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In this small booklet, Franjo Tudjman describes his view on the situation of Croatia within the still exisiting federal state of Yugoslavia one year after Tito's death and ten years before the real break-down procedure of the federation started.
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This is case study about the Archive of private films, photographs and of oral history as it had existed in Hungary and dissapeared during the process of colapse oft he communist system.
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The six countries of the Western Balkans, all EU-membership aspirants, find themselves in different stages of the EU integration process. The characteristics of the EU’s enlargement approach towards the Western Balkans requires these countries to deliver concrete, tangible, and sustainable results before becoming members. In the previous enlargement rounds, the EU has never deployed such complex mechanisms to assess and monitor the quality of implemented reforms. This situation is new both for the EU Commission and the candidate countries,1 implying that the EU is also learning from its experiences and mistakes and innovating its methodology for assessing the results made by the candidate countries. The Western Balkan countries themselves are investing in developing new tools and mechanisms to report and monitor the achieved results. More precisely, improvements are made with regards to data collection and analysis methods, the quality and reliability of data, and more constructive engagement with civil society stakeholders.
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In order to make the thorough mendacity of Putin's rhetoric about "Ukraine as a State of Neo-Nazis" fully evident, CEEOL is offering the Ukrainian Jewish journal ”Ї“ as the strongest possible proof of a habit of "modern Ukrainian and world intellectual thought". The NGO "Ї", an independent cultural organization founded in the late 1980's in L'viv, focuses on modern Ukrainian and world intellectual thought. It offers periodic forums for discussion of issues concerning Ukraine and, among others, Europe, Russia, post-Byzantium, the Muslim Renaissance. It analyzes the current situation in order to develop future socio-political strategies. The organization also publishes "Ї", a quarterly journal dealing with European and Ukrainian issues in politics, philosophy, and culture. It also examines the relationship of Ukrainians with Russians, Poles, Austrians, and Jews and places Ukraine in a modern geopolitical sphere that can further Ukraine's identity as a modern state.
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HerzegovinaAlmost thirty years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is still in a sort of coma, and some say that there has never been a worse crisis, which is often said since the war. This text is not daily-political and should not be interpreted as such, but the thinking of an engaged intellectual who cares about all of Bosnia and Herzegovina and all the citizens and peoples of this country, and especially about peace in BiH and the world. As the famous saying goes: Without a peaceful Bosnia, there is no peaceful Europe. Now BiH has a chance on March 21, 2024 to start negotiations for joining the European Union, which is truly the most important political fact since Dayton.
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Georgia’s European foreign policy choice is often claimed to be the reflection of its national identity, more specifically its self-perception as a European nation striving to return to the European family. The following paper analyses this claim. More specifically it explores the extent to which mass attitudes conform to this officially voiced stance of the country. First, it explores Georgian society’s concurrence with aspirations of Euro-Atlantic integration and seeks to scrutinize the extent to which these aspirations stem from shared values, that is to say to what extent European identity is embedded in Georgian society. For this purpose, I refer to a thin version of European identity implying universal values. Based on the analysis of mass attitudes via public opinion polls, I argue that, although official aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration are massively shared, some of the basic values of European identity have a weak support in Georgian society. Low awareness of Europe in terms of its values, institutions and policies is pointing to the fact that Georgians have an abstract idea of Europe. Thus this paper suggests that general support for European integration in Georgia is better explained by the anticipation of economic benefit than it is by Georgia’s sharing of European values. Moreover, the analysis suggests that Westward aspirations are mainly a project of the political elite.
