Central European Politics Research Articles

‘Hungarian Factor’ in Central and Eastern European Politics of France (Spring — Summer 1920)

This article examines the role and significance of the “Hungarian factor” in the central and eastern European political landscape of France during the period from April to August 1920. The novelty of this research lies in its analysis not only of the bilateral Franco-Hungarian interactions but also of how Paris’s perceptions of Hungary’s place in Europe were intertwined with other vectors of the Third Republic’s foreign policy. The study utilizes published French diplomatic documents, the diary of General Edmond Buat, Chief of Staff of the French Army, and select reports from General Artus de la Panouse, the French military attaché in the United Kingdom. The author concludes that the “Hungarian factor” influenced the central and eastern European policy of the Third Republic in a contradictory manner. It is demonstrated that France’s view of Hungary as a defeated nation served Paris’s objectives of affirming its status as a victorious power, consolidating a belt of friendly states in Central-Eastern Europe, and expanding its financial and economic presence. At the same time, it is emphasized that Hungary was not perceived as a direct threat to the interests of the Third Republic; rather, in the context of the Red Army’s advance westward, it could potentially be integrated into an anti-Soviet coalition.

Expelled from the Fairytale: The Impact of the Dissident Legacy on Post-1989 Central European Politics

To understand the political dimension of dissident legacies, we need first to understand the components that “made” the dissidents and follow their reconfiguration after 1989, leading to initial empowerment followed by gradual demise of the liberal post-dissident elite. Dissidence in the form that first appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s in central and eastern Europe constituted a particular mode of political practice, combining open, non-violent dissent with universalist moral claims. The phenomenon of dissidentism was transnational, as political empowerment of oppositionists was achieved through a particular network of relationships between domestic audiences, repressive regimes, and Western media, social movements, trade unions, political parties, and policymakers. The specificities of the dissidents’ empowerment can partly explain key features of post-dissident politics and the visible backlash against former prominent dissidents, which has contributed to the rise of illiberalism and to democratic backsliding. This article traces the post-1989 trajectories of a few who belonged among central Europe’s most prominent representatives in this symbolic category, to try to explain the causes and character of the swift backlash against them—or as Václav Havel put it, their “expulsion from the fairytale.” Three pillars of dissident political power turned into the roots of their demise. First, critics question the dissidents’ uniqueness and rewrite their master narrative. Further, we see a clash of representations that results from the dissidents’ transnational empowerment, and third, the broader anti-elite and anti-intellectual tendencies that always accompanied dissidence as its shadow became amplified by more recent populist rhetoric.

Spurring Women to Action? Communist-led Women’s Trade Unionism Between the Hungarian Shop Floor and Top-level Internationalism, 1947 to 1959

ABSTRACT This exploratory article discusses the politics of promoting women’s trade unionism in Hungary and at the World Federation of Trade Unions from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. It examines the factors that propelled and restricted the development of these politics on, and shaped their travel between, the workplace and the national and international scales. In Hungary, a network of women trade unionists combined their alignment with the political and productivist sides of the project of “building socialism” with activities aimed at the cultural and social “elevation” of women workers and the promotion of their trade unionism. On the international plane, the position of the Central and Eastern European politics of women’s trade unionism was likewise, though very differently, impacted by the emphasis on “building socialism.” Within the women’s politics pursued by the WFTU internationally, the distinctions made between socialist, capitalist, and colonial countries translated into rather restrictive roles envisioned for Central European women’s trade unionism. For a variety of reasons, which were related to all scales of action, the connection between the WFTU’s politics of promoting women’s trade unionism and the activities developed by the Hungarian women trade unionists remained rather weak during the period.

From People into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe by Connelly John (review)

