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Media in the New Democracies of Post-Communist Eastern Europe

Media in the New Democracies of Post-Communist Eastern Europe

Author(s): Petia Kostadinova / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2015

Keywords: post-communist; media freedom; democracy; legacies;

Growing up in Bulgaria during the “transition” years, as a then fifteen-year old, I spent the summer of 1990 queuing up at the neighborhood newsstand waiting for the daily delivery of freshly printed newspapers. Shortages of goods, including food and gasoline, caused long lines in front of many stores, but the crowd waiting at the kiosk was eager to read about the latest political developments, and especially popular were the newspapers published by the newly established opposition parties. While there was no scarcity of political news via television and radio, there was always something special about the print media, much of which, including entertainment weeklies, were such a novelty. Twenty or so years later, I spent another summer among newspapers, in the archives of the National Library in Sofia, poring through the pages and—with no digitization of archives—collecting photographs of news articles published before each of the national legislative elections since 1990. Much has changed in the media environment since then, yet the study of media in post-communist societies and especially its relations to voters, parties, and politics in general is still in its infancy.

Diffusion and the Production of Eastern Europe

Diffusion and the Production of Eastern Europe

Author(s): Tsveta Petrova / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2015

Keywords: diffusion; civil society; democratization; legacies; Slovakia;

This article argues that Eastern Europe continues to be defined and redefined not just by the actual patterns of socio-economic and political reproduction of the distant and proximate regimes governing the region but also through the perceptions of such legacies as generating fundamental similarities. Such perceived similarities, whether or not closely mapped on the objective parallels among countries in Eastern Europe, facilitate intra-region diffusion that results in (further) spatio-temporal socio-economic and political similarities specific to the region. To illustrate this relationship between precommunist and communist legacies, intra-region diffusion, and the production of Eastern Europe, the article examines Slovakia’s diffusion entrepreneurship in the wave of electoral breakthroughs in Eastern Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This article contributes to the literatures on Eastern Europe and comparative democratization in two main ways. First, it adds to the work on the impact of spatio-temporal dependence on transition outcomes, such as democratization, in Eastern Europe. Second, by doing so, the article also documents the impact of an understudied set of democracy promoters—the Eastern European countries.

The road of the icon towards us. An overview of religious painting workshops held in Bucharest

Drumul icoanei spre noi. O privire de ansamblu asupra atelierelor de pictură bisericească desfăşurate la Bucureşti

Author(s): Sorina Elena Amironesei / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 04/2015

Keywords: icon; religious painting; icon workshop; Group Eikon9;

This article is an overview of the last four major iconography workshops open to the public, held in Bucharest and its immediate vicinity since autumn 2012, meaning two International Symposiums on religious painting (Mogoşoaia 6 to 9 November 2012, Cotroceni 12 to 17 May 2014) and two editions of the National Icon Painting Workshop in Otopeni (21 to 26 October 2013, 3 to 8 November2014). The material includes the presentation of the workshops, descriptions of the works done during this time and the summary of the round table discussions and conferences which marked the end of each event.

Impact of the “Holy Crash” on Trust in the Church in Slovenia

Impact of the “Holy Crash” on Trust in the Church in Slovenia

Author(s): Marjan Smrke / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2014

Keywords: Slovenia; Roman Catholic Church; trust; social capital; secularization; neo-secularization;

The 2011 Slovene Public Opinion Survey and World Values Survey have determined that trust in the Roman Catholic Church in Slovenia has fallen to an all-time low in the post-independence era: only 25 percent of Slovenes expressed a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the Church. This article considers how the Church’s social power has been impacted by the so-called Holy Crash, namely, the 2010 collapse of the Archdiocese of Maribor’s financial empire and its investments and interests in various enterprises controlled through its Gospodarstvo Rast financial management company. Revealed is the fact that, in recent years, trust has been eroded most in the Podravje (Drava) and Koroška (Carinthia) regions of Slovenia, both of which lie within the Maribor archdiocese. This decline supports the central hypothesis that the scandal and secrecy surrounding the collapse have negatively impacted trust in the Roman Catholic Church.