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The current research attempts to offer an account of the post-revolutionary ruling elite’s discourse on development and its transformation over time. This is not an attempt to assess what the government did concerning development, but what the government said or promised. Despite the fact that issues like democratization, security, ethnic conflicts, and foreign relations affect developmental outcomes, this paper will limit itself to social and economic targets, reforms and achievements, as communicated by the Georgian government. The questions that the research aims to answer are: What was the developmental trajectory communicated by the Georgian government since 2003 to domestic and international audiences? What kind of role did the Georgian government project in social and economic development? The recent electoral success of the Georgian Dream (GD) coalition placed the former ruling party, the United National Movement (UNM), in opposition. As it is too early to interpret the development discourse of the new government as well as the new opposition, the scope of the current research will be limited to the period since the revolution to September 2012.
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Georgia’s 2003 “Rose Revolution” capitalized on the popular discontent with the corrupt and ineffective government and ushered in hope for freedom, democracy and prosperity. This hope and enthusiasm was true domestically and internationally as well. International observers were keenly looking forward to a new wave of democratization that would now finally sweep over the former Soviet space. Domestically, people were looking forward to a government that would finally hear their voices and prioritize the state interest over their personal. // Saakashvili and his government have proven to be enthusiastic advertisers of own performance. Contrasting the achievements since 2003 with the dark and decayed times of Shevardnadze’s government has been particularly pervasive. However, while progress is visible in some areas, when it comes to democracy, the performance is widely considered to be less than perfect. // To measure the performance this paper looks at various international indices, which assign numerical value and standing to different countries around the world. While narrative assessments are much more numerous and may well provide more details, this paper looks specifically at those resources that allow for comparison of countries performance across pre-defined components/indicators and do so across time, thus showing development trends. These indices and rankings are widely used and internationally recognized scholarly resources. While all approaches and methodologies have inherent limitations and their criticism abounds, these resources still provide valuable data. It is worth noting, additionally, that despite using divergent methodologies, the findings of all of these resources largely point in the same direction and the correlation between the assessments is recognized to be significant.
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Georgia’s future hangs in the balance as the ruling Georgian Dream coalition attempts to derail the country’s democratic progress. Once a frontrunner among Eastern Partnership countries, Georgia now fails to demonstrate progress and meet the requirement in order to be considered a candidate for EU membership. While the prospects for European integration of Georgia are tempered by several serious challenges relating to the country’s broader backsliding democracy, the Georgian Dream coalition seems determined to level up its authoritarian inclinations by attempting to impose new restrictive norms. With this goal in mind, the Georgian government employed a well-known chapter from the Kremlin playbook. With the Russian-style law on foreign agents intended to impose repressive measures against pro-democracy activists and media outlets, the ruling party revealed its desire to adopt Russian political practices.
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In Russia, Putin won an uncontested victory, but in Georgia the struggle is far from over. The opposition did not disappear, opposition parties, independent media and NGOs are active. We consider three scenarios. If things go well (an optimistic option), Georgia will carry out the necessary reforms and gain EU candidate status. Russia’s defeat in the war against Ukraine, which will demoralize the pro-Russian anti-democratic forces in Georgia, can prompt it. In a realistic scenario, the Georgian Dream remains in power after the 2024 elections, but through a series of compromises, this will not prevent Georgia from achieving EU candidate status. Polarization in society would diminish and Georgian politics would become more pluralistic. Finally, in the negative scenario, repression against the opposition in Georgia will intensify and relations with Europe will deteriorate significantly. This scenario can be stimulated if the Russian regime can save face in the result of aggressive war with Ukraine, since the inherently weak Georgian government needs some patronage from abroad.
