VILNIAUS SIMPOZIUMAS – ŠIUOLAIKINIO SOVIETOLOGO SALONAS
Apie penktąjį vėlyvojo sovietmečio ir posovietinio laikotarpio klausimams skirtą Vilniaus simpoziumą
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Apie penktąjį vėlyvojo sovietmečio ir posovietinio laikotarpio klausimams skirtą Vilniaus simpoziumą
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Foreign direct investment (FDI) by entities controlled by foreign governments (especially state-owned enterprises) is a new global phenomenon that is most often linked to the rise of emerging markets such as China and Russia. Host governments have struggled to properly react to this type of investment activity especially in key strategic sectors and critical infrastructure that ultimately raise questions of national security. Academic research on sovereign investment as a factor contributing to the new global protectionist trend is very limited, and predominantly focused on sovereign investors from China. This study explores the specifics of Russian sovereign investment in the former Soviet Bloc countries, now members of the European Union, especially in strategic sectors such as energy. We use the case of Bulgaria’s nuclear energy sector and the involvement of Russia’s state-owned company Rosatom in the halted Belene nuclear power plant project to analyze the dynamics of policy and politics, political-economic ideologies and historical legacies in the formation of national stances towards Russia as a sovereign investor. Our research contributes to the emerging literature on FDI protectionism and sovereign investment by emphasizing the significance of political-ideological divides and the heritage of the past as determinants of sovereign investment protectionism.
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While South Ossetia was accepted by Georgia as a region under its sovereignty, Ossetians living in this region unilaterally declared their independent republic. The South Ossetians, who are eager to realize the Great Ossetia project by merging with North Ossetia under the administration of the Russian Federation, began to express their demands on the way to leave Georgia with the dissolution of the USSR and the declaration of the independence of Georgia, and this tension between the Ossetians and the Tbilisi administration started to run high. Moreover, the importance of the region has led to the transformation of the problem into an international problem (rather than an ethnic conflict that erupted in Georgia), where both Russia and the United States got involved. The aim of this study was to provide a historical analysis primarily on the South Ossetian question. to reveal the source and importance of this problem and then to discuss the possibility of solving the problem by revealing the strategies of all parties involved.
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A great personality of the Romanian Armed Forced after the fall of communism, gen (r.) Mircea Chelaru, published in the year 2018 this great book at the Uranus Publishing House in Bucharest. Nationalism and A Europe of Nations. About the pathology of the European Civilisation
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The article is devoted to Algirdas Brazauskas, president (from 1993 to 1998) and prime minister (from 2001 to 2006) of Lithuania. While Lithuania remained part of the USSR, Brazauskas pursued a career in the Communist Party of Lithuania (part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) as a top official and member of the nomenclature. He belonged to a generation for which membership in the communist party was the only road to professional advancement and a career. Brazauskas insisted that among party members only a few percent were “true” communists. The others, like him, worked for the good of the country by using whatever opportunities they had. During the perestroika, he was perceived as a party reformer and, supported by the Sąjūdis, became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania, eventually breaking away from the CPSU. In 1990, he was one of those who signed the act of Lithuanian independence and also became a deputy prime minister. However, after the collapse of the USSR he was politically sidelined. In 1992, his post-communist party won the parliamentary elections, taking advantage of a crisis in the Sąjūdis government. In 1993, he became president, and his presidential term is generally viewed in a positive light. In line with the constitution, as president he dealt mostly with foreign policy. With his term ending, he declined to run for another, reacting badly to criticism of his limited competences. After a brief retirement spell, he organised a left-wing coalition and returned to power as prime minister. Leading the government fulfilled his expectations, because he was able to focus on economic and administrative issues. His achievements are, however, negatively viewed.
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In 2021, the Romanian Sociological Association awarded economist Florin Georgescu its Award for Excellence. This essay covers the author’s magnum opus, titled Capital in Post-communist Romania, and focuses on the content most relevant to sociology. Unique in size and scope, the approximate 1,000 page three-volume book features three books in one: a 30-year economic history of Romania, a critical analysis of the way the Romanian capitalist economy developed in the second half of the 2010s, and a blueprint for structural reforms to foster development and reduce inequality. The essay includes a short author presentation and an overall review of the book’s contents, an appraisal of the work’s style and originality, and a review of the themes and subjects most salient for sociologists: capital ‒ labour relationship and the distribution and redistribution system, income and wealth inequality, precarious work, the transition and privatisation processes, structural problems of capitalism, and development policies.