Genocidal Intent and Transitional Justice in Bosnia: Jelisic, Foot Soldiers of Genocide, and the ICTY

Genocidal Intent and Transitional Justice in Bosnia: Jelisic, Foot Soldiers of Genocide, and the ICTY

Author(s): Gregory Kent / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2013

Keywords: transitional justice; Bosnia; ICTY; jurisprudence; genocide;

Convictions for genocide in relation to the war in Bosnia (1992–1995) provide the strongest sense of justice-having-been-done to victims and their families. But at the ICTY, the reputation of which has been marred by a series of controversies, the few perpetrators found guilty of genocide were involved in the Srebrenica massacres of July 1995. Other courts have convicted individuals from a range of different locations (and periods) in the war, giving arguably a more complete sense of justice to victims, and a more accurate contribution to the historical record. It is widely perceived that the Genocide Convention has been narrowly interpreted. As most genocides do not result in total destruction, what counts as “part” of a group, especially when combined with other acts, is a key issue explored here. Two cases (outside Srebrenica) in which genocide indictees were not held responsible for genocide are examined, with the Jelisic case, involving a foot-soldier of genocide, the main focus for critical analysis. Reflection on the implications for Bosnian society are given in conclusion.

Post-Accession Hooliganism: Democratic Governance in Bulgaria and Romania after 2007

Post-Accession Hooliganism: Democratic Governance in Bulgaria and Romania after 2007

Author(s): Venelin I. Ganev / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2013

Keywords: Bulgaria; Romania; European integration; state-building; new members in the EU;

The manuscript analyzes negative developments in Bulgarian and Romanian politics in the aftermath of the two countries’ accession to the European Union, with a special focus on the worsening corruption problem, the destabilization of previously coherent normative frameworks, and the reversal of processes of state building. It also explores the main characteristics of a novel form of elite behavior, post-accession hooliganism, which began to emerge as soon as Bulgarian and Romanian political leaders felt strong and confident enough to disregard the demands of their West European counterparts.

Remittances Inflows and Fiscal Space in Receiving Countries

Remittances Inflows and Fiscal Space in Receiving Countries

Author(s): Sena Kimm Gnangnon / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Remittances inflows; Fiscal Space; receiving countries; financial resources;

The current article contributes to the literature on the effect of remittances inflows on public finance by examining the effect of remittances inflows on fiscal space. Using a sample of 109 receiving countries over the period 1980-2015, the analysis has shown that remittances inflows contribute to the expansion of fiscal space in relatively less developed receiving countries, while in advanced economies, these capital inflows lead to a shrinking of fiscal space. The analysis has additionally revealed that countries that experience a higher economic growth consistently experience an expansionary fiscal space effect of remittances inflows. Keywords: Remittances inflows, Fiscal Space.

Lessons from “Post-Yugoslav” Democratization Functional Problems of Stateness and the Limits of Democracy

Lessons from “Post-Yugoslav” Democratization Functional Problems of Stateness and the Limits of Democracy

Author(s): Vedran Džihić,Dieter Segert / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2012

Keywords: post-Yugoslav democratization; mere electoral democracy; state functioning and democracy; problems of consolidation;

State weakness is one of the main obstacles for democratic stability. Yet under certain circumstances even a mere electoral democracy may gain stable support from the citizenry. Mere electoral democracy is best understood as a regime of elite governance endowed by a certain support from the citizens but without any ambition of the ruling elite to increase the quality of democratic rule. This article explores the historical reasons of this specific type of political regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia. Departing from the empirical examples from the Western Balkans, the article comes to some rather general conclusions about the concept and sequence of democratization: Conducting elections too early may produce serious challenges to sustainable democratization. The general population’s primary interest mostly lies in the stabilization of state apparatus and its ability to produce common goods rather than in the fast establishment of electoral democracy and formal democratic institutions. For a better understanding of the real level of specific course and paths of democratic “consolidation,” the democracy rankings like Nations in Transit and Bertelsmann should focus on in-depth analyses of the main actors’ political and economic practices.

