Among the most used expressions in scholarly articles concerning collective memory, is “dealing with the past”, or its more specific alternative, “dealing with the traumatic past”. This is a rather inexact formulation, because what scholars, artist, curators deal with is not the past in itself but the manner in which it is narrated and represented, or remembered, reconstructed. A series of questions are triggered by this statement: who “remembers”, for what purpose, with what consequences? The scope of this yearbook is (...) to present two different ways of approaching the construction of collective remembrance: the authoritarian one and the post-authoritarian one. Th e articles discuss case studies of collective memory and identity building in Communist Romania, comparative studies of participative art in post-authoritarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, or intricate artistic approaches of traumatic collective memories. (shrink)

The purpose of this 'Introduction' is to provide an objective approach to the study of contemporary East-European dialectical materialism. It consists of three parts. Part I outlines the common features of the standpoints of East-European philosophers, defining a set of basic propositions functioning as universally accepted premisses of dialectical materialist philosophic construction. Part II considers the hierarchy of East-European philosophic life and sketches the conditions of philosophic activity. Part III draws analogies and points out the differences between contemporary philosophy in (...) Eastern Europe and the West (the latter exemplified by Anglo-Saxon philosophy). It is found that differences are no longer categorical, but consist of gradations of emphasis on common or analogous elements. (shrink)

My first attempt to gather material for East European feminist philosophy through systematic library research was discouraging: the computer had no matching titles for my search. However, the concept of East European feminist philosophy is not totally nonexistent. Any statement about Eastern European feminist philosophy, therefore, should be preceded by a definition of the terminology in question. For example, even feminism and philosophy construct a phrase: feminist philosophy. This phrase, this neologism, can even be regarded as self‐contradictory. On (...) the one hand it seems to adhere to the traditional classification of knowledge, which maintains a privileged position of philosophy and, on the other hand, feminism stands for the disruption of traditional, especially hierarchical, paradigms and classifications. (shrink)

Many Eastern European countries are on the edge of huge transitions in almost every sphere of life: political, economic, educational and religious. These changes have had an impact on the situation of women, many of whom entered into this time of transition believing that: socialism had solved the issue of gender inequality; what was obtained by socialism in the field of gender equality can be taken for granted; democracy will automatically deliver additional rights for women. However, all implemented patterns (...) of transition were hostile to gender equality. The consequences of soviet policy are still visible with respect to the environment and in attitudes towards ecology. The centralistic system of socialism was unable to tackle constructively the ecological crisis. The aim of this article is to indicate how ecofeminist theology can become a constructive framework for bringing women and men together, united by a common concern for the Earth, and a means of delivering alternative environmental policies for Eastern Europe. By acknowledging the connection between ecology and feminism, ecofeminist theology can become a transforming grace. (shrink)

Some of the post-socialist countries of Europe experienced after the fall of communism what some called a religious revival. Anthropologists and sociologists alike were sure that they discovered serious evidence against the case of secularization theory. What unfortunately most of them failed to observe was the particular shape and form of this religious growth and the structural changes of the religious mentalities occurred in the process of transition from a closed, ideologically monopolized society, to a pluralistic one. After more (...) than half of a century of atheistic ideologization of the public sphere, Romania remains one of the most religious countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. The thesis of this article is that this fact is due to the lack of modernization of the Romanian social system both before and during the post-socialist period. (shrink)

An Area Studies Division was created at the 6th Section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris) in the mid-1950s. It was devoted to several world regions, including the USSR and eastern Europe. This article investigates the links between its institutionalization and the international scientific and financial transfers underpinning it: the transatlantic support granted to the nascent division by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations and the academic cooperation programme that it launched with eastern Europe. The (...) Russian, Soviet and East European programme served, thus, as an East/West interface and a platform for broader intellectual exchanges. Local French scientific, academic and political rationales favoured the specific pathways it took. The article also shows that the EPHE 6th Section was discreetly linked with American players in Cold War intellectual warfare whose forms of action gradually changed in the context of the thaw. In particular, it had connections with the Congress for Cultural Freedom. These collusions attest to the entanglement of scientific and political issues, their intricacies increasing when external factors compounded domestic ones. (shrink)

