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"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.
This collection of state-of-the-art essays explores conspiracy cultures in post-socialist Eastern Europe, ranging from the nineteenth century to contemporary manifestations. Conspiracy theories about Freemasons, Communists and Jews, about the Chernobyl disaster, and about George Soros and the globalist elite have been particularly influential in Eastern Europe, but they have also been among the most prominent worldwide. This volume explores such conspiracy theories in the context of local Eastern European histories and discourses. The chapters identify four major factors that have influenced cultures of conspiracy in Eastern Europe: nationalism (including ethnocentrism and antisemitism), the socialist past, the transition period, and globalization. The research focuses on the impact of imperial legacies, nation-building, and the Cold War in the creation of conspiracy theories in Eastern Europe; the effects of the fall of the Iron Curtain and conspiracism in a new democratic setting; and manifestations of viral conspiracy theories in contemporary Eastern Europe and their worldwide circulation with the global rise of populism. Bringing together a diverse landscape of Eastern European conspiracism that is a result of repeated exchange with the "West," the book includes case studies that examine the history, legacy, and impact of conspiracy cultures of Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, the former Yugoslav countries, and the former Soviet Union. The book will appeal to scholars and students of conspiracy theories, as well as those in the areas of political science, area studies, media studies, cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, and history, among others. Politicians, educators, and journalists will find this book a useful resource in countering disinformation in and about the region.
In this thought-provoking book, Nikolai Genov presents a systematic description and explanation of Eastern European societal transformations after 1989 as a consequence of global trends.
Eastern Europe was once clearly defined by the centralized political and economic organization of the societies in the region. They shared the same official ideology and were members of the same alliances. After 1989, the region collapsed in an economic, political and cultural implosion. What were the moving forces of this profound change? What are its consequences? Could we try to reasonably foresee any future developments? In this thought-provoking book, Nikolai Genov presents a systematic description and explanation of Eastern European societal transformations after 1989. They are interpreted as adaptations to four global trends; upgrading the rationality of organizations; individualization; spreading of instrumental activism; and universalization of value-normative systems. Adaptations to these trends have generally been successful. However, Genov notes that the process is marked by many failures as well. They are mostly caused by path dependency in the societal development and by the varying quality of relevant decisions, other destructive developments are due to contradictions in the global trends themselves. Guided by the assumption that the societal and supranational integration mechanisms in Eastern Europe before 1989 could not resist the overwhelming power of global trends, Genov's controversial findings question visions about the end of history and simultaneously strengthen the confidence that most complex macro-social processes can be rationally managed. A timely book allowing for a much needed engagement in contemporary debates on the controversial processes in Eastern European transitions.
The demise of state Socialisms caused radical social, cultural and economic changes in Eastern Europe. Since then, young people have been confronted with fundamental disruptions and transformations to their daily environment, while an unsettling, globalized world substantially reshapes local belongings and conventional values. In times of multiple instabilities and uncertainties, this volume argues, young people prefer to try to adjust to given circumstances than to adopt the behaviour of potential rebellious, adolescent role models, dissident counter-cultures or artistic breakings of taboo. Eastern European Youth Cultures in a Global Context takes this situation as a starting point for an examination of generational change, cultural belongings, political activism and everyday practices of young people in different Eastern European countries from an interdisciplinary perspective. It argues that the conditions of global change not only call for a differentiated evaluation of youth cultures, but also for a revision of our understanding of 'youth' itself – in Eastern Europe and beyond.
Eastern Europe was once clearly defined by the centralized political and economic organization of the societies in the region. They shared the same official ideology and were members of the same alliances. After 1989, the region collapsed in an economic, political and cultural implosion. What were the moving forces of this profound change? What are its consequences? Could we try to reasonably foresee any future developments? In this thought-provoking book, Nikolai Genov presents a systematic description and explanation of Eastern European societal transformations after 1989. They are interpreted as adaptations to four global trends; upgrading the rationality of organizations; individualization; spreading of instrumental activism; and universalization of value-normative systems. Adaptations to these trends have generally been successful. However, Genov notes that the process is marked by many failures as well. They are mostly caused by path dependency in the societal development and by the varying quality of relevant decisions, other destructive developments are due to contradictions in the global trends themselves. Guided by the assumption that the societal and supranational integration mechanisms in Eastern Europe before 1989 could not resist the overwhelming power of global trends, Genov's controversial findings question visions about the end of history and simultaneously strengthen the confidence that most complex macro-social processes can be rationally managed. A timely book allowing for a much needed engagement in contemporary debates on the controversial processes in Eastern European transitions.
Future growth in the countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) will increasingly depend on innovation. And innovation requires skills. This makes it important, as countries plan for recovery, to undertake reforms to reduce the skills shortages that the previous growth episode exposed. Education systems have a very important role to play in creating the right skills. But education systems in the region fall short of the demands of their economies in two major ways. The first is that despite high levels of enrollment they do not produce enough graduates with the right skills. Students graduate with diplomas, not with skills, because the quality of the education for many students is poor. In large part this is because education systems remain focused on providing an excellent education to a few at the expense of improving the quality of learning for the majority. Moreover, the systems are still making the transition from teaching the basics to inculcating higher order skills such as critical-thinking and problem solving. The second way in which education systems fall short is that outside of a few countries in the EU there are few opportunities for adults to retrain, or acquire new skills. This book argues that generating more of the right skills requires a fundamental change of approach in the education systems in the region so that they aim for, and deliver, higher quality education for the vast majority of students (“not just diplomas but skills”). To start with, education systems need to “turn the lights on” and take seriously the measurement of what students actually learn as opposed to measurement of the inputs into the education process on the implicit assumption that learning follows. Policy makers also need to move away from the focus on inputs and processes and increase the emphasis on incentives.
Understanding the dramatic political, social, and economic changes that have taken place in Poland in the mid-1980s is one key to predicting the future of the communist bloc. Jadwiga Staniszkis, an influential, internationally known expert on contemporary trends in Eastern Europe, provides an insider's analysis that deserves the attention of all scholars interested in the region. Staniszkis presents the breakthrough of 1989 as a consequence not only of systemic contradictions within socialism but also of a series of chance events. These events include unique historical circumstances such as the emergence of the "globalist" faction in Mosow, with its new, world-system perception of crisis, and the discovery of the round-table technique as a productive ritual of communication, imitated all over Eastern Europe. After describing the development, collapse, and reorganization of a "new center" in Poland in 1989-1990, she discusses the first attempt at privatizing the economy. Her analysis of the dilemmas accompanying breakthrough and transition is an invaluable guide to the challenges that face both capitalism and democracy in Eastern Europe.