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Burawoy (1999), Eyal (2001), Berdahl (2006), Cervinkova (2012) and others have proposed the concept of „postsocialism” as a way of describing the gap between socialism and capitalism. But, in a world marked by “rearrangements, reconfigurations and recombinations that yield new interweavings of the multiple social logics” (Stark, & Bruszt, 1998) what does postsocialism entail? This article aims to provide an overview of the different perspectives regarding the meaning of postsocialism, by bringing together and examining ideas represented in the theoretical literature. Starting from the idea of reframing the understanding of the past, this analysis explores postsocialism, as a process, from four perspectives: imitation, involution, emergence or zombie socialism. The critique serves as a starting point for future directions in postsocialism conceptualisations, in order to better understand the present based on the past.
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As early as the dawn of modern age, Benjamin Constant (1819) wrote that the current democracy, unlike the ancient one, based on slavery and perpetual wars, is based on capital, while Braudel (1979) shows that capitalism as a concept could not exist without the other concepts preceding it in the sequence they occur in society, i.e. capital and capitalist. Therefore, I regarded capital, meaning the foundation of both democracy and capitalism, as a particularly challenging object of study from the standpoint of its formation, development, location in the economy and ownership in post-communist Romania. I deem the amount, quality, origin and behaviour of capital are pivotal for a solid democracy and an efficient functioning of capitalist market economy in our country. The book Capital in post-communist Romania, based on long data series, may cast a historical perspective on the economic and social phenomena and processes under scrutiny. They are meant to help devise and implement public policies for making the objectively necessary corrections to the Romanian society after such an intricate transition, as well as to prepare the actions for securing Romania’s future development. I viewed this scientific endeavour as useful after identifying a shortage of information and, against this backdrop, of analysis on economic and social results of Romania’s transition, also by comparison with other former communist countries.
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The system of representative democracy has its origins in England. Participation in governance is an important element of representative democracy because the people exercise their power through representatives. This paper aims to analyze the challenges and achievement of representative democracy in Albania after the fall of communism regime. Since 1990, Albania entered into a period of transition where participation in governance was seen as positive element to approach western values. This paper seeks to address the following question: Does the development of representative democracy help participation in governance? Whom does the power belong to, and how should this power be exercised? Can the people, participate in governance, and control the representatives, if they do not properly represent it? How can power be returned to the people? Main methodology used in this paper is doctrinal research. The paper is structured in three sections. After the introduction (section 1), the paper discusses theoretical framework of representative governance and the importance of participation in governance. The third section analyzes the challenges of representative democracy in the context of Albania.
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The text below recalls the circumstances in which the project of a new synthesis of Romanian history was drafted. It brought together three Romanian historians and two foreign historians, one of them being the United States Professor Keith Hitchins. The book still represents, thanks to successive re-publishing, a synthetic analysis model that is useful to both professionals and the general public.
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After rallies swept across Belarus amid public resistance to the election rigging that the Belarussians put up against the Lukashenko regime, there was a moment when it seemed that the protest was just an inch from victory. It was at this moment that Russian President Putin offered Belarus President Lukashenko a helping hand. However, Russia’s support wasn’t free of charge. Since August 2020, Lukashenko has been gradually swapping what’s left of Belarussian sovereignty for Moscow’s assistance. Now the Kremlin controls the neighbouring country’s economic, military, and information spheres. Since then, Russia has beefed up its military presence in Belarus, turning it into a military foothold. To this end, propaganda tools were widely applied.
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Faith as the main ”object” of religion and religion as a system of ”objects” of faith are interconditioned to the extent that these helps us to believe in the ”virtual” reality of another world, more and more foreign for us. But from a political perspective, religion no longer sends today to the sacred idea, but, in the best case, to a kind of respect for the historical “tradition”.The purpose of this study is to show that beyond cultural values indicating the permanence of an European spirit, the European Romania’s identity involves also questions about the meaning of faith and religion, about local forms of manifestation of the religious spirit which after 1989 became increasingly prominent. Whether works from the past or personalities who suffered in prisons for their faith are updated, whether new forms of manifestation of religious spirit or godliness appear, these are possible thanks to the freedom of expression which represents one of the most important democratic acquisitions after 1989. At the same time, this phenomenon involves questions about the creative potential of religion in the order of identity, but also about identification or distinction between faith and religion, taking into account the basic definitions according to which faith is the personal conviction in regard to the sacred thing, while the religion represents a system of religious beliefs.