Using a discursive and ethnomethodological analytic framework, this article explores the social construction of moral transgression and moral meanings in the context of coming to terms with the recent communist past in Eastern Europe. This article illustrates some significant aspects of everyday uses of morality and the socio-communicative organization of public judgements on moral transgression. The article considers the range of public reactions and commentaries to a public confession of having been an informer for the former Romanian secret (...) police. Moral reasoning around transgression takes several forms: a) invoking everyday psychological categories and morally implicative descriptions associated with identities of persons and actions; b) drawing upon culturally available metaphors and images with roots in Judaeo-Christian ethics and morality; c) using the wider political context of coming to terms with the past as foundation and criterion for moral judgement. This article argues that rather than attempting to analyse moral judgement in abstract, one must focus on the everyday constructions and uses of morality found in social interaction and social responses to moral transgression. (shrink)

The present study explores discursive constructions of us- and them-groups within the context of the debates on the placement of the US anti-ballistic missile defence system in Central and Eastern Europe. The study is based on the data collected by the authors in the Polish and Russian press. Using the framework that is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, the authors define strategies and specific linguistic means used to represent ‘us’ and ‘them’ and provide a (...) picture of chronological transformations that these representations undergo in the investigated newspapers. (shrink)

Globalization and fragmentation, weakly controlled flows of information and knowledge, increasing cleavages in societies undergoing rapid change, flows of migrants, services and capital, bypassing the control of national governments, life styles and consumption patterns produced by electronic media and advertising - all these developments already have a significant impact on post-Soviet regions. And all kind of actors - decision makers, journalists, experts, students - perceive the environment beyond their respective national borders increasingly as the "playground" they have to take into (...) account, and as a framework for action. The chapters in this volume are produced by experts in the so called transformation countries in Eastern Europe. They address various questions on inter- and transnational relations, thereby offering a framework for reflection and for analysis of macro-trends around policy fields relevant for the countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The product certainly mirrows the specific environment of researchers, teachers and students in these countries. At the same time, it reflects a process of intensive discussion on the state of IR literature worldwide. Furthermore, this book demonstrates how useful teaching tools for universities and institutes not only in Eastern and Central Europe can be produced. (shrink)

Nardin uses the Eastern European experience of the late 1980s and the works of Adam Michnik and Vaclav Havel to demonstrate the traditional cosmopolitan Kantian notion of morality in the "appeal to universal human values." Nardin uses three major elements to argue the impossibility of such a concept: "the law of nature," based on Stoic and Judeo-Christian foundation, focusing on reason and rationality of the individual rather than custom or divine authority; the uniqueness of various cultures challenging the universal (...) "cosmopolitan" outlook on morality; and the differences among universal principles of morality relative to personal human experiences throughout time. Nardin concludes that the moral renewal in Eastern Europe is evidence that destructive consequences of moral diversity do not preclude a civil society once agreements on authoritative principles and laws are institutionalized. Each individual's own ethical conduct and internal moral guidance offer the basis for criticism and reform of law through membership in particular communities and common humanity. (shrink)

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IN EASTERN EUROPE: THE NON?AGRICULTURAL PRIVATE SECTOR IN POLAND AND THE GDR, 1945?83 by Anders Aslund. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 320 pp., $29.95. COLLECTIVE FARMS WHICH WORK? by Nigel Swain. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. 320 pp., $39.50. LABOUR AND LEISURE IN THE SOVIET UNION: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DECISION?MAKING IN A PLANNED ECONOMY by William Moskoff. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 225 pp., $27.50. COERCION AND CONTROL IN COMMUNIST SOCIETY: (...) THE VISIBLE HAND OF BUREAUCRACY by M. Hirszowicz. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. 256 pp., $27.50. (shrink)

Many countries in Eastern Europe, during the 1960–1970s, as well as Albania responded to the growing demand for new houses utilizing the emerging trends for industrialization of the construction process and mass construction of prefabricated residential buildings based on large-panel prefabricated RC elements. During the 1970s large-panel buildings spread throughout the country and became the main type of construction in the Albanian cities such as Shkodër, Tirana, Durrës, Elbasan, Berat, etc. Most of these buildings have five or six (...) stories and comprise different modules, the number of which depends on the urban and architectonic projects. The construction technology of these types of buildings included only the construction of prefabricated reinforced concrete material and did not take into account the energy performance of these structures. Since the moment of construction, only in the last year, several interventions have been made in different cities where a layer of polystyrene has been placed on the external walls of these buildings in order to enhance their thermal insulation. The aim of this paper is to improve the thermal performance of these buildings by introducing a comparison of their initial situation as they are today and how their performance would be if innovative technologies and materials were applied. The study is going to analyse the thermal performance of the existing buildings, by means of the thermal camera in the city of Kamez, located in Tirana, which has been chosen as a key study. Furthermore, the data obtained from the MEEC application are gathered, in order to compare the previous, the existing situation and the proposed intervention. The results may be used by municipalities of different cities, not only in the Albanian context, either where interventions have been made to improve their performance, or for municipalities where thermal regulation policies have not been yet implemented for these types of buildings. The existing situation of the buildings according to the calculations, showed a poor thermal performance, regardless of the fact that they are already equipped with thermal insulation building envelope. They have to be requalified in order to be categorized as a building with high thermal performance. (shrink)

