Civil Society In Central And Eastern Europe

As well as promoting debates about liberal democracy, the dramatic events of 1989 also bought forth a powerful revival in the interest of the notion of civil society. This revival was reflected mainly in two broad tracts of literature. The first was primarily focused on the events surrounding the Solidarity movement in Poland and the tumultuous events of 1980-81. The second was concerned with the ‘Velvet Revolutions’ more broadly. Following the events of 1989, there appeared a number of works sharing the common central argument that civil society played a key role in the overthrow of these Communist regimes in 1989. Challenging the centrally accepted wisdom that dissent in totalitarian regimes was representative of civil society, Civil Society and Communism posits the argument that the totalitarian public sphere, a new theoretical typology, presents a more robust and rigorous way by which to understand dissent and opposition in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, Poland and the GDR.

To what extent are the ideas and practice of community development across Europe similar? Community Development and Civil Society explores this question with special reference to the UK and Hungary and shows how community development connects powerfully with civil society, a concept that today has global significance. Paul Henderson and Ilona Vercseg argue that community development is both a profession and a social movement and is relevant to a wide range of issues.They interweave case studies with discussion of principles and theory.The book's critical and accessible approach will appeal especially to students and practitioners.

Focusing on service-providing organizations established by health and human service professionals in post-Communist Poland, this book adds a new dimension to the sociological study of voluntary organizations. The author investigates the motives and interests of the people who establish these organizations and the connections among organizational forms, the social organizations of production, and the occupational interests of professional service providers.

The book presents an informed and wide-ranging examination of issues surrounding the development and future prospects of civil society in Eastern Europe. The contributions, mostly by leading East European scholars, relate the key concept of civil society to the processes that led to the collapse of communism and which bear on prospects for the establishment of a democratic order throughout the region. The development of the concept is related to questions like those surrounding economic policy and reform and the women's movement.

The handbook provides practical knowledge pertinent to civil society organizations. It is specifically designed to meet the demands of organizations in Central Europe and addresses lecturers, students, staff and volunteers of NPOs. Das Handbuch stellt praxisrelevantes Wissen zur Führung einer zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisation parat und ist speziell auf die besonderen Bedarfe Mitteleuropas abgestimmt.

The Nonprofit Sector in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia uniquely provides a timely overview of research on the nonprofit sector and nonprofit organizations in eleven former Soviet republics, with each central chapter written by local experts.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Eastern Europe, grade: Honours, Dublin City University, 24 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Despite the fact that during the recent Hungarian plebiscite regarding the country's accession to the European Union (EU) 83.76 per cent of the votes were in favour of joining the EU, the low election turnout of only 44.13 per cent of all Hungarians entitled to vote was considered "shameful"; an important political and economic decision has been taken with the official approval of only two fifth of the eight million Hungarians with voting rights.1 This and other somewhat disappointing examples raise the question of how committed Eastern Europeans are in terms of forging their own post-communist future. This paper will attempt to analyse the role civil society has played in the democratisation process of the region since 1989. As effects can generally only be properly assessed with a mid- or even long-term perspective, looking at isolated events, which took place during the last slightly more than thirteen years, does not suffice to come to a reliable conclusion about the strength or weakness of civil society. For this reason, I will focus in my analysis on tendencies and their possible historical explanation; where possible, survey data will be provided which should facilitate a broader understanding of current trends. Since - due to the individual countries' very distinct historical characteristics - in many instances it does not seem appropriate to evaluate "Eastern European civil societies" as a whole, I will adopt Attila gh's model differentiating at times between "East Central European (ECE) civil society" (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia) and "the Balkans civil society" (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia) taking into consideration regional similarities ( gh, 1998: 5). The structure of this paper will be as follows