REVIEWS 367 living conditions and peasant participation in local governance institutions (zemstvo, volost´ governments, etc.). And finally, although avowedly about the entire Russian peasantry over time, this book is mostly focused on the central industrial region between Moscow and Petersburg. This feels like a lost opportunity, as a more substantive and clearer documentation of differences across space, over time and between Russian peasants and other groups would have strengthened the contribution of this study. While wide-ranging, written in a student-friendly way, and emphasizing a novel ‘ecological’ perspective on the history of the Russian peasantry, Gorshkov’s study offers few challenges to current historical interpretations. David Moon’s The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930 (London, 1999) covers much of the same ground in a way that nicely incorporates quantitative evidence, original sources and a comparative perspective on the heterogenous nature of rural Russian life. Reading the two books together would provide a useful entry point into the large, hugely important, and still evolving historiography of the Russian peasantry. Department of Economics Steven Nafziger Williams College Connelly, John. From People into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ and Woodstock, 2020. vii + 956 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Appendix. Index. £30.00: $35.00. East European history can be a daunting subject for historians and specialists let alone for those fair weather or armchair enthusiasts interested in events that shaped the region over the past decades. Writing a detailed history of Eastern Europe is an even more challenging undertaking. For this reason, John Connelly’s latest attempt at narrating and examining a considerable period of modern history set in the context of Eastern Europe is a welcome contribution to the topic’s growing historiography. The author is no stranger to the complex historical cleavages of the region at the centre of this monograph. Connelly, who specializes, among others, in topics of modern East and Central European political and social history, has previously written on the Sovietization of higher education in post-war Eastern Europe during the period of high Stalinism as well as about German occupational ethnopolitics in the east during World War Two. It is fitting that this scholar chose to tackle the project of chronologically mapping a complex 150-year period of East European development over five broad thematic sections totalling twenty-seven chapters. SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 368 From the outset the author outlines what exactly he means by ‘Eastern Europe’, a term used interchangeably with ‘East Central Europe’ throughout the text. The book traces nineteenth-century anti-imperialist struggles that gave rise to twentieth-century nationalist trends before questioning the current state of nationalism in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary; the former Yugoslav Republics; Bulgaria, Romania and Germany. Absent however, are more dedicated discussions on countries many today also associate as East European — the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. Whereas some aspects of their national development are mentioned in the context of the aforementioned countries, the author explains how their experiences largely under the rule of other states during much of the period examined led to the creation of ‘separate stories’, thereby suggesting they deserve distinct attention. This argument may be contested by some, especially those who maintain how nationalist movements, for example in present-day western Ukraine, were also part of greater anti-imperial struggles. For Connelly however, the Eastern Europe designation serves more than just denoting a physical space on the reader’s mental map. Rather it is synonymous with his description of shared experiences and common narratives about the past still circulating throughout the region today. Connelly’s methodology of employing accepted and new vocabulary to trace how patterns and changes reverberated throughout the region deserves appreciation. Terms familiar to even the most amateur of historians like ‘decolonization’ and ‘national self-determination’ described events throughout the region discussed in the first half of his book; that is roughly until the outbreak of World War Two. From there a series of new phrases is introduced — ludobójstwo (the Polish term for genocide coined by Polish Jew Raphael Lemkin), ‘foreign in their own land’, and ‘reform communists’ — that to specialists may seem common, but which encapsulate the wartime events and...

25 years later – Austria’s shift to the populist right: national characteristics of a pan-European trend

Abstract The year 1995 rather coincidentally tags both the foundation of the Central European Political Science Association and the accedence of Austria, one of its founding members, to the European Union. Austria has particularly benefitted from its membership and the following EU enlargement rounds which also welcomed the other CEPSA members to the club. However, it seems that these advantages have not yet been fully appreciated, neither by a significant part of the political elite nor by the majority of the Austrian population. Increasing Euroscepticism and EU bashing can be observed during the last two and a half decades. The rise of the populist far-right, EU-hostile Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) was simultaneous. Of course, the political success of right-wing populism in combination with strong Euroscepticism has become a pan-European phenomenon since at least the last two decades. It is certainly not purely an Austrian phenomenon. Nevertheless, one can observe national differences. Since a systematic comparison of the development of right-wing populist patterns and related political trends between Austria and other CEPSA member countries would go beyond the scope of this essay, the focus of the paper is on relevant Austrian characteristics pertinent to this phenomenon.