Ten years ago we had the unity slogan: “25 equals 100,” meaning that 25 years of Communist rule had brought the country forward an entire century. In 1976 we finally got the catchword: “1956-1976: Twenty Years of Happiness, Progress, etc.” and a large portrait of Shivkoff, the head of state. In 1979, however, there was no “35-140” slogan. This is understandable, in view of the accelerated drop in the standard of living and the open and ever more apparent dependence of (...) Bulgaria on the Soviet Union. Pressure by the Soviet Union no longer consists only in the exploitation of the land resources, in cultural and political colonization. (shrink)

This article stems from a sense of discontent and frustration that the cultural position of Eastern/Central European feminisms have not been theorized enough in comparison with other non-First World feminisms. To construct my argument, I use a rhetorical figure, zeugma, which is able to underpin the specificity and the commonalities of the post-Communist area feminisms as compared to the hegemonic feminisms of the world or to Third World feminisms. Zeugma (from an ancient Greek word meaning “bridge”) is a (...) figure of speech that relies on balance and acceptance of grammatical difference. An almost perfect cultural space shifter, Eastern/Central Europe produces feminist discourses that constitute, in my opinion, zeugmatic spaces in the worldwide concerto of world feminisms.I suggest that many of the problems of contemporary feminist theory arise from the context that has defined feminist theory. Only if we fully understand this context will we be in a position to understand how to escape from the dilemmas posed by this context” (Joan C. Tronto, Moral Boundaries. A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care)“Which is why the critique of all discourses concerning gender, including those produced or promoted as feminist, continues to be as vital a part of feminism as is the ongoing effort to create new spaces of discourse, to rewrite cultural narratives, and to define the terms of another perspective—a view from ‘elsewhere’” (Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gender). (shrink)

The aim of this essay is a philosophical reconstruction of the category of Eastern Europe (as topographical and ethical, and only by implication a geographical one). This will proceed in three steps. First, deconstruction of the category in question by exposing its colonialist and post-colonialist origins. Second, projection of a new cultural geography of Eastern Europe. The main criteria of which are: 1) belonging to the European community of values, 2) being directly and permanently exposed to (...) a paradoxical cultural formation, neither European nor Asian, which poses a constant threat to all neighboring states and nations – Russia. In the third step, Eastern Europe is presented as a specifically determined way of living, experiencing, and self-understanding, localized in particular space(s); that is, a particular ethos rooted in a concrete topos/topoi. This ethos has been driven by the ideals of freedom, equality, cultural diversity, and the sovereignty of the people; and actualized in a kind of cultural flexibility, hybridity, and polyphony. However, this ethos has never been something given. It has been gradually developing throughout its dramatic history, and this was not only a history of those sublime ideals (and their partial actualization), but also of their real and brutal negation. That is why this ethos is grounded in a constantly renewed activity of self-questioning and self-searching, in a persistently recurrent will of self-determination; and that is also why Eastern Europe cannot be enclosed in a single narrative, but it expresses itself through different and often competing stories. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn this paper I try to analyze the fate of a new medical model that was developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in European Latin society, particularly in the southern parts of Latin Europe. This model won the approval of the communities in which it was developed as part of an incipient network of medical care and attention. The new healer (Christian and male )that emerged from this model, whether physician or surgeon, based his practice on his (...) knowledge of Aristotelian natural philosophy. He was an intellectual and a social product fashioned and supported by traditional and new urban leader groups, whether civil or ecclesiastic, Christian or Jewish. Health and healers were considered part of the urban social organization both in large cities and in smaller towns.Full social acceptance of this new model was achieved only after heated debate. In practice, the new way of conceiving of medicine did not begin to become socially accepted outside intellectual circles until the new healer was able to offer specific solutions for the maintenance or restoration of health, both at an individual and at a collective level, and according to the criteria and feelings of the leader groups of the society of that time.Progress in research allows us to identify nene factors, at least, that were involed in the construction of these novelties in late medieval Latin society. (shrink)