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In this article I intend to carry out a critical exercise relative to Romanian feminism and the concepts with which some of its representatives or their opponents operate. By this approach I do not claim to put in order the natural diversity and the dynamics of social representations, but I attempt to establish this practice of a constant critical (self) examination of the meanings with which we operate, of the principles that we support, and of the theoretical options available at a given moment. This article aims to bring attention to certain clichés, theoretical and semantic distortions that are frequently encountered in various communication contexts (in daily life but also in professional or specialized public communication: within projects devoted to this topic, within educational establishments, disciplines, programs of study etc.) concerning the themes of feminism, of equality in gender relations, of femininity/masculinity, and other correlated concepts (discrimination, gender inequalities, differences between sexes, and so on). These conceptual confusions or ambiguities have a twofold negative effect: on the one hand, they affect/denature the correct reception (in the sense of nuanced, documented, and grounded understanding) of feminism in this country, producing reactions of a priori rejection of feminism/gender equality and, on the other, they distort, reduce or even annul the expected results of projected social action and intervention (through programs of information, education, and public policies) as well as the development of a strong feminist movement. This paper seeks to argue answers to some questions: Which are the most common stereotypes and clichés that are operating in the collective mindset and how they preserve the patriarchal model of gender relations? What kind of feminism and gender equality that would be needed today in Romania? What are the opportunities and the means of action needed in order for gender equality to be naturally assimilated in the Romanian collective mindset, deprived of many of prejudices and stereotypes?
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The decade following the Romanian Revolution, generally known as “the transition,” saw radical changes in the economic and social fabric of the country, with one apparent exception: the public theatre system. At the same time, the monopoly the winners of post-communism developed on the discourse about the transition and the traditional practices of cultural production delayed any artistic representation of that period for at least another decade. The article tackles the issue of this delayed public reflection on the long-term effects of the transition, how the theatre managed to preserve its own oblivion to these effects, and how the independent theatre of a new generation of artists engaged, after the financial crisis of 2008-2011, in a public reckoning of the ongoing legacy of the transition.
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In the geographical area where Romania is located, it represents a singular case: it is the only country that speaks a language of Latin origin. We are trying to assess whether this particularity has been reflected as an encouraging element of its modernization. Throughout history, for Romanians, modernization has been synonymous with Europeanization. During three stages, short in history, Romanians came into contact with Western civilization: Roman colonization, the reverberations of the ideas of the revolutions of the nineteenth century and the post-communist era. We evaluate today, that every time the modernization / Europeanization effort of the Romanians was consistent and fast.
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This article aims to offer a perspective of National Archives of Romania evolution in the past two decades. The essay analyzes the history of classified records laws and regulations in this period, around the role of National Archive as a memory office. The study questions the theory that was imposed by the archives act no. 16/1996, that the National Archive is the only Romanian agency that deals with the public archives. The author believe that we need to reshape this theory, in order to integrate the mutations in our modern society. Also, it offers a perspective on the accessibility to the historical records of the organizations, specifically the classified records. Between state secrecy legislation and the archivistic one it is a great opposability. Also, it is a misunderstanding between the organisations who are dealing with the official secrecy, both SRI and DGIPI, and the National Archives concerning the classified information. Open records on official decisions are importants for the public information and to maintain democratic values. For more than 30 years, National Archives repositorys could not receive the classified records that are part of national archivist fonds. There are more causes of this reality. SRI and DGIPI coordinates the public organisations who create classified records and they insist to destroy those records after they are no longer sensitive. Adverse legislation to the archives act, like HG 585/2002, create an important issue for the free access to the classified records of the public organizations. It is also a very strong debate on the role of these records, who are already free for the public access in National Archives, to be removed from the research. The debate on the legal background of the public archives should not be ignorant of European model, of Romanian competitive legislation on classified records and, also, of institutions that produces informations that are part of national archivist fonds without any rules or professional control.
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The review of: Mitja Velikonja, Post-Socialist Political Graffiti in the Balkans and Central Europe [Southeast European Studies] (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 226 pp.
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This article examines the event of Pentecost as reported by Saint Luke in Acts2.1-47 emphasizing its relevance for the post-communist Romanian society. The author argues that the community of Jesus’ disciples is empowered by the Holy Spirit to mediate Christ’s divine action of healing individual and social wounds that the communist regime inflicted on the soul of the Romanian people. It also explores the right human answer to God’s healing and saving initiative, according to Saint Peter’s divinely inspired sermon delivered on the day of Pentecost. In Saint Luke’s narrative of the book of Acts, this response is called “repentance”, which is the human reaction to God’s gracious call that consists in regret for personal and collective sin, the invocation of God’s forgiveness in Christ, and the beginning of a new life regenerated by the Holy Spirit. According to the biblical narrator, all the present benefits of divine healing are just the first fruits of the future glory of God’s kingdom for which Christians bear witness.
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