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In Georgia, we need to achieve certain goals, we are rather unprepared and enfeebled in the face of this era of historical changes. Our politics is hollow and produces almost no interesting and valuable content. Much of our media, instead of providing discussion, analyses, facts and information, has transformed into instruments of propaganda. The public is tired of the never-ending bickering of politicians. The trust towards key state institutions is at an all-time low. That is what Putin aimed for when he started the war – to kill the hope of a better tomorrow, to sow distrust towards everything and everyone, to intimidate people and destroy their civic consciousness. The threat to Russian authoritarianism was the democratic optimism and diversity of public life in Ukraine and not the crackpot notion that NATO would attack Moscow from there. The current Russian governance model is based on cynicism, frustration, fear and the rule of power. We, in Georgia, are doing Putin’s work for his sake – through our inaction, indifference, gaffes and unwillingness to learn from these mistakes. The current situation makes it very difficult to deal with existing challenges. In addition, we need to utilize a new and unexpected opportunity. We had a chance to receive an EU member candidate status with Ukraine and Moldova, and we are wasting this chance and precious time. This publication is an attempt to fill this deficit. We started working on it soon after the war in Ukraine started, as it was becoming more evident that nobody was seriously discussing scenarios for the future development of events. This is why we decided to foster this discussion. We created the European Forum of Georgia – an informal platform for dialogue and coordination in Georgia, where people with different views will discuss solutions for the country's most critical issues.
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Our main goal is to break through the vicious cycle and form a different political culture that is more amenable to democracy. One of the most tested ways is electoral reform, and we should greet 2024 more or less optimistically in this regard – a proportional electoral system with a relatively lower threshold will promote the inclusion of more parties and sig-nificantly increase the likelihood of forming a coalition government. While this is a promising prospect, considering the sharply negative attitude of the society towards political cohabita-tion in 2012-2013, as well as the political crisis that developed after the 2020 parliamentary elections, it has become obvious that not only compromise and consensus, but even any kind of civil relationship with opponents is often awkward and undesirable for the main actors of Georgian politics.
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This current policy paper is the first in a series which the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy will make available to the stakeholders of Ukrainian democracy: political parties, NGOs, international organizations and students of democratization. It addresses one of the most salient aspects of political debate of the recent, not only in Ukraine, but elsewhere too: that of the relation between money and politics. The author of the paper has taken a thorough look at existing shortcomings of the current system and practice of political finance and has come up with a number of recommendations. We hope they will be taken up for consideration by political actors in Ukraine. We also hope that it will be a useful addition to the debate on how to strengthen democracy in Ukraine and ensure that all democratic political forces, regardless of their funding levels, will have equal opportunities to win votes based on their policy ideas, in a free, competitive and transparent manner, and that they remain accountable to those who voted for them. I would like to thank Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, for putting its valuable expertise in the production of this paper, and to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, for providing comments and valuable peer review to this work. With this series of policy papers, NIMD aims to further promote an informed debate about the changes that are needed to make it happen. (BI-LINGUAL EDITION)
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The three issues that are covered in these papers are essentially the building blocks of modern democracy. Without the active involvement of young people, politics will be devoid of new, innovative ideas and dynamism. Similarly, without equal opportunities for both women and men, any political system will be leaving an important, vital group of stakeholders without a voice in politics, thus eroding its quality and people’s trust in it. Finally, local governments are the cornerstones of any democracy. Their effectiveness, as well as the quality of the services they render, determines what trust and support will be accorded to the general arrangement of the nation’s political system. The challenges that are discussed in the three papers are important and should not be neglected; the opportunities they present are ripe and will need to be further exploited. We therefore hope that this publication makes an interesting contribution to Georgia’s progress towards becoming a more balanced, highly participatory and genuine multiparty democracy serving its citizens justly and effectively.
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The Yearbook comprises 31 short texts dealing with most of the various issues that made the global diplomatic agenda in 2004. // For years “Crisis management” and “Crisis prevention” have been key words in the political debate. Unfortunately, no significant progress has been achieved. The world still has to live with surprises - crises and conflicts emerge without early warnings. Political leaders and the public learn about crises and conflicts if and when CNN cameras transport the horrifying pictures via TV into our homes. Political leaders express their surprise about emerging crises and conflicts in Rwanda, Haiti, Former Yugoslavia, Ivory Coast, Congo, Middle East, Former Soviet Union, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Afghanistan - just to name a few.They react - and sometimes overreact - in panic, pour a lot of resources into damage control and promise to improve the tools for “crisis prevention” - and then forget the crisis and measures for “crisis prevention until the next crisis emerge. Is this cycle a natural law? Are those political crises - like Tsunami - a fact of life we have to live with fatalistically? Are we not capable with all our instruments of world-wide access to information, communications, computers, exchange of knowledge within a nation, between nations and alliances, state and non-state organisations to net a safer world?Are we not willing to spend some money to prevent crises and con-flicts? Is there no political resolve to - at least - reduce the number of surprises?