Can the quality of gender+ equality policies be defined in ways that apply across different policy contexts and different policy moments? In light of different scholarly debates and empirical material from gender violence policy debates especially in Southern and Central Eastern Europe, this article discusses dilemmas around defining the quality of gender+ equality policies. It proposes a two-dimensional model. The first dimension links quality to procedural aspects: empowerment of women’s rights advocates at different stages of the policy process, (...) and transformation with reference to prevailing contextual legacies. The second dimension is more substantive, and includes genderedness, intersectionality and the structurally transformative focus of policies. The article illustrates how within the framework set by these criteria, the quality of gender equality policies is constructed through policy debates in ways that are dependent on the different discursive, institutional and structural factors specific to various policy contexts. (shrink)

This paper would like to discuss some aspects of current trends in studies on eighteenth-century Eastern Europe. In the first part it addresses recent approaches devoted to the reconstruction of the conceptualization of Eastern Europe at the time of the Enlightenment, which have often been inspired by the work of Edward Said and Martin Bernal. These include Larry Woolf's Inventing Eastern Europe (1994). Michael Confino has provided a detailed critique of Woolf's approach. It can (...) be argued that Woolf is in fact projecting Cold War divisions back into the eighteenth century. The article argues in favour of a less “Orientalising” approach to the history of Eastern Europe, by proving an alternative overview of the historical dimensions of the eastern (and northern) regions of Europe in the eighteenth century. Eastern Europe was inextricably connected to its western European neighbours. Without Eastern Europe, European history is incomplete and incomprehensible. In the third part the article argues that the interpretative framework of the “first crisis of the Old Regime”, which Franco Venturi outlined in his Settecento riformatore in the 19870s and 1980s represented a subtle rejection of the East/west dichotomy, and in fact foreshadowed the eventual reunification of Europe after the end of the Cold War. (shrink)

This paper is critical analysis of book by Anna Sosnowska, "Zrozumieć zacofanie. Spory historyków o Europę Wschodnią (1947-1994)" [To Understand Backwardness: Historians' Deabates about Eastern Europe (1947-1994)]. Warszawa 2004.

Business schools, and universities providing business education, from across the globe have increasingly engaged in responsible management education (RME), that is in embedding social, environmental and ethical topics in their teaching and research. However, we still do not fully understand the institutional pressures that have led to the adoption of RME, in particular concerning under-researched regions like Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Hence, we undertook what is to our knowledge the most comprehensive study into the adoption of RME (...) in CEE to date (including 13 countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine). We find that, with regard to RME, isomorphic pressures seem to shape teaching and research in different ways, which suggests that the idea of a holistic approach to RME, promoted by, for example, the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), needs to be revisited; rather, different trajectories of organizational engagement may emerge for each principle. As a contribution to institutional theory, we discuss how a highly fragmented organizational field—like RME with its multiple dimensions—impacts on notions of actor centrality, where actors achieve centrality with regard to some dimensions of the field but fail to do so for others. In particular, we found that the European Union holds centrality in the area of RME teaching, but not in RME research. Our findings thus suggest that the concept of field centrality needs further clarification. (shrink)

