Post-socialist Europe Research Articles

Historical agency and the coloniality of power in postsocialist Europe

In this article, I analyse the ways in which coloniality as a racialized and racializing rationality of government and knowledge production shapes political and historical subjects in postsocialist Europe. I analyse Latvian attempts to establish historical presence in European modernity through appropriation of 17th-century colonial pursuits of the Duchy of Courland into Latvian national history, as well as interpretations of this historical appropriation by Western scholars and travellers. I argue that Latvian identification with Europe’s colonial past not only renders visible the continued salience of coloniality in European politics but also illuminates the mechanisms through which Europe attempts to renew its moral superiority in the global arena by relegating colonialism to a past that Europe claims to have overcome and that Latvians are required to overcome to become fully European. I argue that in order to understand how coloniality continues to inform political life in contemporary Europe it is necessary to move beyond analysis of national histories and deploy a relational approach which traces how contemporary political subjects are constituted in racialized and racializing fields of power relations. It is also necessary to analyse postsocialist Eastern Europe not only in relation to the socialist past but also the global present.

European post-socialist cities and their near hinterland in intra-urban geography literature

AbstractOver 180 articles concerning urban geography aspects of European post-socialist cities and their near hinterland, published between 1990-2012 in international journals, were selected for the analysis in this paper. Statistics of articles by journals, analysed cities (and their countries) and authors proves the preponderance of research on post-socialist Central European capitals, especially Berlin, Prague and Budapest, followed by Leipzig and Łodź, as well as Moscow and Tallinn. It also proves that the number of domestic authors and those who moved from post-socialist Europe to Western universities gradually increased, while the number of authors from the West decreased. The analysis of representations of article topics, their explanations and justifications were carried out in the second part of the paper. The most frequent article topics include ‘social spatial structure of the city and its transformation’, followed by ‘urban planning and management in the city’ and ’suburbanisation and urban sprawl in the near hinterland of the city’. A smaller number of articles refers to ‘physical spatial structure of the city and its transformation’, ‘housing structure in urban neighbourhoods in connection with changes in housing policy and market’ and ‘functional spatial structure of the city and its transformation’. Indexes of the articles are part of this paper

Universal patterns or the tale of two systems? Mathematics achievement and educational expectations in post-socialist Europe

Although communist ideology claimed to destroy former class stratification based on labour market capitalist relationships, de facto during socialism one social class hierarchy was substituted for another that was equally unequal. The economic transition during the 1990s increased stratification by wealth, which affected educational inequality. This study examines the relationships among parental education, gender, educational expectations and mathematics achievement of youths in five post-socialist Eastern European countries, comparing them with three Western countries. We employed the 8th-grade data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1995 and 2007. The findings point to the universal associations between parental education and student outcomes, whereas gender comparisons present interesting East-West differences. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Structures of globalization: Evidence from the worldwide network of bilateral investment treaties (1959–2009)

Existing sociological theories of international relations yield contrasting predictions for their structure that range from an increasingly dense and universally tied network to networks in which ties tend to concentrate within or between certain types of economically, politically or culturally defined blocs. We contribute to this growing body of empirical research by analyzing original data on the complete worldwide network of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as it has evolved over the course of 50 years since its inception in 1959. We find that the number of BITs increases almost exponentially over time to include nearly all of the world’s countries. However, the density of ties between advanced capitalist and others is stronger than for any other dyadic types. We also find patterns of regional homophily, but only in Asia, East Asia, Postsocialist Europe and Eurasia, and North Africa/Middle East. These findings suggest that existing explanations of globalization are more complementary than contending. Theorizing about any particular global outcome thus requires attention to the simultaneity of material and cultural forces and the interplay of transnational and local socio-historical developments. Our analysis of the structure of the BIT network also helps explain the weak link between foreign direct investment and BITs discovered in previous research.

Socio-Economic Mobility and Neo-Liberal Governmentality in Post-Socialist Europe: Activation and the Dehumanisation of the Roma

This paper discusses recent profound transformations in the post-socialist governance of welfare states and their impact on the Roma, Europe's most marginalised and vulnerable minority. Discussing the consequences of the recent transition of social policy in East Central Europe from the angle of a shift from Communist welfare societies to post-1989 active societies shows how these changes have simultaneously inaugurated new approaches to the region's Romani minorities. Through an analysis of how neo-liberal forms of governmentality have ambiguously been cross-fertilised with new and renewed patterns and techniques of welfare governance in Slovakia, this paper calls into question the current emphasis on activating supposedly ‘inactive’ Roma. This examination reveals that the introduction of allegedly politically neutral technologies and forms of expertise to improve the Roma's socio-economic mobility has actually resulted in disputable forms of Romani minority governance, including the dehumanisation of some of the most marginalised members of this minority. To challenge these practices, this paper advocates a break with the persistent policy-centric trend in Roma-related research. Redirecting research beyond the dominant focus on discrepancies between policies and their implementation, it is argued, potentially offers valuable insights into our understanding of the complex relationship between policy failures and the revitalisation of marginalising practices.

