answer this question, identifying key similarities and differences between the two, as well as experiences from their socio-economic implementation in Poland to date. Main conclusions highlight that Polish literature has explored smart cities for decades, but smart villages remain a new topic, with comparative studies scarce—this article fills that critical gap. Both concepts share aims of improving quality of life and sustainable development, yet diverge in scale, resource access, and priorities. Polish literature and practical implementations reveal that smart cities emphasise advanced technologies, while smart villages prioritise locally grounded, socially oriented solutions, often in partnership with urban areas.

ABSTRACT Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has triggered socio-cultural changes in Central Europe. War refugees, as a factor of social change, overlapped with cultural shift following the integration processes of UE. From this perspective, the integration of war refugees has also become a measure of the evolution of cities towards greater openness and resilience. The title question of integration triggered at least two analytical contexts: the first related to similarities of integration policies employed in the selected cities. The second relates to the perceptions of the war refugees themselves. The perspective of the acting subject can be useful here in answering questions: what is the specificity of war refugeeism, and how does its specificity affect the integration process on the local level? The answer to the questions formulated in the text was not definitive, but the results indicatedvalidity of a regional perspective in interpreting the dynamics of the integration process. The project collected data from second-tier cities: Brno, Kosice, Krakow, Miskolc, Poznan and Uzhhorod. The study employed conceptualizations of integration and social anchoring and the mixed-methods research strategy, using an online survey, in-depth interviews and focus group interviews.

ABSTRACT The purpose of the paper is to illustrate the relationship between the condition of paricipatory-deliberative urban governance in the the so-called first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus response model implemented by the municipal self-government of Warsaw and Stockholm. The conducted research based on documents and materials analysis as well as vox-pop survey allows to conclude that the relationship between the condition of the urban governance and the response model does not exist. As evidenced the regression of urban governance in question accompanies not only the “tactical closure” in Warsaw, but also the “strategic openness” in Stockholm.