Football In Southeastern Europe

This volume draws together scholarship across a number of disciplines – history, sociology, media and cultural studies, political science, Slavonic Studies – to examine the significance of the sport of football within Southeastern Europe, with an especial focus on countries of the former Yugoslavia. The volume is timely as there is growing recognition inside and beyond the academy that football is a key cultural site in which the tensions within the region have and continue to be reflected. Important issues such as resurgent nationalism, ethno/religious identity construction, and collective masculine identity are played out in relation to the sport of football. The papers within the volume explore these and other themes in detailed case studies that will be of interest to academics and policy makers concerned with wanting to know more about how football should be considered within agendas focused on reconciliation and a socially inclusive future. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

This two-volume encyclopedia profiles the contemporary culture and society of every country in Europe. Each country receives a chapter encompassing such topics as religion, lifestyle and leisure, standard of living, cuisine, gender roles, relationships, dress, music, visual arts, and architecture. This authoritative and comprehensive encyclopedia provides readers with richly detailed entries on the 45 nations that comprise modern Europe. Each country profile looks at elements of contemporary life related to family and work, including popular pastimes, customs, beliefs, and attitudes. Students can make cross-cultural comparisons-for instance, a student could compare social customs in Denmark with those in Norway, compare Greece's cuisine with that of Italy, and contrast the architecture of Paris with Amsterdam and Barcelona. Culture and society are changing in each region and nation of Europe due to many political and economic forces, both inside and outside of each nation's borders. This encyclopedia considers many of the transformations connected to globalization, as well as traditions that still hold strong, to provide a complete assessment of the processes that make European societies and cultures distinctive.

Is it possible for football matches or players to help forge a collective European identity? Pyta and Haverman seek to answer this question through a detailed analysis of how football is remembered across the continent. European Football and Collective Memory is the first book to deal with collective memory of football on a continental scale.

Orthodox Churches, like most religious bodies, are inherently political: they seek to defend their core values and must engage in politics to do so, whether by promoting certain legislation or seeking to block other legislation. This volume examines the politics of Orthodox Churches in Southeastern Europe, emphasizing three key modes of resistance to the influence of (Western) liberal values: Nationalism (presenting themselves as protectors of the national being), Conservatism (defending traditional values such as the “traditional family”), and Intolerance (of both non-Orthodox faiths and sexual minorities). The chapters in this volume present case studies of all the Orthodox Churches of the region.

The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the tragic wars that followed continue to engage scholars throughout the region and the world. Ever since the fall of Slobodan Miloševic, the Scholars’ Initiative, an international consortium of over 250 scholars, has endeavored to study the period 1986-2000 as critically and objectively as possible. It believes that ongoing research, discussion, and publication of its work will help bridge the chasm that separates serious historical scholarship from those interpretations that nationalist politicians and media in the former Yugoslavia have impressed on their populations. This collection of articles reflects new research by ten of the Initiative’s scholars and offers analysis of a wide spectrum of issues. It examines the roots of the violent collapse of Yugoslavia, considers the impact of the dissolution on minority groups, tackles some of the controversies concerning Kosovo, evaluates the most recent evidence in the controversy concerning responsibility for the deadly artillery attacks against civilians during the long siege of Sarajevo, assesses the performance of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in its trial of Miloševic, and examines the very sensitive process in Serbia of facing its violent past in the aftermath of the tragedy. This book was previously published as a special issue of Nationalities Papers.

The states and peoples of Southeastern Europe have been divided by wars over the twentieth century, but they have since worked to re-establish themselves into the European mainstream. This timely new edition has been revised, updated and expanded in the light of the latest scholarship and recent events. John R. Lampe now offers a comprehensive assessment of the full century from the Sarajevo assassination in 1914 through to EU membership and developments up to the present day.

Der politische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungsstand eines Landes ist messbar: Im internationalen Vergleich lassen sich die Leistungen politischer Entscheidungsträger und die daraus resultierenden Transformationsprozesse gegenüberstellen. Den Entwicklungsstand in 128 Entwicklungs- und Transformationsländern dokumentiert die Bertelsmann Stiftung alle zwei Jahre in ihrem Transformationsindex: Anhand ausführlicher Ländergutachten beleuchtet der Index die Wirkung von Reformstrategien auf dem Weg zu rechtsstaatlicher Demokratie und sozialer Marktwirtschaft. Er gibt damit Akteuren in Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft wichtige Hinweise und Impulse für ihre Arbeit. Der Untersuchungszeitraum des "Transformationsindex BTI 2012" reicht vom Frühjahr 2009 bis zum Frühjahr 2011. Die sieben ergänzenden Materialbände "Regional Findings" beinhalten die ausführlichen englischsprachigen Regionalüberblicke und Langfassungen der Länderberichte zu den sieben untersuchten Regionen: Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa; Lateinamerika und Karibik; West- und Zentralafrika; Naher Osten und Nordafrika; Östliches und südliches Afrika; Postsowjetisches Eurasien; Asien und Ozeanien. The peaceful transition of authoritarian regimes towards democracy and a market economy poses enormous challenges for citizens and politicians alike. Around the world, under widely differing conditions and with varying degrees of success, reform-oriented groups are struggling to democratize their countries and to strengthen the market economy. Good governance is the decisive factor for the success or failure of any transition process. The Bertelsmann Stiftung's Transformation Index is published every two years. The global ranking measures and compares transition processes worldwide on the basis of detailed country reports. Comparing systematically the status of democracy and market economy on an international basis, the BTI also provides comprehensive data on the quality of political managem