: Eastern Learning, which is an important part of modern new learning, refers to the Western natural science and socio-political thought that was assimilated by Japan from the end of 19th century to the beginning of 20th century. From the end of Ming Dynasty to the period before and after the revolution of 1911, China’s intake of new learning went through four stages. In the first three stages, a large number of Western books translated into Chinese were also introduced (...) into Japan, which became the basic literature and language medium of Japanese Dutch studies, English Studies and later the whole foreign studies. At the beginning of the 20th century, exiles, students studying in Japan and Japanese teachers introduced Eastern Learning into China, which had a profound impact on China’s modernization process. Eastern Learning is a new learning system with East Asian characteristics constructed by China and Japan in the process of Western Learning spreading to the East. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A "Nation" of ImmigrantsJose Jorge MendozaIntroductionIn "Nations of Immigrants: Do Words Matter?" Donna Gabaccia provides an illuminating account of the origin of the United States' claim to be a "Nation of Immigrants." Gabaccia's endeavor is motivated by the question "What difference does it make if we call someone a foreigner, an immigrant, an emigrant, a migrant, a refugee, an alien, an exile or an illegal or clandestine?" (Gabaccia 5). (...) This question is very important to the immigration debate because, as Gabaccia goes on to show, "[t]o ponder this question is to explore the vastly differing ways that human population movements figure in nation-building and in the historical imagination of nations" (Gabaccia 5-6). In this paper, I am going to delve deeper into Gabaccia's claim and argue that the issue of immigration is important for philosophers to consider because it is an issue that lies at the heart of the intersection between political philosophy and philosophy of race—an intersection that shows, more than anywhere else and in particular in the debate surrounding the use of the word illegal, how and why words do matter.The Braid of WhitenessDavid Roediger, in his book Working Toward Whiteness, argues that it is problematic to read "ethnicity" back into earlier accounts of race, specifically in the United States during the period from 1860-1924. Roediger argues that the term "ethnicity," at least as we use it today, does not really appear during this period. He goes on to show how the use of racialized language during that period was in fact very messy and would not fit neatly into the strict biological/phenotypic definitions that we give today. He writes: [End Page 41]This loose, state-endorsed linkage of biology to culture, history, and class can mislead modern historians of race who characteristically attempt to disentangle the biological from other rationales for oppression, regarding the former as underpinning racism and the latter as underpinning other kinds of prejudice. But what was so striking about restrictionist and racist thought at the beginning (and indeed, at the end) of the twentieth century was its very entanglement of the biological and the cultural.(Roediger 66)In short, Roediger is arguing that the distinction we currently make between race and ethnicity was not nearly as sharp at the turn of the century as it is now and that this messiness was most clearly present in the debates surrounding immigration.Roediger, for his part, argues that we do not need to fear this messiness or inability to neatly distinguish between race and ethnicity at the turn of the century, but instead we should allow for a space of "in-betweeness" within the strict white/nonwhite binary. In allowing for this space, Roediger claims we can come to understand how the "new immigrants" (i.e., Irish, Italians, Jews, and immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who emigrated to the United States between 1860-1924) went from being nonwhite to white and in so doing, solidified our current understanding of whiteness (Roediger 3-130). While I am not sure Roediger does enough in his account to warrant dismissing the race/ethnicity distinction at the turn of the century, I think he is right in emphasizing whiteness as central to racism. He is also correct to note the key role that restrictions on immigration played in the construction and solidification of the U.S. nation-state as a white nation.To be clear, the term whiteness, in its more technical sense, does not simplistically refer to skin color, but denotes the dominant race and/or ethnicity as it passes for the nonracialized and non-ethnic norm upon which the "other" is differentiated. As George Yancy, a current philosopher of race, writes:To say that whiteness is deemed the transcendental norm is to say that whiteness takes itself to be that which remains the same across a field of difference. Indeed it determines what is deemed different without itself being defined by that system of difference. Whiteness is that according to which what is nonwhite is rendered other, marginal, ersatz, strange, native, inferior, uncivilized, and ugly.(Yancy 3)This privilege that whiteness enjoys is... (shrink)

Niche parties have been increasingly successful during the last 30 years and have accordingly received a lot of scholarly attention. So far most of the focus has been on Green and radical right parties, and to a more limited extent, regional parties. In this paper I analyze the electoral fates and policy outcomes of another type of niche party, namely those focusing on anti-corruption, whose successes culminated during the 2000s. The study is limited to all new parties campaigning on the (...) issue of anti-corruption in Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall and the questions to be answered are: To what extent are these parties successful in obtaining relevant positions in the government so that they are able to effectively fight corruption? What impact do they have on anti-corruption measures, thereby influencing the level of corruption? How successful are these parties in the elections that follow? In short, to what extent do anticorruption parties matter? Apart from electoral and governmental data, the analysis is based on the Freedom House Nation in Transit annual reports, in which one section deals with the efforts to curb corruption. The results are rather mixed, but indicate that the more influential positions the anti-corruption parties (ACPs) have in government, the better are their anti-corruption performances. That implies that they are serious and competent enough to tackle those issues, despite their newness and lack of experience. Not surprisingly, the incumbent ACPs fare worse than those in opposition in subsequent elections, but quite a few still remain popular. Finally, all but one party abandoned their anti-corruption rhetoric in their second election, which implies that anti-corruption is a different type of issue, compared to the ones used by previous niche parties. (shrink)