Perpetual Transitions. Contentious Property and Europeanization in South-Eastern Europe

Perpetual Transitions. Contentious Property and Europeanization in South-Eastern Europe

Author(s): Alina Mungiu-Pippidi,Laura Stefan / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2012

Keywords: transformation; restitution policy, property; Balkans; Europeanization; transition;

This article studies comparatively the property restitution policies of Eastern and Western Balkan countries, focusing mostly on internal and external constraints to a permanent solution. The role of the European Court of Human Rights is analyzed in depth, as well as the subtle shift of policy of the EU institutions from the earlier Eastern Balkan accession to the Western Balkans one. While the situation of property restitution in South-Eastern Europe provides clear evidence that Europeanization helps transformation, particularly if the EU openly assumes the role of a transformation agent, it also highlights the limits of its power.

The Working of EU Conditionality in the Area of Migration Policy. The Case of Readmission of Irregular Migrants to Albania

The Working of EU Conditionality in the Area of Migration Policy. The Case of Readmission of Irregular Migrants to Albania

Author(s): Sokol Dedja / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2012

Keywords: EU enlargement; Europeanization; migration policy; Albania; readmission;

This article uses the analytical framework of “Europeanization” to assess whether and how EU conditionality has led to change in Albania’s migration policy. The analysis focuses on a specific but crucial aspect of migration policy: the readmission of irregular migrants. The examination of change in Albanian readmission policy demonstrates that the country has not only accepted the legal obligation to take back its citizens residing illegally in the EU and nationals of other countries who had reached the EU via Albania. It has also created the institutional and procedural conditions for implementation of those legal obligations, and statistical data demonstrate that Albania is accepting all the illegal immigrants returned by the EU member states. The article shows that this policy change took place after the EU made Albania’s progress towards accession conditional on compliance in this policy area. In addition to establishing the temporal covariation of EU pressure and domestic change, this work will explore the causal mechanism linking the two variables by examining the motivation of the actors involved in policy change. Thus, the analysis will identify the domestic factors that make possible the EU impact. This article demonstrates the crucial importance of gate-keeping in ensuring compliance. The control by the EU of access to each stage of the preaccession process is such a powerful motivating instrument that it can outweigh very high domestic costs and lead to developments in the aspirant country that are solely in the interest of the EU.

THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF KRAGUJEVAC: PRIVATE COMPANY NAMES

ЈЕЗИЧКИ ПЕЈЗАЖ КРАГУЈЕВЦА: НАЗИВИ ПРИВАТНИХ РАДЊИ

Author(s): Ema Živković,Mirjana R. Obradović / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 68/2019

Keywords: linguistic landscape;Kragujevac;private company names;brand;Anglicism

This paper aims to investigate the linguistic landscape of the city of Kragujevac,focusing on private company names. The goal is to examine the way language isused in naming companies, i.e. to determine the main language tendencies by analyzingprivate company names in Kragujevac. Another goal is to investigate whether thelanguage used in naming depends on the type of business activity involved. The studyincluded three main business activities: sales, catering industry, and services. Thecorpus involved 530 company names collected by searching through the databasesof the Business Registers Agency and Serbian Business Directory. A detailed corpusanalysis confirmed that the choice of names typically depended on the type of businessactivity. In terms of borrowings, Anglicisms prevail – especially those which reflectthe given business activity (e.g. using hair and beauty in the names of beauty salons)as well as those which point to exclusive and high-quality services (e.g. using elite andstyle in the names of boutiques). A great diversity in using “popular” lexemes in thenames of cafés and clubs visited by young people can be noticed (WHAT’S UP, PLAYOFF), which is how café owners want to attract customers. Serbian words are mostfrequently used in the form of personal names and hypocorisms (e.g. the names offlower shops, convenience stores and hair salons). Serbian names are also dominantwhen it comes to traditional Serbian taverns (Serb. kafana), whose owners seek todevelop a sentimental relationship with their guests – most often realized as a senseof belonging (e.g. STARA SRBIJA, NAŠ KUTAK, BALKAN).

The “Orange Princess” Runs for President. Gender and the Outcomes of the 2010 Presidential Election

The “Orange Princess” Runs for President. Gender and the Outcomes of the 2010 Presidential Election

Author(s): Alexandra Hrycak / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2011

Keywords: gender; elections; Ukraine; Yulia Tymoshenko;

A gender analytic perspective is used to explore the outcomes of the 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections. Gender differences within the Tymoshenko and Yanukovych electorates are assessed at the regional level through exit poll data. Comparisons to the outcome of the 2004 presidential election show that the 2010 elections exhibited very different gendered patterns of electoral support. The exit polls suggest that Tymoshenko lost due to “gender bias”—she failed to receive the support of a substantial number of men who voted for Yushchenko in 2004. Meanwhile, Yanukovych achieved victory despite a substantial decline in support among female voters.

