Around the Bloc: Baltics Tallying Cost of Soviet Occupation Premium
Justice ministers want Russia to pay for losses incurred under 50 years of rule by the USSR.
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Justice ministers want Russia to pay for losses incurred under 50 years of rule by the USSR.
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New EU member states losing hundreds, even thousands, of workers to countries with higher wages struggle to combat the toll.
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This article traces some of the changes that have occurred over the last two decades in the sphere of kinship relationships through the perspective of the new forms of assisted reproduction and the public debates that accompany their legislation and regulation. Taking as a launching point a specific realm in the anthropology of kinship since the end of the twentieth century, the article outlines the changes in the meaning and interpretation of kinship in the era of artificial conception, when the new tendencies of developing family as an institution parallel forms of assisted reproduction which challenge previous traditional notions and perceptions. The article presents an overview of major political, legislative, and ethical questions related to assisted reproduction and illustrates them with examples from the public debates on the introduction of such technologies in Bulgaria, and more specifically on the proposed law about surrogate motherhood submitted in 2011. The emphasis in the text falls not on the medical and technological aspects of the new forms of assisted reproduction, but rather on the role of the latter in rethinking the existing patterns of kinship relationships (mostly the category of parenthood), as well as on their contribution to various discussions about kinship in present-day societies.
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This text is based on an ethnographic study on the protests and civic initiatives that initially took place in 2013 but then continued with varying intensity throughout the following years. While applying the method of participant observation during “the Gezi events“ and conducting interviews with individuals who had taken part in the protests, a main goal of this study was to grasp the transformation in the identifica¬tion, articulation and presentation of important and secondary topics and problems that had been brought forward throughout the public discussions. The initial moti¬vation of this study was the idea that after the first demonstrations and clashes, the interpretation of the political projects’ turbulence, of the reinvention of urban spaces, of the success or failure of diverse protest and resistance practices, gradually modi¬fies the way the aforementioned events and ongoing processes are being thought and talked about. The research questions tackle respondents’ participation in protests, the constitution and disintegration of communities, the “diagnosis“, “prognosis“ and “rationale“ elements in respondents’ and informants’ microdiscources and their acts in relation to diverse initiatives. The text attempts to systematize the observation data and the collected “narrative fragments“ within four “narrating modes“: transforma¬tive, subjective, argumentative, and topological.
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The antimonopoly protests in 2013 were the most popular in the last 16 years; at their height, between 100 000 and 150 000 people crowded the streets of over 35 cities. Although in only two weeks the government was overthrown as a result of these events and a few days later four new parties emerged from the streets, from the very beginning until today the revolts are being described rather as a spontaneous and non-organized moral and economic indignation. The present article questions this viewpoint by applying a deep analysis of the genesis and the development of the structures within the movement, particularly in Sofia, of the struggle for legitimacy of various groups, networks and leaders. By means of participant observation and in-depth interviews with central figures and protestants the text searches the answers to the questions who and how creates the events, the choreography, the route and the claims. The basic tool of the study is a series of „ideal types“ of the protest among which a negative and a positive type.
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Narodowa Demokracja proclaimed its programme to resign from violence as a military activity and manifested its reluctance to insurrectionary techniques of political fighting. It postponed the decision to begin a national uprising, which was supported by a number of factors. Narodowa Demokracja were willing to benefit from the impact made by social authority figures like the Church, the school, and the press. The rules they set out condemned any political loyalty to the occupants. They encouraged passive resistance against Russification or Germanisation and engagement in legal political activities. Narodowa Demokracja focused on how to organise effectively education and upbringing with the use of available means to educate the Polish nation. The experience of the partitions was disregarded when Sanacja, a Polish coalition political movement, was in power. As a result, a wide range of nonviolent resistance methods was adopted, including political and economic boycott.
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An analysis of experience. The article presents the results of a research conducted by the Bureau of Research of the Chancellery of the Sejm on the first experiences with participatory budgeting in selected local government units in Poland, which is one of the newest initiatives undertaken within a broader concept of public governance. The authors also assess the current state and perspectives for participatory budgeting.