Continued scientific and medical progress in Central and Eastern Europe depends on the development of an atmosphere that is conducive to implementing the changes that are necessary to bring better health and longer lives for everyone. Privatization and commercialization are threatening the objectivity of clinical research and the availability of health care because uncontrolled market mechanisms focused on profit are nurturing conflict of interest that generate bias and unreliability into research and medicine. Changes are needed that address the (...) following: – The amount of public support for basic and clinical research and health care, – standards for the conduct of clinical trials and delivery of health care, – administrative procedures for responding to the conflict of interest problem. (shrink)

Since 1989, clinical ethics consultation in form of hospital ethics committees was established in most of the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Up to now, the similarities and differences between HECs in Central and Eastern Europe and their counterparts in the U.S. and Western Europe have not been determined. Through search in literature databases, we have identified studies that document the implementation of clinical ethics consultation in Central and Eastern Europe. These (...) studies have been analyzed under the following aspects: mode of establishment of HECs, character of consultation they provide, and their composition. The results show that HECs in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe differ from their western-European or U.S. counterparts with regard to these three aspects. HECs were established because of centrally imposed legal regulations. Little initiatives in this area were taken by medical professionals interested in resolving emerging ethical issues. HECs in the transition countries concentrate mostly on review of research protocols or resolution of administrative conflicts in healthcare institutions. Moreover, integration of non-professional third parties in the workings of HECs is often neglected. We argue that these differences can be attributed to the historical background and the role of medicine in these countries under the communist regime. Political and organizational structures of healthcare as well as education of healthcare staff during this period influenced current functioning of clinical ethics consultation in the transition countries. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine eds. by George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle PapanikolaouMyles Werntz and Logsdon SeminaryChristianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine Edited by George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou new york: fordham university press, 2017. 304 pp. $125.00 / $35.00Since the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, one of the new rapprochements that has emerged is between the worlds of Eastern (...) Orthodoxy and that of Protestants and Catholics. In this set of constructive essays, contributors from each of these veins of Christianity explore the relationship between Christianity and democracy from their vantage point. Drawing together political theologians, ethicists, and historical theologians, the volume creates an encounter between "East" and "West" that addresses some critical questions facing the whole of Christianity.The first section of essays details the post-Communist situation for Orthodox churches and how they wrestle with traditions of human rights. These essays set the scene broadly for the second set of essays, which bring together Protestant and Catholic political thought together with their Orthodox counterparts. In this section, essays from Luke Bretherton on consociational democracy, Eric Gregory on Augustine and the Good Samaritan, and Nathaniel Wood on Russian visions of theosis in a liberal world make for compelling and informative contributions. The third section—a historical set of essays—explores the actual influence of Constantine's theopolitical vision in the East and West. Contributions from luminaries such as Timothy D. Barnes and J. Bryan Hehir elucidate some of the effects of a theopolitical synthesis in various historical epochs. Barnes's essay on what did and did not occur in Constantinople is of particular note here. The final section, a single essay by Stanley Hauerwas, "How (Not) to Be a Political Theologian," is a vintage essay reflecting on legacies of "Constantinian" thinking in American Christianity.The most prominent strengths of the volume are twofold. First, it brings into focus one of the critical challenges facing Christianity globally: political representation. Presently, the globe is engulfed in any number of challenges to popular sovereignty, whether conceived of in terms of revolution or tyranny. As such, democracy—while imperfect and theologically problematic in many respects—is the de facto form of governance standing between these extremes. Christian traditions of all persuasions have reasons to be suspicious of even the best of these alternatives, making this set of essays all the more pressing. Second, it contributes in a practical way to the ecumenical labors taking place in synods and councils across the world. While the World Council of Churches has undertaken some of the common moral issues affecting various Protestant [End Page 202] communions, cooperation among Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic communions remains ad hoc. Volumes such as this contribute to the practical work of more highly publicized doctrinal discussions.As with most edited volumes, the vast theme of the book tends to be cumbersome; linking together Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox sources around democracy and liberalism creates a wide-ranging but at times unfocused conversation. The quality of the essays themselves is quite uniformly good—a rarity among edited volumes!—but such a wide range of topics and contributors makes for a set of essays that is more indicative of future discussions than definitive. In short, the volume illuminates and provocatively indicates future directions without being a definitive statement on democracy and Christianity, opening new doors for future work.Myles WerntzHardin-Simmons UniversityLogsdon SeminaryHardin-Simmons UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This paper discusses Eastern Europe as a way of being traceable to a specific place or topos in between the West and its Others. By virtue of fitting neither one of the terms of the usual dichotomy it could provide novel insights into Western or European identity, as well as social and political problems, such as immigration. More precisely, Eastern Europe is an instance of the process of creating the self through the encounter with an other (...) that is not radically other. Such a notion of Eastern Europe is developed from three sources: the Ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus, the Chicana theorist and writer Gloria Anzaldúa, and Merab Mamardashvili, a philosopher from Soviet Georgia. (shrink)

