Post-communist Societies Research Articles

PUBLIC MEMORY SPHERE AND ITS LEGAL PETRIFICATION. FEW REMARKS ON THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF THE INSTITUTES FOR THE NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE FUNCTIONING IN POLAND AND UKRAINE

The main goal of the following article is an answer to the question on the role of the legal institutions in the processes of the societal collective memories petrification. Through the comparison of the normative basis for the functioning of the institutes for the national remembrance, in Poland and Ukraine, my crucial intention is a presentation of the regional specificity of the state impact on the processes of collective co-remembering in the particular postcommunist societies in Central and Eastern Europe, with the references to the characteristic elements of the regional constitutionalism. Necessary to identify and to explain is the inevitable fundamental difference between states’ memory policies in the presented countries and their approach to the institutions. The text starts from the comparison of the institutes for the national remembrance, but my intention is to explain the differences trough the analyses of the legal and socio-legal background of their functioning.

The influence of gender on attitudes towards the EU among the Polish ‘winners of European integration’

AbstractThis paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities – the so-called ‘winners of European integration’. Previously, little attention has been given to gender as an influence on views on the EU. Most studies apply the gender-based perspective on Western Europe, while Central and Eastern European countries remain understudied. Based on theories on public opinion, I employ a mixed-methods approach, conducting a survey among 815 MA students living in Polish cities, followed by 27 semi-structured interviews. This analysis of gender-related attitudes towards the EU offers nuanced insights into transitions within post-communist societies. My findings posit that the sampled well-educated women are more likely to support EU integration than men. Education, gender-based individual cost-benefit analyses, and the perceptions of national politics are possible explanations for the positive attitudes towards the EU among the sampled women.

The Dynamics of Electoral Activity and Problems of Consolidation of “New Democracies” In Post-Communist European Countries

The article deals with the dynamics of electoral activity of citizens which comes out as an important indication of the on-going process of consolidation of democracy in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the period from 2001 to 2018 . The comparative analysis helps to show the differences in voter’s behaviour in post-communist and post-authoritarian countries as well as to point out the peculiar impact of social, sociocultural and institutional factors on voter turnout in “new democracies” . The author stresses that sociocultural factor considered as a correlation of survival values and values of self-expression in mass conscience exerts the primary influence on the level of participation of citizens in elections . The author emphasised that the prevalence of survival values in the culture of post-communist societies is the primary reason for utilitarian relation of people to democracy . It, in its turn, contributes to decreasing participation in elections in the conditions of mass disappointment in the results of market economy reforms and low-level electoral activity later on . More to that, weak institutionalisation of political parties in post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe proved to be unable to hinder effectively growing absenteeism of voters .

Religious Supply, Existential Insecurity and Church Attendance in Post-communist Romania

During the last 30 years Romania has experienced a revival of church attendance, and a significant increase in the number of houses of worship, having the highest rate of construction in Europe. The paper provides theoretical arguments that support the idea that the increase in church attendance has roots in the fast growth in the number of houses of worship, which provide easier access to religious services, and help the development of parish communities, which are highly relevant for Eastern Orthodoxy. This growth is the outcome of the privileged position of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), which received funding from the central government and in-kind support from local authorities to extend the ROC's infrastructure, in exchange for active support in the political arena granted by the ROC to the party in power. Different from other religious organizations in Romania or other Orthodox churches in post-communist societies, the ROC is a powerful organization, and played its cards to get privileges from the political power during the communist and post-communist eras, which made the ROC more visible and attractive to the Romanian public. The research uses a composition of pooled datasets derived from 18 national and international surveys in Romania, covering a time span of 27 years, from 1991 to 2018, and employs multilevel logistic regression. The hypothesis regarding the relationship between the growth in church attendance and the increasing number of houses of worship is supported by the empirical data. Data have shown that growth in the number of houses of worship may fuel religious revivals, even if the offer is homogenous, and comes from nearly only one religious provider.

Stereotypes as Historical Accidents: Images of Social Class in Postcommunist Versus Capitalist Societies.

Stereotypes are ideological and justify the existing social structure. Although stereotypes persist, they can change when the context changes. Communism's rise in Eastern Europe and Asia in the 20th century provides a natural experiment examining social-structural effects on social class stereotypes. Nine samples from postcommunist countries (N = 2,241), compared with 38 capitalist countries (N = 4,344), support the historical, sociocultural rootedness of stereotypes. More positive stereotypes of the working class appear in postcommunist countries, both compared with other social groups in the country and compared with working-class stereotypes in capitalist countries; postcommunist countries also show more negative stereotypes of the upper class. We further explore whether communism's ideological legacy reflects how societies infer groups' stereotypic competence and warmth from structural status and competition. Postcommunist societies show weaker status-competence relations and stronger (negative) competition-warmth relations; respectively, the lower meritocratic beliefs and higher priority of embeddedness as ideological legacies may shape these relationships.