The future of Europe and the role of Eastern Europe in its past, present, and future 2. A new critical juncture? Central Europe and the impact of European integration

This article discusses the extent to which it is possible to label European integration as a new critical juncture of politics in Central Europe by using four Central European countries of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia as the focus of our investigation. The article presents the historical critical junctures of Central European efforts to liberalise and democratise politics and to create liberal democratic political institutions: the Revolution of 1848, the emergence of independent states in 1918, the Sovietisation of Central Europe between 1945–48 and democratic transition after 1989. We argue that after 2004, when the Central European countries entered the European Union (EU), the claims related to the liberal democratic nature of the EU polity triggered nationalist and illiberal opposition. Therefore, the EU membership has provided a new critical juncture impacting the consolidation or destabilisation of liberal democratic patterns of government. The article further argues that path dependence on the previous critical junctures of Central European politics plays a role in the political development of these countries’ stance on European integration. The authors show that there has been a contradiction between nationalism and liberal concept of democracy since the mid-nineteenth century and that this contradiction manifests in critical junctures based on European integration too.

International Scientific Conference: 23rd Annual Conference of Central European Political Science Association 2018

International Scientific Conference: 23rd Annual Conference of Central European Political Science Association 2018

Understanding Enemy Images in Central and Eastern European Politics

In recent years, Europe has experienced a rise in politics based on antagonism, often discussed from the perspectives of populism and the mainstreaming of the ideologies of the radical right. In this study, we argue that there is a need for an interdisciplinary, theoretically broader and more empirically focused approach that fosters understanding of these developments. To explore the causal factors, we focus on the enemy images that are constructed and diffused by politicians, and their specific historical and structural contexts. The paper thus has two main components: First, we review what political theory, research on populism and on the extreme right and social psychology say about the functions of the use and development of enemy images. Second, we highlight the contextual factors that we consider make the success of a politics based on enemy images more likely in Central and Eastern Europe.

KRESŤANSTVO A MORÁLKA V STREDOEURÓPSKEJ POLITIKE 9. STOROČIA

KRESŤANSTVO A MORÁLKA V STREDOEURÓPSKEJ POLITIKE 9. STOROČIA

Developments in Central and Eastern European Politics, edited by S.White, P.G.Lewis and J.Batt (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 5th edn, 2014, ISBN 9781137262991); xix+312pp., £27.99 pb.

JCMS: Journal of Common Market StudiesVolume 53, Issue 2 p. 428-429 Book Review Developments in Central and Eastern European Politics, edited by S. White, P.G. Lewis and J. Batt (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 5th edn, 2014, ISBN 9781137262991); xix+312pp., £27.99 pb. Costica Dumbrava, Costica Dumbrava Maastricht UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Costica Dumbrava, Costica Dumbrava Maastricht UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 09 February 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12227_2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume53, Issue2March 2015Pages 428-429 RelatedInformation

The Public Administration Discipline in Slovenia: Between Legal and Administrative Sciences

Abstract Th e article analyzes the historical development of public administration as a discipline in research and study programs situated between legal and administrative sciences in Slovenia as part of the Central European political and legal environment. Public administration in Slovenia was initially, and still is, primarily law-driven, but an integrative and furthermore interdisciplinary approach to public-administration studies is considered to be an inevitable trend due to its complex character. However, as indicated by the presented results of research on Slovene administrative study programs and teachers’ habilitation areas, combined with the classification of researchers’ scientific achievements, carried out in order to establish the state of the art of administrative science, research and study programs are developing rather in the framework of administrative-legal science. Hence, as grounded by historical, comparative and empirical analyses of the present study programs, habilitation and research areas in Slovenia, critical assessment of their design and classification leads us to draw several conclusions. Primarily, law is not sufficient, although, simultaneously, in the CEE area it is an indispensable basis for the study of a law-determined public administration. Both mentioned imperatives should systematically be taken into account in future (supra-) national field classifications as well as in the planning and accreditation of study programs and research in the field.

The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe by Tomasz Kamusella (review)

