Family Transformations in the Post-Communist Countries: Attitudes Toward Changes

Author(s):  
Vlada Stankuniene ◽  
Ausra Maslauskaite
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Vira Burdjak

Theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of political transformations in the CEE post-communist countries have been analyzed. The author argues that democratic transits do not guarantee transition to democracy and its consolidation. They are just polymorphic conversion processes from one political state to another, where the final destination is not always a democracy. They are influenced by general international factors, which allows us to consider the democratic transits, which may not consolidate into democracy, as integral components of the modern global democratic wave. Their real democratic value is not a definite variable. Political realities indicate that some of the transits proceed to illiberal democracy and hybrid regimes with different (non-) democratic features or often with versions of a new authoritarianism. In electoral democracies, only the external, formal sides of the democracy and democratic procedures are imitated, especially elections, which does not give grounds to relate these regimes to the democratic ones. Keywords: Post-communist countries of CEE, theoretical and methodological approaches, political transformation


Author(s):  
Cynthia M. Horne

Chapter 1 provides a literature review upon which to build the theoretical scaffolding of this book and explicates the development of the lustration typology. The chapter reviews the trust literature, highlighting differences in the origins and effects of trust in public institutions, trust in government, interpersonal trust, and trust in social institutions. Chapter 1 also reviews the literature on lustration and transitional justice, highlighting the design and use of measures in the post-communist region. From this literature, Chapter 1 develops a transitional justice typology consisting of four different categories of lustration and public disclosure programs based on the scope and implementation of programs and the degree of bureaucratic and symbolic change characteristic of the different programs. This typology is then used to categorize post-communist countries in Chapter 2.


Author(s):  
Rachel A. Epstein

If post-communist countries realized marketized bank–state ties through transition and international pressure to privatize their banks with foreign capital, western Eurozone states have more recently come under pressure to follow suit. European Banking Union centralized bank supervision and introduced a single resolution board at the expense of national authority. Thus under banking union, national regulatory and supervisory forbearance was curbed; barriers to banking market entry were no longer the purview of national authorities; disproportionate bank lending to one’s own sovereign would be discouraged; and bank bondholders, creditors and depositors—i.e. market actors—paid the price for bank failures first, before governments and taxpayers. While European Banking Union put the euro on stronger foundations, it also curbed national economic policy discretion and limited tools for adjustment. Taking Italy, Portugal, Spain and Germany as examples, this chapter explains why and in what policy areas Eurozone states’ sovereignty clashed with banking union.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542097764
Author(s):  
Jolanta Arcimowicz ◽  
Mariola Bieńko ◽  
Beata Łaciak

Within sociological literature, including that which analyses systemic changes in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, denunciation is one of the least studied issues, both empirically and theoretically. In Poland after the political transformation, as well as in other post-communist countries, the problem of dealing with security service and secret police informers and collaborators has not gone away. News media report a rapidly growing number of denunciations directed to various institutions and administrative offices, and legal regulations regarding denunciations have also appeared. In public discourse, denunciation and whistleblowing are increasingly often equated. Encouragement to inform about aberrations, confronted with the consequences that whistleblowers face, shows the legal and social vacuum around the institution of whistleblowing in Poland. This article, in response to questions about the modern social image of denunciation, is based on analysis of in-depth individual interviews conducted during 2015–2017 with children, adults, and administrative officials in three Polish cities. The results show that both children and adults treat denunciation as a form of harming others, though they do differentiate their moral judgments depending on the delator’s intention, but they rarely attribute any motive other than personal gain to whistleblowers’ actions. Finally, the existing administrative acquiescence and institutional support for denunciation are sometimes interpreted in terms of the weakness of democracy, immaturity of civic society, and the legacy of a totalitarian state.


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