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Der Autoritarismus wird als politisches System des eingeschränkten Pluralismus verstanden. Herausragende Länderkenner beschäftigen sich in diesem Buch mit der Entstehung und den Eigenschaften jener Autoritarismen, die aus dem Kommunismus hervorgegangen sind. Es wird zudem auf die Demokratisierung dieser Systeme eingegangen. Ausgerechnet die postkommunistischen Autoritarismen werden manchmal als "unvollkomene Demokratien" verklärt. Die auf dem Umschlag abgebildeten Fotos einer Straße in einem Moskauer Außenbezirk belegen, dass ausschließlich die sorgfältige Betrachtung der Wirklichkeit vor solchen Fehleinschätzungen schützt.
This is the first major study of the enigmatic religious society. By examining the Jehovah's Witnesses' dramatic recent expansion, Andrew Holden reveals the dependency of their quasi-totalitarian movement on the physical and cultural resources have brought about the privatization of religion, the erosion of community, and the separation of 'fact' from faith.
Generates new concepts of economic, military and environmental security for the Baltic and discusses a future agenda for the region with ideas for policies which are needed but which, in many cases, do not exist.
Recent events in Ukraine and Russia and the subsequent incorporation of Crimea into the Russian state, with the support of some circles of inhabitants of the peninsula, have shown that the desire of people to belong to the Western part of Europe should not automatically be assumed. Discussing different perceptions of the Ukrainian-Russian war in neighbouring countries, this book offers an analysis of the conflicts and issues connected with the shifting of the border regions of Russia and Ukraine to show how ’material’ and ’psychological’ borders are never completely stable ideas. The contributors – historians, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists from across Europe – use an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to explore the different national and transnational perceptions of a possible future role for Russia.
This edited volume analyses European socialist countries' strategy of engagement with the West and the European Economic Community in the long 1970s. The book focuses on a time when the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe banked their hopes for prosperity and stability on enhanced relations with the West. Crossing the traditional differences among diverse fields of historiography, it assesses the complex influence of European and global processes of transformation on the socialist elites' reading of the international political and economic environment and their consequent decision-making. The volume also explores the debate in each country among and within the elites involved in ...
This study examines why the USSR - a political system that originally prided itself on its internationalism - devoted such efforts to controlling its borders, sealing its society from the outside world. It provides a revealing case study of the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet state.
This book is about transformations of social bonds, the most fundamental sociological concept. It examines how these bonds are formed, dissolved and forged anew. The book offers a reflection on the course and consequences of the ongoing transformations of the social order and invites to reconsider the foundations of sociological thinking.
How could it happen that continental Europe became a “Europe of the Dictatorships“ in the twentieth century? It requires some effort to understand such processes. It is insufficient to observe merely the dictatorships and their mechanisms, one must also incorporate the seemingly harmless history leading up to that time and, above all, the transitions that took place. The book begins with a description of the historical situation after the First World War. Europe’s brutalization through colonial wars and inter-European conflicts, carried out using means of mass extermination, led to fractures in civilized cultures. What follows in the second section is another state-by-state organized design of the transition from countries that were fascist (and countries that were made fascist) into communist states established in accordance with the Soviet model. The third part of the book is devoted to the history of the “Eastern Bloc” states from 1953 to 2013.
The COURAGE Handbook ushers its reader into the world of the compellingly rich heritage of cultural opposition in Eastern Europe. It is intended primarily to further a subtle understanding of the complex and multifaceted nature of cultural opposition and its legacy from the perspective of the various collections held in public institutions or by private individuals across the region. Through its focus on material heritage, the handbook provides new perspectives on the history of dissent and cultural non-conformism in the former socialist countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. The volume is comprised of contributions by over 60 authors from a range of different academic and n...