Slavonic and East European Review, 91, 4, 2013 Reviews Kamusella, Tomasz. The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2012. xxviii + 1140 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. £27.99 (paperback). Tomasz Kamusella’s authoritative study of language, nation and state in Central Europe, originally published in hardback in December 2008, has recently appeared as a paperback for the first time. The fact that such a comprehensive and pioneering work has been made available to a wider readership, albeit of an exclusively academic orientation, is to be celebrated. Ostensibly, the author focuses on the emergence and consolidation of Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak ethnolinguistic nationalism, but, in reality, the geographical and cultural remit of his research is broader still. The Politics of LanguageandNationalisminModernCentralEuropeprovidesanindispensable source of empirical material both for the reader with a general interest in linguistics, European history and politics and Slavonic and Hungarian studies, and for the specialist in sub-disciplines as diverse as historical demography, historiography, political anthropology, the political science of religion, language planning and the role of minority languages in education. The strength of Kamusella’s writing resides in his ability to present an indepth account of a challenging and potentially controversial subject in a way which is admirably free of jargon, unencumbered by a narrow ideational approach and devoid of unnecessary polemicization with other scholars. The author exhibits an extraordinary depth of knowledge, founded on his extensive reading in several languages, and largely achieves his goal of synthesizing his disparate research interests in a single volume. As an empirical study, Kamusella’s work is highly significant and is unlikely to be surpassed in its breadth and erudition for a long time to come. There are no other publications which address the question of Central European language and nationalism in such detail. Unsurprisingly, however, for a book of this length and scope, it also has its weaknesses. Although it is not intended as a contribution to theory, it would benefit from a more theoretically based discussion of concepts such as ‘nation’, ‘language’ and ‘nation state’. (Kamusella refers both to the ‘nation-state’ and the ‘state nation’, but does not address Meinecke’s dichotomy between Kulturnation and Staatsnation.) Other imperfections include occasional unnecessary repetition of information mentioned earlier in the text, some minor stylistic and orthographic anomalies, and the author’s method of citation, which does not always adequately identify individual contributions to specific themes or different perspectives on those themes. The opening section of Kamusella’s work comprises a relatively short formal Introduction (pp. 1–61), an overview of language development in Central Europe (focusing on German, Latin, Czech, Polish, Magyar, Slovak, the official languages of the region and Central European literacies) (pp. 62–148), and a long and informative discussion of the broader linguistic and cultural REVIEWS 871 context of the specified area (pp. 149–363). As elsewhere, the author draws on a large number of examples and illustrations, which go well beyond the geographical and linguistic boundaries generally attributed to Central Europe. His commentary on the history of languages as diverse as Albanian, Turkish, Hebrew, Ladino and Romanian may not always appear directly relevant to the analysis of his chosen linguistic communities, but it contextualizes the complexity of European polyglossia and highlights the strong element of arbitrariness in national self-determination. It would be a shame if this impressive résumé of the development of other (geographically peripheral) languages does not come to the wider attention of linguists, since it represents an important contribution to knowledge in its own right. The main body of Kamusella’s study consists of two sections: ‘Part 1: Central European Politics and Languages in the Long 19th Century’ (pp. 365–567) and ‘Part 2: Nationalisms and Language in the Short 20th Century’ (pp. 569–904). The first section charts the advent of nationalism in the Polish-, Hungarian-, Czech- and Slovak-speaking lands, and asserts that the politicization of language that followed the 1863 January Uprising in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in emulation of the Prussian/German and Austro-Hungarian models, set the pattern for the rise of Central European nationalisms (p. 397). The author presents a coherent and persuasive overview of the...

Book Review: Comparative Politics: Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989

Book Review: Comparative Politics: Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989

Central and East European politics: from communism to democracy

Part I: Introduction Chapter 1: Twenty-five Years after 1989: Issues in Postcommunist Europe, Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry Part II: Policies and Issues Chapter 2: The Political Transition, Valerie Bunce Chapter 3: Re-creating the Market, Sharon Fisher Chapter 4: Social Aspects of Transformation, Alfio Cerami Chapter 5: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Expansion of Democracy, Zsuzsa Csergo Chapter 6: Women's Participation in Postcommunist Politics, Marilyn Rueschemeyer Chapter 7: Transitional Justice in East-Central Europe, Peter Rozic and Brian Grodsky Chapter 8: EU Accession and After, Ronald H. Linden with Shane Killian Chapter 9: Security Issues: NATO and Beyond, Joshua Spero Part III: Case Studies Chapter 10: Poland: The Politics of God's Playground, Jane L. Curry Chapter 11: The Czech and Slovak Republics: Two Paths to the Same Destination, Sharon L. Wolchik Chapter 12: Hungary: From Postcommunism to Populist Nationalism, Frederigo Argentieri Chapter 13: The Baltic Countries: Challenges and Changes in the New Europe, Daina S. Eglitis Chapter 14: Bulgaria: Progress and Development, Janusz Bugajski Chapter 15: Romania: Old Problems and New Challenges, Daniel Brett Chapter 16: Albania: The Challenges of Transition, Elez Biberaj Chapter 17: Former Yugoslavia and Its Successors, Mark Baskin and Paula Pickering Chapter 18: Ukraine: Leaving the Crossroads, Taras Kuzio Part IV: Conclusion Chapter 19: Twenty-five Years Later: A Balance Sheet, Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry

Sabrina P. Ramet (Hg.), Central and South east European Politics since 1989

Sabrina P. Ramet (Hg.), Central and South east European Politics since 1989

Central and East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy. Ed. Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. xiv, 389 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. Tables. Maps. $80.00, hard bound. $34.95, paper.