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Against the backdrop of a radical reset of the regional geopolitical context, joining the European Union (EU) is a necessity, not just a historic opportunity, for Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia in their efforts to consolidate their own statehood. In addition, embracing the European vector would make possible a future detachment from the Russian sphere of influence, provided that the reforms initiated generate order and prosperity, and depopulation is stopped.
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Civil society, represented by the National Platform of Civil Society from the Eastern Partnership, as well as other organizations, expresses its concern about the unprecedented attacks on non-governmental organizations, development partners and democracy, launched by the deputy Bogdan Șîrdea. On October 21, 2020, the socialist deputy Bogdan Șîrdea launched the toughest, most complex and assumed frontal attack launched by a Moldovan politician against the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, against the fundamental rights and freedoms of the country's citizens and against the modernization of our state according to the European model. This attack consists in discrediting, on the basis of falsehoods and defamatory accusations, the civil society as a whole, of which the preferred target were the organizations that work mainly in the field of human rights protection, justice reform, the fight against corruption, freedom of the press, of pro-European reforms, of reforms in the social and medical fields.
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Not only authorities, political opposition and civil society in Belarus, but also ordinary citizens of the country react to the political actions and initiatives of the EU in relation to Belarus. How are the decisions of the EU on the introduction of restrictive measures or the calls of European politicians to ban the World Hockey Championship in 2014 perceived and evaluated by the population of Belarus? Do the citizens of Belarus consider the repression of the political opposition fair? How did the geopolitical preferences of Belarusians change? These questions are answered by the data of the last mass sociological survey of NISEPI (national survey on March 2-12, 2012, 1509 people were interviewed, the representativeness error does not exceed 0.03)
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Over the past few years, in the social and political life of Belarusian society, we have observed a decrease in the ability of citizens to take effective joint political and social actions, to publicly and actively express their own position and defend common interests. Despite the growing number of petitions, public statements, signature collections, we observe not only the lack of impact of these instruments on life in the country, but also their weak mobilization potential. Most often, they remain a way of expressing a personal position, but they do not lead either to the development of further joint actions or to a change in the situation. The general trends of social and political life indicate not only a decrease in political activity, but also a change in the structure of social ties and relations on which solidarity activity can be built. Thus, after 2006, when the support for traditional forms of civil and social activity (meetings, protests) decreased, "new" forms began to attract attention, examples of which are silent protests, campaigns to collect aid for detainees and political prisoners, all kinds of flash mobs, etc. These bursts of "one-off" actions demonstrate the potential possibility of this kind of behavior, but attempts to repeat the successful practice, to spread it, every time turn into failure. Explanatory versions and concepts that appeal to the "new media" or "new majority" do not withstand either practical or empirical criticism. At the same time, the practice of public associations and civil initiatives, which are aimed at changes in Belarusian society, requires answers to the question: what can you count on and what can you rely on when it comes to mutual support and solidarity?
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The necessary condition of democratic transformations in Belarus is the formation of a strong civil society that should fulfill three main functions: 1) to act as a full-fledged party of the dialogue aimed at defining the country development agenda; 2) to produce the environment of appearing and implementing innovations in the country’s economic, technological, and socio-cultural development; and 3) to mobilize the intellectual and human potential so as to implement transformations. In order to fulfill these functions, it is necessary: 1) to have self-determined subjects in the field of Belarusan civil society, which have their own program proposals and vision of necessary changes across the nation or in a concrete sphere; 2) to have a social base of support and distribution of these tenets and implementation of programs.
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