Review Essay : Gender Politics in Post-Socialist Central Eastern Europe

Review of the following books:Gal, Susan and Gail Kligman. 2000. The Politics of Gender After Socialism: A Comparative Historical Essay. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Galligan, Yvonne, Sara Clavero, and Marina Calloni. 2007. Gender Politics and Democracy in Post-Socialist Europe. Opladen, Germany: Barbara Budrich Publishers.Guenther, Katja M. 2010. Making Their Place: Feminism After Socialism in Eastern Germany. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

The Commercialization of Children's Television in Postsocialist Europe

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the children's television business had become one of the fastest growing sectors of the European media industries. The emerging postsocialist media markets have become a high priority for both transnational and regional media companies looking for new audience groups. In this article, the author provides a historical overview of the transformations that occurred in the arena of children's media culture in Eastern Europe during the last thirty years. Children's television, which attained a symbolic importance in national public debates throughout the region after 1989, can provide a unique lens to examine broader social, political, and cultural issues related to the transformations of postsocialist media systems. The author analyzes the emergence of a new conceptualization of the child media user, who is more influential than ever before, but whose power is given, expressed, and experienced primarily through consumption. Children's television in Hungary is used as a case study to provide an in-depth and detailed analysis of such transformations using diverse sources including TV guides, television programs, and in-depth interviews conducted with media professionals and policymakers between 1998 and 2008.

Union Influence in Post-Socialist Europe

Examining enterprise-level union influence in post-socialist countries, the authors hypothesize that calculative human resource management (HRM) is more strongly associated with low levels of union influence than collaborative HRM. Using the United Kingdom as a benchmark, they find that in the countries under study, calculative HRM is indeed more damaging to union influence than collaborative, although to a much lesser extent than in the United Kingdom. They also find that union influence corresponds to enterprise union density and is most apparent when the business cycle is unfavorable; they explain their findings by reference to East European members' continued attachment to unionism for nonbargaining reasons.

From Brigades to Blogs: Environmentalism Online in Slovakia 20 Years after the Velvet Revolution

This article examines aspects of contemporary Slovak environmental activist discourse in the digital realm of blogging and cyberspace. It explores this subject by fi rst comparing volunteer brigades and samizdat writing from the late communist period with present digital forms of environmentalism in the new millennium. Current environmental blogs are then analysed accord- ing to material, substantive, and discursive aspects as these suggest obstacles and benefi ts to promoting environmentalism in the wake of political trans- formation. In examining this issue in one Central and East European context, the paper aims to raise broader questions regarding both research on environ- mental behaviour and policy in post-socialist Europe as well as the relation- ships between culture, political consciousness and technology in an age of globalisation.

The Social Construction of Organizational Disintegration: Exploring Identity Dynamics and Restructuring through a Longitudinal Case Study of a Post-Socialist Enterprise

This article seeks to advance our understanding of organizational change by exploring the relationships between patterns of organizational restructuring and identity dynamics as they interrelate over time. Our arguments are set in the empirical context of post-socialist Central Europe and the data, derived from the longitudinal study of a former state-owned enterprise that has been visited many times from 1993 to 2011, tell the story of a process of vertical disintegration. The article contributes to the field by elaborating the dynamic effects of identity ambivalence and identity conflict on top management decision making and the consequent social construction of organizational change processes.

The Determinants of the Economic Crisis in Post-Socialist Europe

After enjoying a period of sustained economic growth that saw the region converge with EU per capita income levels, the global economic crisis caused post-socialist Europe to suffer a larger decline in output during 2008–2009 than any other region in the world. While there was considerable variation in individual countries' experience of the crisis, this article argues that the severity of the crisis can be explained by three key macro-financial variables. The analysis suggests that alternative explanations focusing on other macroeconomic vulnerabilities, institutional weaknesses or trade vulnerabilities are of little explanatory utility.

Environmental activism as a new form of political participation of the youth in Serbia

The aim of this paper is to explore whether the environmental activism is a new form of political participation of the Serbian youth. One of the characteristics of the postindustrial societies is a general citizen withdrawal from the traditional channels of political participation. Political disengagement is thought to characterize all citizens but most of all the young people. However, although young people may have turned away from mainstream politics, they are nevertheless concerned with a wide range of issues that could be considered political in a broader sense of the term. In the post-socialist Europe young people tend to be even less involved in political life than the youth in the established democracies. However, they are also likely to adopt novel forms of political expression. Whether the Serbian youth follow the same pattern of political involvement, we intend to explore in this article. In searching for the answer to this question, we will focus our analysis on the environmental activism, as one of the forms of the new political engagement widely accepted among young people.