PERSEUS: SIGNIFICANCES OF A BIG GREEK HERO OR AN EARLY SUN-GOD

PERSEUS: SIGNIFICANCES OF A BIG GREEK HERO OR AN EARLY SUN-GOD

Author(s): Eleni ROVITHIS-LIVANIOU,Flora ROVITHIS / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

Keywords: Greek mythology; myth of Perseus; ancient Greek and Roman coins;

The purpose of the paper is to describe the fascinating myth of Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, who became well known for his two great achievements: a) the beheading of gorgon Medusa and b) the killing of the Cetus sent to tear Princess Andromeda to pieces. The myth was so impressive that its personages were made constellations. The different scenarios proposed so far for Perseus but especially the various interpretations of the myth together with its symbolism and historical and technological significances are referred and discussed.Actually, our interest for the myth of Perseus started from the presence of its hero in the star catalogue of Ptolemy. The myth as such is a multi-level transposition of historical facts, human desires and imagined outcomes. It is the first coherent form of human knowledge, preceding philosophy and science. But the multiple symbolisms of the myth–and, concerning the myth of Perseus, it is only suggested here –deserves to be remembered, even if only for our belief in progress and development. More concretely, the technological objects that people dreamed of remind us that the first step of creation/innovation was –and is –imagination.

BALAKAN STUDIES CHRONICLES

БАЛКАНИСТИЧНИ ХРОНИКИ

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2020

The Politics of Public Spending in Post-Communist Countries

The Politics of Public Spending in Post-Communist Countries

Author(s): Romana Careja,Patrick Emmenegger / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2009

Keywords: public expenditure; social expenditure; education expenditure; post-communist countries; political determinants of public spending;

A growing body of literature documents that under the economic and social pressures accompanying the post-communist transformations, governments in Central and Eastern European countries have been forced to change their spending habits. However, because most of these findings are based only on case studies or comparisons of a very small number of countries, it is difficult to observe to what extent the post-communist countries’ development patterns share commonalities or develop in unique ways. This article explores in a quantitative comparative framework the effects of government composition, globalization, political institutions, and socioeconomic factors on total public, public social, and public education expenditures in twelve nation states. The authors find that the party composition of government has the most robust effect, in that left incumbency is positively correlated with total public and social expenditures. This result indicates that in this sense, post-communist countries are similar to Western democratic ones. The authors find only mixed results regarding the effects of globalization on public spending. This might suggest that globalization does not have a direct effect on the spending policies of these countries, but rather is mediated by domestic contexts.

Too Ill to Find the Cure? Corruption, Institutions, and Health Care Sector Performance in the New Democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union

Too Ill to Find the Cure? Corruption, Institutions, and Health Care Sector Performance in the New Democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union

Author(s): Dagmar Radin / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2009

Keywords: health care; corruption; institutions; post-communist;

This article tackles the questions of why some Central and East European countries have been more successful at creating a better-performing health care sector while others left it in decay. To answer this question, the effects of corruption, institutional effectiveness, and level of democratic consolidation are considered regarding the ability of the health care sector to prevent cancer deaths. The tests of the hypotheses through an autoregressive distributed lags model yield a mixed bag of results. First, corruption has a significant increasing short-term effect on cancer mortality in some models and a decreasing effect in models where the alternative measure of corruption is used. These same effects persist over the long term. Institutional effectiveness also has mixed results. However, effective institutions lower cancer mortality in the long term.