Central and East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy. Ed. Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. xiv, 389 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. Tables. Maps. 34.95, paper. - Volume 68 Issue 2

Kidnapped souls: national indifference and the battle for children in the Bohemian lands, 1900-1948

Throughout the nineteenth and into the early decades of the twentieth century, it was common for rural and working-class parents in the Czech-German borderlands to ensure that their children were bilingual by sending them to live with families who spoke the other language. As nationalism became a more potent force in Central Europe, however, such practices troubled pro-German and pro-Czech activists, who feared that the children born to their nation could literally be lost or kidnapped from the national community through such experiences and, more generally, by parents who were either flexible about national belonging or altogether indifferent to it. Highlighting this indifference to nationalism-and concerns about such apathy among nationalists-Kidnapped Souls offers a surprising new perspective on Central European politics and society in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on Austrian, Czech, and German archives, Tara Zahra shows how nationalists in the Bohemian Lands worked to forge political cultures in which children belonged more rightfully to the national collective than to their parents. Through their educational and social activism to fix the boundaries of nation and family, Zahra finds, Czech and German nationalists reveal the set of beliefs they shared about children, family, democracy, minority rights, and the relationship between the individual and the collective. Zahra shows that by 1939 a vigorous tradition of Czech-German nationalist competition over children had created cultures that would shape the policies of the Nazi occupation and the Czech response to it. The book's concluding chapter weighs the prehistory and consequences of the postwar expulsion of German families from the Bohemian Lands. Kidnapped Souls is a significant contribution to our understanding of the genealogy of modern nationalism in Central Europe and a groundbreaking exploration of the ways in which children have been the objects of political contestation when national communities have sought to shape, or to reshape, their futures.

Developments in Central and East European Politics – Edited by S. White, J. Batt and P. Lewis

Developments in Central and East European Politics – Edited by S. White, J. Batt and P. Lewis

Developments in Central and East European politics

Defining Central and Eastern Europe Judy Batt From Communist to Postcommunist Politics Mark Pittaway The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland Frances Millard The Other New Europeans Tim Haughton The Western Balkans Judy Batt The East Europeans: Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Andrew Wilson Central and Eastern Europe and the EU Heather Grabbe Executive Leadership Ray Taras Structures of Representation Petr Kopecky Electoral Systems Sarah Birch Political Parties Paul G. Lewis Citizens and Politics Krzysztof Jasiewicz Civil Society Cas Mudde Constitutional Politics Krzysztof Jasiewicz Managing Transition Economics D. Mario Nuti The Quality of Postcommunist Democracy Dirk Berg-Schlosser

Power and the People: A Social History of Central European Politics, 1945-56

This impressive volume seeks to introduce both an undergraduate and a more specialist audience to the recent innovative approaches to the social history of post-war Central Europe. It includes chapters by established and younger scholars drawn from five countries—Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the UK. This geographical spread in itself is a most welcome departure from the more usual Anglo-American focus. The book is divided into four sections: workers, ethnic and linguistic minorities, youth, and women, each consisting of four essays. In addition, the editors have contributed a valuable lucid introduction in which they make the eminently reasonable claim that the historiography has concentrated disproportionately on the strictly political and ideological aspects of the emerging Cold War. While certainly not eschewing ‘history from above’ and the difficult issue of the interaction between ‘high politics’ and ‘popular politics’, this anthology shifts our attention towards the social history of the region with an emphasis on labour, generational and gender tensions. An important sub-theme is the cultural impact of ‘Americanisation’ and consumerism on both capitalist and, to a lesser extent, socialist societies. In terms of sources, several authors make good use of the newly accessible party and state archives in the former Soviet bloc countries.