Postsocialist Europe: anthropological perspectives from home - Edited by László Kürti & Peter Skalník

Postsocialist Europe: anthropological perspectives from home - Edited by László Kürti & Peter Skalník

How milk does the world good: vernacular sustainability and alternative food systems in post-socialist Europe

Scholarly debates on sustainable consumption have generally overlooked alternative agro-food networks in the economies outside of Western Europe and North America. Building on practice-based theories, this article focuses on informal raw milk markets in post-socialist Lithuania to examine how such alternative systems emerge and operate in the changing political, social, and economic contexts. It makes two contributions to the scholarship on sustainable consumption. In considering semi-subsistence practices and poverty-driven consumption, this article argues for a richer, more critical, and inclusive theory of sustainability that takes into consideration vernacular forms of exchange and approaches poor consumers as subjects of global history. Second, it revisits practice theories and infrastructures of consumption approaches to consider ruptures, discontinuities, and historical change in infrastructures as a way to account for inequalities and experiences of marginalization.

Environmental mobilisation and organisations in post-socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union

How have environmental movements and organisations evolved in the two decades since the end of state socialism? Focusing upon how the impact of external forces, the core debates concern how changing political opportunities and access to resources as a consequence of European Union accession have impacted on environmental NGOs, as well as the effects more generally of contentious transnational assistance and tutelage offered to local activist networks by US and west European donors. Theoretical and conceptual debates regarding dependency and co-option, versus channelling and new governance, are examined. Have environmental actors and movements in these transitional states and new democracies aligned with the trajectory predicted by scholars 20 years ago? To what extent have longstanding environmental values, modes of political engagement and submerged networks buffered and even transmuted the impact? Why, and to what extent, do the movements and organisations of the region retain a distinctive character and profile?

Yvonne Galligan, Sara Clavero and Marina Calloni: Gender Politics and Democracy in Post-Socialist Europe

Yvonne Galligan, Sara Clavero and Marina Calloni: Gender Politics and Democracy in Post-Socialist Europe

How Socio-Economic Change Shapes Income Inequality in Post-Socialist Europe

Although income inequality in Central and Eastern Europe was considerably lower during socialism than in other countries at comparable levels of development, it increased significantly in all Central and East European states after the fall of communist regimes. However, some of these countries managed to maintain comparatively low inequality levels 10 years into the transition period while inequalities have skyrocketed in others. What explains this variation? This article presents one of the first longitudinal cross-national analyses of the factors that determine changes in income inequality in 10 Central and East European countries during the first decade after 1989. Results suggest that rising income inequality is principally related to (1. the expansion of the private sector, (2. retrenchment of the redistributive state, (3. the social exclusion of ethno-national minorities, and (4. penetration of foreign capital. Moreover, the analyses suggest that privatization strategies promoting foreign investment created more inequality than those promoting domestic investment. These findings reveal the social, political and cultural foundations of the income inequality dynamic during post-socialist transition in Central and Eastern Europe.

The new kids on the block – Building environmental governance in the Western Balkans

The influence of the EU over environmental policy frameworks, plus the availability of project funding for ENGOs in acceding and candidate states across post-socialist Europe has significantly shaped action repertoires, issue agendas and patterns of mobilisation. It has also been claimed that EU intervention has determined the institutionalisation of ‘green’ civil society networks by the introduction of, for example, environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes and policy-making norms that emphasise intersectoral partnership and multilevel governance. However, research on the impact of EU assistance for environmental mobilisations in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Serbia reveals the extent to which EU intervention and influence builds professionalism, but only partially institutionalises recipient ENGOs; if they are accorded political access at all, it is ephemeral and within less contentious policy areas where they are encouraged to deliver expertise and assistance rather than to act as advocates for community interests or to express political opposition to contentious developments. This article concludes that the professionalisation and increased managerial capacity of a handful of ENGOs cannot be equated with good governance and with the institutionalisation of non-governmental actors. Indeed, increased professionalism is invariably confined to a very narrow spectrum of policy enactment and is insufficient to generate environmental governance in the absence of state or governmental capacity.

Nina Bandelj. From Communists to Foreign Capitalists. The Social Foundations of Foreign Direct Investment in Post-Socialist Europe

Nina Bandelj. From Communists to Foreign Capitalists. The Social Foundations of Foreign Direct Investment in Post-Socialist Europe

Bringing dependency back in: the economic crisis in post-socialist Europe and the continued relevance of dependent development

Bringing dependency back in: the economic crisis in post-socialist Europe and the continued relevance of dependent development