Targets of Online Hate Speech in Context. A Comparative Digital Social Science Analysis of Comments on Public Facebook Pages from Romania and Hungary

Targets of Online Hate Speech in Context. A Comparative Digital Social Science Analysis of Comments on Public Facebook Pages from Romania and Hungary

Author(s): Radu Meza,Hanna Orsolya Vincze,Andreea MOGOŞ / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

Keywords: Social Media; Hate Speech; Romania; Hungary; Digital Social Science; Text Mining

Online hate speech, especially on social media platforms, is the subject of both policy and political debate in Europe and globally - from the fragmentation of network publics to echo chambers and bubble phenomena, from networked outrage to networked populism, from trolls and bullies to propaganda and non-linear cyberwarfare. Both researchers and Facebook Community standards see the identification of the potential targets of hateful or antagonistic speech as key to classifying and distinguishing the latter from arguments that represent political viewpoints protected by freedom of expression rights. This research is an exploratory analysis of mentions of targets of hate speech in comments in the context of 106 public Facebook pages in Romanian and Hungarian from January 2015 to December 2017. A total of 1.8 million comments were collected through API interrogation and analyzed using a text-mining niche-dictionaries approach and co-occurrence analysis to reveal connections to events on the media and political agenda and discursive patterns. Findings indicate that in both countries the most prominent targets mentioned are connected to current events on the political and media agenda, that targets are most frequently mentioned in contexts created by politicians and news media, and that discursive patterns in both countries involve the proliferation of similar stereotypes about certain target groups.

Linkage, Leverage, and the Post-Communist Divide

Linkage, Leverage, and the Post-Communist Divide

Author(s): Lucan A. Way,Steven Levitsky / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2007

Keywords: democratization; post-Communist politics; international factors;

An important source of the post-Communist divide between a relatively democratic Central and Southeastern Europe on one side and a highly autocratic former Soviet Union on the other is the different character of the international environments in the two regions. Post-Communist countries differ along two key dimensions of the post–cold war international environment: Western leverage, or governments’ vulnerability to external pressure; and linkage to the West, or the density of a country’s economic, political, organizational, social, and communication ties to the European Union and the United States. High linkage and leverage in Central and Southeastern Europe generated intense international democratizing pressures, contributing to democratization even under unfavorable domestic conditions. By contrast, weaker linkage and leverage in the former Soviet Union has produced a much more permissive international environment. As a result, democratization has failed in the absence of a strong domestic push.

Participation of patient organizations in shaping the healthcare policy in Poland: “the nightmare of participation” or a remedy for the “democratic deficit”?

Udział organizacji pacjentów w kształtowaniu polityki ochrony zdrowia w Polsce – „koszmar partycypacji” czy remedium na „deficyt demokracji”?

Author(s): Emilia Piotrowska / Language(s): English,Polish / Issue: 3/2020

Keywords: healthcare; organized interests; patients advocacy organizations; access to healthcare; participation

The purpose of this article is to analyze the healthcare policy in the light of securing citizens’interests by bringing the perspective of patients’ advocacy organizations. The papertries to supplement the discussion on the role of this particular group of stakeholders in thedecision-making process in the healthcare sector. Referring to empirical examples, theauthor assumes that the entire Polish healthcare system does not serve patients’ interestswell because of organizational, financial and personnel shortages, while the constitutionalpromise of equal access to healthcare services is paradoxically an effective barrier to anychanges aimed at improving the way of functioning of the system. Despite the impressionof a “patient-centered turn” in the healthcare policy in Poland, the organized interests ofpatients centered around advocacy organizations still have little impact on the process offormulating and implementing important changes in this sector policy.

LANGUAGE, SCHOOL AND NATIONALITY IN LOWER ALBANIA FROM THE 14TH TO THE 18th CENTURY

LA LANGUE, L’ÉCOLE ET LA NATIONALITÉ DANS LA BASSE ALBANIE DU XIVe AU XVIIIe SIÈCLE

Author(s): Pëllumb Xhufi / Language(s): French / Issue: 02/2016

Keywords: Language; School; Nationality; Lower Albania; 14th-18th century;

Dans la partie sud de l'Albanie, dans ce que l’on appellee communément « la Basse Albanie » les phénomènes culturels, et dans ce contexte même l’usage de la langue albanaise, ont connu un processus particulièrement difficile, surtout après le XVe siècle. Ici, le pouvoir ottoman semblait plus stabilisé et les effets des graves défaites que l'Empire ottoman commençait à subir sur le front du Danube, après le XVe siècle, étaient moins importants que dans les zones plus au nord.