Download Free Civil Society In Communist Eastern Europe Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Civil Society In Communist Eastern Europe and write the review.

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.
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.
This volume provides new material on the different developments of opposition groups and dissidence in various Communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe. It significantly contributes to and further develops sociological and historical insights into the development of protest and dissent within this region.
In 1989, newly formed civic movements replaced long-standing Leninist regimes in Eastern Europe with democratic governments. This book addresses such questions as: how similar were the Leninist regimes before their dissolution, how similar were their demises and ultimate outcome? How did the way communism fell affect the founding of democracies in Eastern Europe, notably in Poland and Czechoslovakia?
Rachel A. May and Andrew K. Milton have assembled an array of scholars from different disciplines to examine transitional governments in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Drawing on specific political conditions and organized around topics such as the media, political parties, and political violence, (Un)Civil Societies broadens the discussion about democratization both thematically and geographically.
The celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall provoked a debate on the outcomes of the transition process in the post-communist countries, including a debate on the functioning of civil society. This provided a good opportunity for researchers to collect new data and revise the discourse on collective action and the dynamics of civil society in these countries. Jacobsson and Saxonberg's collection of essays looks at social movements, and their forms of mobilization and organization, as well as action repertoires in relation to the social context, and their success or failure. The book meets an important need in the discourse on post-communist social movements by going beyond the usual discourse about the weak and non-participatory civil society in the post-communist context. This book gives a nuanced and updated view of social movements in post-communist Europe, by looking at the cases of relatively successful mobilization, by examining groups that have often been neglected in the discourse on social movements and civil society (including animal-rights groups, racist movements and non-feminist family organizations), and by giving a deeper analysis of the different strategies that civil society organizations and groups can use. Rather than expecting social movements in post-communist Europe to follow the same patterns and operate in the same fashion as in Western Europe, this volume shows that a wider view of contentious action is needed in order to understand the variety of strategies employed by collective actors operating in this context.
Since the fall of communism in 1989 Southeast Europe has been a site of far-reaching societal transformation, much of it marked by political crisis, economic upheaval, ethnic tension, and bitter war. The book comprises articles investigating the history and development of civil society in post-communist Southeast Europe. How is civil society to be grasped, what are the historical factors shaping the civil societies of the region?, what is the function of civil society in the transition to democracy and a market-economy?, and what are the prospects for the future development of the civil societies of the region in an age of globalization?, –these are just a few of the major questions addressed in this collection of articles. Many of the authors are social scientists, philosophers, and activists from the region, offering first-hand critical analysis of the state of civil society in Southeast Europe and suggesting theoretical and practical strategies for the future course of its development. The aim is to provide the reader with insight into the complex challenges that face the civil societies of the region.
The turmoil that shook Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and challenged traditional centers of power in the Soviet Union has touched off an intense debate about the forces behind the recent collapse of Soviet-type systems. Civil society, a key concept in the debate, is the focus of this thought-provoking volume, which contrasts the views of Eastern scholars and activists in independent movements against those of Western academics. The authors' various perspectives on the struggle between the people and their governments highlight different facets of civil society, providing new insights into its definition, origin, and function within a nation's public life.
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.
Includes bibliographic references.