Innovation, Financial Culture, and the Social-Economic Environment of SMEs in Hungary

Despite the numerous pieces of research that have been undertaken to aid understanding of the innovative activities of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), only a few have dealt with the interaction between innovation activity and the finance-related attitudes, literacy, and knowledge (competencies) of these companies. The current research focuses on specific aspects of the innovation activities of SMEs in a post-communist society (Hungary) by taking into consideration elements of both entrepreneurial financial culture and the social-economic environment. Our analysis is based on a national representative survey, 2017. Results show that the presence of a creative financial culture, and the grounding of management decisions correlate with company innovation. We found that subsidies as external financial sources contribute to a larger extent to the innovation activities of SMEs than other external and internal financial resources. Moreover, the study explores the effects of some economic and social competition-related factors.

Corporate social responsibility developments in post-communist countries: Towards organisations’ social legitimacy

The aim of the paper is to introduce corporate social responsibility CSR as an organisation’s management and stakeholders’ relations tool in post-communist countries for ensuring the organisation’s social legitimacy. The article discusses how understanding the interdependence between the organisation and society helps to support the organisation to develop social legitimacy and therefore ensure its sustainability. The general research problem in this article is connected with the societal context of studied organisations: how CSR could be positioned and managed in a post-communist society to avoid a rebuff against an organisation’s CSR activities. The topic of this paper is approached through three research questions: how post-communist organisations see the CSR position in the organisation, how social legitimacy is acknowledged and defined, and finally to what extent CSR is seen as a tool for ensuring social legitimacy. For the research, seven Estonian organisations’ representatives with management responsibility were interviewed to find out their thoughts and ideas about CSR and social legitimacy.

How and Why Did the Laggards Turn Out to Be the Forerunners of a Major Transformation in the EU’s Integration Strategy?

For nearly a decade Bulgaria and Romania were considered the laggards of the Fifth EU Enlargement. They seemed unable to cope with the timing of their Europeanisation and, hence, the support they got from the EU was a mere continuation of the pre-accession conditionality in the form of post-accession monitoring, obscurely named “Cooperation and Verification Mechanism” (cvm). This paper presents some sound empirical evidence to prove that the cvm did not work as expected. The malfunction of the mechanism was pre-destined by a crucial mistake in its initial political design since it was meant, in the first place, to soothe the West European disappointment with the Fifth Enlargement in the context of the EU’s constitution project failure. It was not tailored to the needs of a post-communist society – to establish anew a rule-of-law (RoL) institutional system, which was the core societal problem. The real issue at stake was not the “unpreparedness” of the two neighbouring countries, but a major flaw in the approach of the EU enlargement policy, which has manifested lately, in a much harsher form of serious rule of law abuses, by the developments in the previous “best performers of the Fifth Enlargement” – Hungary and Poland.

Trauma transformacji w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej

Artykuł prezentuje wyniki badań nad traumą społeczno-kulturową w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej. Do weryfikacji teorii traumy zostały wykorzystane reprezentatywne dane sondażowe z Białorusi, Bułgarii, Węgier, Rumunii, Polski, Rosji i Ukrainy. Prowadzone analizy pokazały, że społeczeństwo postkomunistyczne negatywnie oceniło zmiany systemu gospodarczego i politycznego. Źródłem trau­my był spadek poziomu życia oraz wzrost przestępczości. Respondenci uważali, że w wyniku transformacji stracili na zmianach i pod wpływem powstałej traumy pesymistycznie oceniali przyszłość. Rekcją na pojawiającą się traumę była nostalgia za socjalizmem i bezpieczeństwem społecznym przezeń oferowanym. Czynnikami łagodzącymi szok w społeczeństwie postkomunistycznym było wykształcenie, młodszy wiek i orientacja proeuropejska.

Media corruption and issues of journalistic and institutional integrity in post-communist countries: The case of Bulgaria

From a normative standpoint the media are usually seen as one of the pillars of a national integrity system, entrusted with the tasks of exposing and preventing acts of corruption and educating the public of the harm caused by corruption. Nevertheless, corruption continues to be one of the most significant challenges that Europe faces, undermining citizens' trust in democratic institutions and weakening the accountability of political leadership. Evidence suggests that in fragile EU democracies such as Bulgaria, despite more than eight years of full membership and numerous preventive measures, corruption is rife and the press is hardly capable of exposing abuses of power or authority. On the contrary - drawing on in-depth interviews with 35 Bulgarian journalists - this paper argues that since communism collapsed in the late 1980s the media in post-communist societies such as Bulgaria has gradually become an instrument to promote and defend private vested interests, and is plagued by corruption. Senior journalists and editors cast serious doubt over the ability of the post-communist free press and journalism to act as a watchdog for society.