An experienced educationalist comments on the views of top Polish business students on ethics in public life, government and business in modern Poland. The author is Wicklander Professor of Professional Ethics at DePaul University, Chicago, and also served recently as Visiting Fulbright Professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. He is currently President of the Society of Business Ethics in the USA.

There has been a growing debate about the ethics of management buy-outs (MBOs). One possible criticism of the MBO is that it serves the interests of incumbent management at the expense of shareholders. In this paper we develop the general arguments concerning the ethical aspects of the MBO to include other forms of buy-out beyond going privates and apply the analysis to MBOs as a mode of privatisation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). MBOs are justified in this (...) context postperestroika as a means of incentivising economic activity by giving managers an ownership stake in former state enterprises. The actual mode of privatisation, though, raises issues of social justice and the criticism that MBOs are at the expense of the broader social good. The ethical problem for the CEE is to balance the economic gains of a move to markets with the ethical risks to the agents of these markets. (shrink)

Sandu Frunzã, Nicu Gavrilutã and Michael S. Jones (Eds.) The Challenges of Multiculturalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Provopress, Cluj Napoca, 2005.

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 1 examines debates about religious and constitutional liberties, as well as exploring the tensions between free will and divine omnipotence across a continent of proliferating religious denominations. Volume 2 considers free persons and free (...) states, examining differing views about freedom of thought and action and their relations to conceptions of citizenship. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time. (shrink)

It is one of the paradoxes of our age that the 'success' of democracy in Eastern Europe and South Africa is coupled with grave disappointment in the 'birth places' of modern democracy. This dis appointment is partly due to the irreducible ambiguity entailed in democratic institutional arrangements. Democracy, in fact, is founded on this ambiguity. It attempts to construct social unity on the basis of recognizing the lack around which the social field is always structured. In that (...) sense the source of the disappointment caused by democracy is of an ethical status. It is the antithesis between the ambiguity of democracy and a still hegemonic ethics of harmony. Any aspiration, however, to eliminate the ambiguity of democracy ignores the innovative logic of democratic politics. If the ethics of harmony lead to a de-democratization of democracy, what a radical democratic project needs today is an ethical basis of a totally different nature. Here, the ethics of psychoanalysis, as formulated in the Lacanian tradition, can be of great help. Key Words: democracy • ethics • harmony • Lacan • psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Romania was the first country in the Eastern bloc to initiate diplo­matic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany. On January 31, 1967, the Embassy of the FRG was opened in Bucharest, Romania. In this context, which marked the intensification of the cultural exchange between the two countries, with special attention paid to the exchange of students and researchers, in this article I aim to tackle the situation of the Humboldt fellows from Romania during 1965-1989, as agents of knowledge (...) transfer and actors of soft-power strategies between the two blocks. (shrink)

The idea of civil society is one of the oldest and most contested in Western political and sociological thought. Among the social sciences, anthropology has been the discipline that has prompted the boldest critiques of the concept. This paper argues that the “revival” of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe in one particular field—that of environmental activism—has been contingent with the outcomes of EU enlargement policies. I introduce the case study of one of the most complex and (...) contested transport development projects in Central Eastern Europe: the Budapest Ring Road. I maintain that within the EU enlargement project alternative forms of political power have been built from below and that they eventually come to compete with the state (and local governments) to influence decision-making processes. These forms, to be individuated in the emergence of environmental activism, take shape at local, state and transnational levels and aim, although often contradictorily, at restituting political agency under the condition of lowering public participation in decision-making processes. (shrink)