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Just after 1989, the public space became, naturally, opened for the pluralistic expression of social and political messages. The official public discourse of the national-communist state is being gradually replaced with a variety of legitimizing messages. The new democratic state undertakes hesitating steps in its endeavour to redefine the public symbols. The newly emerged social and political actors are also taking part in redesigning the public space. New messages, recuperative messages and identity narratives coexist, contrast one another and produce a heterogeneous aggregation of civic values. Sometimes, the situations have aberrant results.
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The population of Lithuania fell faster than that of any other EU country last year.
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The present research paper attempts to apply the issue attention cycle model of Anthony Downs to corruption issues in the contexts of Canada as a democracy,and Kazakhstan as a soft authoritarian regime. The major contributions to the existing body of knowledge include: 1. replicating the Down’s model to analyse the corruption issue across the two countries; and 2. attempting to observe cycle variations depending on the nature of political regimes, and thus holding the regime as an independent variable as applied to the Down’s model.
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Violence is one of the most complex psychosocial problems, especially if it is experienced from close person like spouse. This problem is not related to social status or other sociodemographic characteristics like ethnicity, religion, etc., it could occur in any place and under any circumstances. Domestic violence becomes one of the most relevant problems in a society, however, scientific research more often focuses on women who suffer from spouses violence and there is a lack of research about men who suffer from women violence. This article aims to fill this gap and to analyse some aspects of women violence against men.The goal of the article is to find out what are attitudes of Parliament members toward women violence against men. The quantitative research was conducted in order to answer three research questions: what actions of women can be understood as violence, what support men search after the violence, what is attitude to men who suffered women violence.Literature review revealed that violence against women and children are analysed more often, usually men are described as aggressive, dominant offenders. However, researchers in masculinity field state that men also could experience violence but they tend to hide the fact because they are ashamed, afraid of disapprobation of society, they don’t know whereto apply for support. Research data showed that respondents count violence such actions of women asoffensive remarks and jokes, shouting and scolding, pushing, damaging things, forcing for sexual intercourse, threatening to refuse to see their children, threatening to divorce.These are forms of psychological, physical and sexual violence. However, respondents don’t recognize such economic and psychological violence as prohibition to work or study,constantly expressed unfounded jealousy, ignorance and not speaking, obstruction to communicate with friends and reproaches.Most respondents stated that they would not apply for a support after experiencing violence from women, because they don’t see violent action of women as serious problem,they don’t think that it is violence. Respondents’ attitude toward men who suffered violence from women is controversial. On the one hand, they said that violence experienced men should search for a support, but they personally in case of women’s violence, are not going to ask for a help.Respondents are not minded to feel sorry for men who suffered violence from women,but they are not prone to stigmatize or blame such men as well. Research participants think that any men, not only weak ones, can suffer violence from women. Very small proportion of respondents said that their attitude toward mistreated men is negative.
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Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie problemów w dostępie do finansowania publicznego, z jakimi borykają się podmioty ekonomii społecznej. Artykuł opiera się na analizie literatury przedmiotu oraz materiałów źródłowych, w tym aktów prawnych. Skrótowo przedstawiono w nim polskie uregulowania prawne dotyczące możliwości wsparcia organizacji pozarządowych przez samorząd gminny i powiatowy, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem podmiotów ekonomii społecznej. Wyniki analizy skłaniają do postawienia tezy, że w obecnej sytuacji zbyt często forma świadczenia usług publicznych wpływa na możliwości skorzystania z pomocy publicznej. Aktualne rozwiązania utrudniają sektorowi ekonomii społecznej dostęp do publicznego finansowania. W artykule zaprezentowano zarówno legislacyjne, jak i edukacyjno-wdrożeniowe rozwiązania, stanowiące propozycje eliminacji istniejących problemów.
