Europe & Central Asia Archives - Page 11 of 14

Democracy

Solidarity Means Sharing In Active Freedom

Democracy and The Public Square

February 24, 2020 • by Elzbieta Matynia

“Democracies are not going to defend themselves. It is we the citizens who have to defend them. I believe it is not too late.” -- Adam Michnik, New School Centennial Lecture, October 2019 How can we resist the retreat from our beleaguered democracies and hold onto the embattled freedom we still have? I ...

Solidarity Means Sharing In Active Freedom

Democracy

Why Ukraine’s president said there had been ‘no pressure’ from Trump

The word is weighted with different meanings in Ukraine.

February 4, 2020 • by Jessica Pisano

And yet, as some Republican members of Congress have noted, in his televised Sept. 25 meeting with Trump, when asked about the now-infamous July 25 phone call in which Trump asked for a favor, Zelensky said “nobody pushed me.” Why would Zelensky claim that “nobody pushed” if military aid was indeed on the ...

Why Ukraine’s president said there had been ‘no pressure’ from Trump

Democracy

Trump says he was looking for corruption in Ukraine — where President Zelenskyy was known for mocking corruption in Ukraine

Like Trump, Zelenskyy was a showman before he entered politics. So what does he stand for?

February 4, 2020 • by Jessica Pisano

Zelenskyy’s career as a showman reveals Ukrainians’ shared sense of moral values, frustration with politicians’ corruption and national solidarity in the face of Russia’s politics of division. I’ll explain below. Zelenskyy emphasized shared values Trained as a lawyer, Zelenskyy made his name in the Russian-speaking world through competitive improvisational comedy, on a ...

Trump says he was looking for corruption in Ukraine — where President Zelenskyy was known for mocking corruption in Ukraine

Europe & Central Asia

Romania in 2020

Fighting Corruption Just Got Harder because of Trump

December 6, 2019 • by Maria Bucur

The big unknown for Romania moving into 2020 is its relationship with the United States. Though Romanians have become more anti-American in the last few years, they are still the second most pro-American post-socialist state in Europe (Poland is in first place). Since 1990, the U.S. ambassador has played a ...

Europe & Central Asia

The Romanian 2019 Presidential Elections

Populism on the retreat

December 5, 2019 • by Maria Bucur

Romania was one of the post-communist countries to join the neoliberal bandwagon slower than the Visegrad group and made it to EU membership just when the 2008 global crisis was about to break. For over a decade after the end of the brutal Nicolae Ceausescu dictatorship, old communist apparatchiks together ...

The Romanian 2019 Presidential Elections

Europe & Central Asia

The EU’s University in Exile

December 3, 2019 • by Laszlo Bruszt

On November 15, Central European University (CEU) officially inaugurated its new campus in Vienna, Austria, having been arbitrarily ousted from Hungary. On the same day, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government opened another large sports stadium in Budapest. Predictably, the government-controlled Hungarian media focused on the latter event and ignored the departure of ...

Europe & Central Asia

The Roots of Right-Wing Populism in Central and Eastern Europe

At the nexus of neoliberalism and the global culture wars

November 9, 2019 • by Elżbieta Korolczuk

Clearly, the tensions between what was promised in 1989 and what was delivered two decades after were one of the factors that facilitated the victories of right-wing populist parties in the region, but the connection between the two is neither straightforward nor is disillusionment with democracy unique to the post-communist ...

Democracy

The Right Terror Threatens Us All

A Call to Uncover Right Extremist Networks In Germany

November 6, 2019 • by Esther Dischereit and Irit Dekel

The murder, on Yom Kippur (October 10th, 2019), of two German citizens in Halle, one outside the synagogue that was the perpetrator’s initial target and another by a nearby Döner bistro, echoed other terror attacks on minorities. These are always described in the German media as acts of an individual ...

Europe & Central Asia

Democracy in Poland?

From Authoritarian Populism to Populist Authoritarianism

October 30, 2019 • by Jacek Kucharczyk

The intensity and consistency of the PiS attack on democratic institutions came as a surprise to all but the harshest critics of the party. The experience of Kaczynski’s party’s first stint in government from 2005-2007 – when the authoritarian tendencies of PiS were effectively checked by the courts, independent media, ...

Europe & Central Asia

How Poland Ruined its 1989

A liberal democratic dream too good to be true

October 24, 2019 • by Irena Grudzińska-Gross

The first half of 1989 in Poland was amazing -- delivering early and decisive blows to the Berlin wall, which fell later that year. From February to April 4th, the representatives of the Polish government negotiated with the Solidarity oppositional groups; in June, in partially free elections, the communist government ...

Democracy

Why Did Trump Let Erdogan Go?

The Turkish Invasion of Syria and the Global Alliance among Authoritarian Leaders

October 18, 2019 • by Utku Balaban

Trump imposed sanctions on Turkey, which is likely Trump’s way of both appeasing the opposition in the GOP and indirectly supporting Erdogan, as, in their current scope, the sanctions were not an effective instrument to deter Erdogan from going further. Furthermore, Trump accused Kurds of releasing the ISIS-related prisoners, while there is strong evidence ...

Europe & Central Asia

The Façade of Justice in Poland

Undermining the rule of law, hiding social inequality

October 15, 2019 • by Paweł Marczewski

Although social transfers do consolidate support for Law and Justice, especially among the new voters of the party, they are not a simple economic transaction, in which political support is exchanged for money. The welfare transactions are perceived as a symbol of a new beginning after three decades of austerity ...