1989 and After: Morality and Truth in Postcommunist Societies

Nations that endured communist dictatorships must come to terms with the traumas of the past before durable democracies can take hold—a lesson the author learned firsthand in Romania.

Sindikati i tranzicija - jedna do kraja neispričana priča

In this paper, I begin with a broader understanding of transition as a process of moving from the national capitalism of the welfare state to globalized, disorganized, corporate capitalism, within which the transition of post-Communist societies is an important sequence that gives the process a planetary character (Vuletić, 2012). Structurally, the paper consists of three narrow thematic units within which I seek to adequately apply the three complementary methodological approaches. The first part is devoted to the global framework of change and is dominated by a system approach in which the crisis is considered through changes in the external framework and non-corresponding changes in the structure and functions of trade unions. Then, there is a discussion of transitional Serbia and the position of trade unions and the employees, in which I rely on an institutional approach, first of all, to analyze the transformed economic, work and social framework. The third part is devoted to the areas, opportunities and actors of change and the ideational approach appropriate for them, related to values - the vision and mission of unions, first and foremost. In methodical terms, the analysis of the Serbian transition and its peculiarities is a special case study within which, given the author's decades of research and practical involvement in trade unions, an action research is conducted, as one might call it, or a kind of participatory observation. The key thesis I am trying to argue is that employees and unions are one of the biggest transitional losers and that growing inequalities and power imbalances will not change without a thorough revision of the dominant NEO-liberal pattern by which globalization processes take place.

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ СХІДНОЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОЇ КОНЦЕПТУАЛІЗАЦІЇ ГРОМАДЯНСЬКОГО СУСПІЛЬСТВА

This article reviews how civil society was reemerged in Eastern Europe during «velvet revolutions» as the central concept of the democratic opposition due to the efforts of its representatives and what role it has played in defeating communism and shaping the nature of post-communist societies. What is emphasized as a first paradox is that civil society as a western idea had revived in the East and after a long «silent period» when it went out of use in the middle of the nineteen century. The article focuses on the particular features and ambiguities of civil society conceptualization first by addressing its slogan use which fits revolutionary period of emotions and deeds priorities. Nevertheless, theoretical innovations of this civil society model are also visible due to a contribution of such Easter Europe intellectuals as A Michnik, M. Vaida, B. Geremek, V.Havel, A. Smolar, Y. Kiss etc. Their focus on a state-civil society distinction has its theoretical roots not only in a western liberal tradition but could be explained by local assumptions as well. In particular, these links lead to a theory of totalitarianism and strategies of self-limitation, self-organization and finally anti-politics approach employed by these Easter Europe intellectuals. Finally, the article exposes weak sides of these strategies that were revealed by post-communist realities. Week analyses of the state and power issues, wrong efforts to restrain from politics made Easter Europe civil society model not only revolutionary but also minimal in its impact and temporary in its scale. As result, a second paradox of the Easter Europe type of civil society is its quick transition from a discourse of civil society revival in 1970-1980 years into an opposite discourse of civil society decay in the late 1990 years.

The Appearance of Saints: Photographic Evidence and Religious Minorities in the Secret Police Archives in Eastern Europe

I present here examples of the photographic presence of a religious minority community in the secret police archives in ex-communist Eastern Europe. The use of secret police archives by researchers to trace the history of repression and collaboration and to understand the methods employed by totalitarian regimes to control their populations is well established. The significance of these archives for the study of material religion, however, has been largely overlooked by scholars. The secret police archives in Romania and the Republic of Moldova constitute a hidden repository of confiscated religious materials and photographs which often sit alongside photographic images created by the secret police in the course of their investigations into “criminal” religious activities. These archives, therefore, represent an important resource for understanding both how religious groups chose to represent themselves, and how the totalitarian system created images of religious “others” in order to incriminate them and to produce anti-religious propaganda. In this paper, through the presentation of example cases from state security files, I discuss the dual character of the photographic traces of communities in the archives as both religious justification and incrimination, and suggest ways of approaching these images through their materiality in the context of contemporary post-communist society.

Formation of a sustainable management system Development of territorial communities

The article discusses the systemic obstacles to the sustainable development of territorial communities in the context of the historical transition from post-communist Ukrainian society, loaded with structures of the past social order, to the modern – in the process of modernizing the country. At the same time, special attention is focused on the factors blocking this development when reforming local self-government. These blockages include, above all, systemic nonlegal practices, the legitimacy of which is ensured not only by the inertia of the Soviet traditions of arbitrariness of the executive power, but also by certain laws of the post-Soviet period. This is especially noticeable in the field of public utilities and property management of territorial communities.