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Spółdzielnie socjalne mające za zadanie reintegrację społeczną i zawodową osób zagrożonych wykluczeniem społecznym stanowią ważny instrument polityki rynku pracy. W Polsce brakuje jednak kompleksowej i pogłębionej wiedzy o tych podmiotach i ich działalności. Wypełniając tę lukę, w 2011 r. na zlecenie Departamentu Pożytku Publicznego Ministerstwa Pracy i Polityki Społecznej zostało przeprowadzone ogólnopolskie badanie pod nazwą „Monitoring Spółdzielni Socjalnych” – mające na celu przybliżenie problemów środowiska spółdzielców socjalnych. Bazując na zgromadzonych danych, w artykule prezentujemy wybrane aspekty działalności tych podmiotów. Następnie, na podstawie informacji o aktywności gospodarczej i społecznej wyróżniamy cztery typy spółdzielni socjalnych. Opisując ich sytuację w wybranych wymiarach, określamy niektóre uwarunkowania kształtujące styl działania, wskazując jednocześnie na potencjalne czynniki mogące stanowić bariery w prawidłowym wypełnianiu zadań gospodarczych i społecznych spółdzielni socjalnych w Polsce.
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Spółdzielczość – uważana za jeden z filarów ekonomii społecznej i ważny element budowy społeczeństwa obywatelskiego – jest wskazywana rzadko lub wręcz pomijana w oficjalnych dokumentach dotyczących tych zagadnień. Celem artykułu jest wykazanie, że międzynarodowo uznane wartości i zasady spółdzielcze są zbieżne z wartościami ekonomii społecznej i z zasadami, na jakich opiera się funkcjonowanie społeczeństwa obywatelskiego. W artykule omówiono genezę zasad spółdzielczych obecnych w różnych prądach ideowych w rozwoju historycznym spółdzielczości, ich ewolucję i próby skodyfikowania przez Międzynarodowy Związek Spółdzielczy, aż do przyjęcia przezeń Deklaracji Spółdzielczej Tożsamości w 1995 r. W dalszej części zaprezentowano tę Deklarację, jej wpływ na międzynarodowe i krajowe akty prawne dotyczące spółdzielczości, próby jej adaptacji do potrzeb różnych branż spółdzielczych oraz rozpoczętą dyskusję nad koniecznością jej nowelizacji. W konkluzji podkreślono, że spółdzielczość jako element gospodarki społecznej i składowa społeczeństwa obywatelskiego może być efektywnym uzupełnieniem państwa, wolnego rynku – nadającym bardziej „ludzkie oblicze” efektom zglobalizowanej gospodarki.
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Patriotism as a socio-political attitude having its expression in love of the homeland and the nation, inextricably linked with the willingness to make sacrifices for the common good, repeatedly evolved over the centuries, while at the same time often distorted and deformed for the need of existing ideology. Currently, there is a crisis of patriotic-defense values as well as a kind of collapse of patriotic attitudes of Poles. The cause of the state of affairs is the largely advancing globalization processes that make human the citizen of the world and giving almost unlimited possibilities in the socio-political system. In the face of the recent worsening diffusion of cultures, a sense of their own identity, culture and patriotic awareness becomes crucial, allowing for nurturing the values fundamental to our nation and its secure survival.
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On December 12, 2013, Liza Shaposhnik, a volunteer at Kyiv’s EuroMaidan, was interviewed by Radio Svoboda. “I came to Maidan to stand up for my rights”, she said. “The European Union is, for us, a chance to live well, to have a normal life”.On December 12, 2013, Liza Shaposhnik, a volunteer at Kyiv’s EuroMaidan, was interviewed by Radio Svoboda. “I came to Maidan to stand up for my rights”, she said. “The European Union is, for us, a chance to live well, to have a normal life”.This phrase, ‘to have a normal life’, was often invoked by EuroMaidan activists as they elaborated for me the broad goals they held for themselves and their country. This conscious push away from Soviet social paradigms towards a national community that embraces European values (and the ‘normal life’ these values are believed to engender) was a central tenet of the ‘declaration of dignity’ that the EuroMaidan protests embodied. During the protests, I was in Ukraine conducting research on the use of methadone maintenance therapy for chronic opiate users. In interviews with methadone patients, most of whom called themselves ‘addicts’, many portrayed their motivations for starting treatment in similar terms: they want to live like normal people. By comparing the social inclusion of Liza to the social exclusion of drug users at EuroMaidan, this is paper explores the discursive enactment of ‘dignity’ in Ukraine. By considering how and why some Ukrainians are integrated and afforded meaningful personhood in the Maidan, while others are de-humanized, stripped of subjectivity, and excluded from the new society that EuroMaidan represented, it follows these acts of boundary maintenance down to their ideological foundation, suggesting that the praxis of dignity post-Maidan Ukraine is not only a rejection of state corruption and violence, but also a potent form of bio-power, a social reckoning and policing of individuals’ inner psychological states.