WORK INTEGRATION SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE THROUGH STRUCTURAL AND SEMIOTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

The central question addressed is how the structural and semiotic contexts, seen from the perspective of the cultural political economy, of the selected post-communist societies of East-Central Europe (Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Poland) have affected the historical development and contemporary situation of social entrepreneurship focused on the integration of the disadvantaged social groups in the labour market (work integration social enterprises (WISEs)). Based on secondary data, surveys, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with the stakeholders from the transnational project INNO WISEs, we identify both the communist and post-communist transformations as mostly unfavourable for WISE, while the crucial factor contributing to their selection as a viable option after 2004 has been the external impact of the European Union-related structures and discourses.

Editorial: Surveillance from a Post-Communist Perspective

This special issue is the result of a research initiative that began in 2013, just before the annexation of Crimea by Russia. We, the guest editors, together with Paweł Waszkiewicz at the University in Warsaw, wanted to fill a gap in research on surveillance, which had at that time not yet addressed post-communist societies to any great extent. Today the situation is slightly different, but the need for further research is still pressing. It is therefore with great pleasure that we present a collection of five research articles by both senior and early-stage researchers, as well as a postscript by Professor Emeritus Maria Łoś, who is one of the few researchers who has written extensively on surveillance-related issues from a post-communist perspective. Below we introduce the special issue with a conceptual overview of post-communist research and its connections to surveillance studies.

Introduction to symposium: Smallholders in communist and postcommunist societies

AbstractThe primary contributions of smallholders during the communist and early postcommunist periods have been food production and labour for large farms. Those conditions are changing, however, as modern farms require less labour and food supply may be imported. For most smallholders in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries, the postcommunist neoliberal environment has not brought significant improvement, and strong arguments can be made that land grabbing, social and economic exclusion, and rural poverty are worse than regime bias during the communist period. Cooperatives, which have empowered smallholders in other parts of the world, have not been as well developed in postcommunist nations.

From the Archives of the Transition: The Collages of Josip Vaništa 1990–2000

Following the analysis of the 20th century, carried out by Alain Badiou in his book The Century, the text begins with the quotation of Osip Mandelstam's poem The Age, in which the new century is seen in organic metaphors such as the “beast”, whose “spine” has already “broken” while emerging, thus foreboding that already in 1923, when the poem was written, the century of hope, the Soviet Century in its very nature, carried the seed of its own destruction. Consequently, the breakdown of this “century” in the field of so-called transitional social processes in all post-Communist societies is seen as a tragic, cruel privatization, a wild initial accumulation/pillage of capital in a new historical context, with new protagonists, and a new soulless morality.For the most part, this text deals with analysis of the collages of Croatian neo-avantgarde artist Josip Vaništa, created during the period of transition and war in Croatia and the former Yugoslavia from 1990 to 2000. With minimal artist intervention, by simple collage and cutting of titles, short texts and photographs from the quondam press, Vaništa draws attention to the tragedy and absurdity of transitional social space. Article received: March 31, 2018; Article accepted: April 10, 2018; Published online: September 15, 2018; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Ćuković, Petar. "From the Archives of the Transition: The Collages of Josip Vaništa 1990–2000." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 16 (2018): 29−41. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i16.252

International Legal Cooperation between Kosovo and Other States and Organizations

Building a rule-of-law-based democracy is a challenge for post-communist and post-war societies. Rule of law is a priority for these societies and also one of the membership criteria required by international organizations, in particular the European Union. As such, an aspiring country like Kosovo has to face the challenge of building a legal system that is compatible with that of the European Union member states while also developing its legal cooperation with other countries. Through international legal cooperation, countries strengthen the fight against criminal actions that are punishable in all modern states and also exchange experience in combating cross-border crime, trafficking, corruption, terrorism, and other violations of criminal law. In this regard, Kosovo faces many challenges in the field of international legal cooperation, not only with regard to those missions operating in Kosovo itself (such as EULEX, UNMIK, etc.), but also with other international organizations, especially due to Kosovo’s lack of membership in them. Another challenge is cooperation with countries that have not yet recognized Kosovo as a state. This article emphasizes the efforts made by Kosovo’s institutions to engage in international legal cooperation as one of the prerequisites for building the rule of law at home. The main issues tackled in the article are how these problems are addressed in practice, which obstacles arise, what the ad hoc means are of engaging in international legal cooperation, and what the specificities and prospects are for Kosovo’s international legal cooperation. As such, the aim of the article is to examine some of the legal peculiarities and uncertainties that have been created over the years as the result of limitations on Kosovo’s international personality and to consider innovative means to ensure Kosovo’s legal cooperation with other countries.