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This paper provides a fi rst empirical investigation and tentative political contextualization of one of the earliest and most important irregular paramilitary formations of post-revolutionary Ukraine in 2014. It discusses the rise of the Ukrainian far right after 1991, and surveys briefl y the emergence of volunteer battalions in 2014. It focuses on some of the exceptional traits in the prehistory and creation of the ‘Azov’ battalion founded by a group of neo-Nazi activists from the organization Social-National Assembly/Patriot of Ukraine. It details, in articular, some strange aspects of the cooperation between the ‘Azov’ founders and the political provocateur Dmytro Korchinskiy as well as the infamous populist Oleh Liashko. It characterizes ‘Azov’ as an altogether untypical volunteer unit in post-Maidan Ukraine in terms of the past and the ideology of its founders. However, the paper only touches upon some particularly intriguing issues in the emergence of this unit, and does not attempt to give an overall assessment of its nature as a political grouping as well as military foundation as it doesnot venture beyond the year 2014.
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The article outlines the politics of memory towards the Soviet past in Ukraine in 1991–2015 and shows the origins of presentday ideological debates, political decisions and historiographic controversies. Two competing historical narratives – nationalistic and late (neo)Soviet - co-exist in popular perceptions and state politics of history in Ukraine. Both of them are eagerly instrumentalized by politicians throughout the post-Soviet period of one of the most diverse, pluralistic and ambivalent countries in Eastern Europe. The Euromaidan, the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass region actualized the problems in the attitude towards the complex Soviet past of Ukraine. The victimhood narrative, the removal of Lenin statues, the adoption of the so called ‘decommunisation’ laws and the prohibition of the Communist Party in Ukraine posed numerous questions about the limits of state’s interference into memory and history issues, the correlation between anti-Soviet and anti-Russian political claims, and the future of the regional diversity of Ukraine. The author argues that Ukraine’s diversity does not imply its underdevelopment or a hopeless division into ‘Russian’ and ‘Ukrainian’ parts. He shows also that the ‘Soviet’ label serves as the foremost ‘Other’ in the post-Maidan mainstream political discourse.
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This article concentrates on the phenomenon of Russophilia in Greece and situates it within the context of national populism. Numerous political analysts and journalists have not examined Russophilia in Greece as a component of a national populism which cuts across the traditional ‘left-right’ spectrum. This research is very topical at a time when Russia is emerging as a competitor to the EU and the Kremlin is searching for political allies throughout Central and Southeast Europe. This study demonstrates that the foundations of public Russophilia in Greece are feebler than many external commentators tend to estimate. A rather ahistorical and almost ‘Messianic’ notion of Russophilia interweaves with national populism in the light of the dispute with the EU and Germany over the management of the economic crisis.
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The paper explains the motivations behind radical Islamism and the recruitment to engage in jihadist terrorism. More precisely, it outlines the common patterns which define the process of Islamic radicalization in western European societies. The paper argues that Islamic radicalization must be understood as an individual phenomenon and not a problem affl icting Muslim communities more systemically. Moreover, the phenomenon is distinctly youthful in form. In sum, the paper demonstrates that radicalization is a youth revolt against society articulated on an Islamic religious narrative of jihad. It is not the uprising of a Muslim community victim of poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts who did not share the ‘sufferings’ of Muslims in Europe. These rebels without a cause fi nd in jihad a ‘noble’ and global cause, and are consequently instrumentalized by a radical organization (Al Qaeda, ISIS) that has a strategic agenda. The paper concludes by outlining a general strategy to counter radicalization and the recruitment for jihadi terrorism. The priority, beyond building a more sophisticated intelligence system, is to debunk the narrative of heroism, to break the ‘success story’ of ISIS as being invincible (including on the ground) and to let Islam in Europe appear as a ‘normal’ religion. The aim is to accentuate the estrangement of radicals from the Muslim population and to dry up the narrative of Islam as the religion of the oppressed.
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