The handbook provides practical knowledge pertinent to civil society organizations. It is specifically designed to meet the demands of organizations in Central Europe and addresses lecturers, students, staff and volunteers of NPOs. Das Handbuch stellt praxisrelevantes Wissen zur Führung einer zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisation parat und ist speziell auf die besonderen Bedarfe Mitteleuropas abgestimmt.

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.

The Nonprofit Sector in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia uniquely provides a timely overview of research on the nonprofit sector and nonprofit organizations in eleven former Soviet republics, with each central chapter written by local experts.

This book is a collection of essays about democracy and relations between media and politics in Central and Eastern Europe, a topic which has been much discussed in a variety of publications and during international and national conferences. The papers analyze the models of media systems, journalistic autonomy and the state of media freedom.

Drawing on the sociological theory of reflexive modernization and the doctrine of liberal democracy, this book debates the formation of postcommunist constitutionalism. Examination of Poland, in comparison with other postcommunist countries, leads to a new theory of reflexive constitutionalism.

The states from Central and Eastern Europe that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007 provide a fascinating series of case studies for scholars interested in politics, IR and development studies. The interest comes from the fact that never before had so many recipients of EU aid joined the Union and taken on the commitment to become aid donors. The journey from recipients of aid to aid donors is interesting because, not only does it tell us about development policy in CEE states, this policy area gives us an insight into governmental structures in CEE states, foreign policy priorities, public opinion, the role of NGOs/civil society and how well CEE states have taken on board the EU acquis (the EU’s rule book). The book also explores whether the development cooperation programmes of the majority of CEESs reflect the so-called "transition experience" of moving from authoritarianism and socialism to democracy and modern liberalism. It also explores the extent to which these donors are aligned with the approaches of the DAC donors. Finally, by extending the scrutiny to the bottom-up development activities of non-state actors and public opinion, the book will analyse the dynamics of the solidarity of the former ‘East’ with the global ‘South’. This book was published as a special issue of Perspectives on European Politics and Society

In Serbia, as elsewhere in postsocialist Europe, the rise of “civil society” was expected to support a smooth transformation to Western models of liberal democracy and capitalism. More than twenty years after the Yugoslav wars, these expectations appear largely unmet. Frontiers of Civil Society asks why, exploring the roles of multiple civil society forces in a set of government “reforms” of society and individuals in the early 2010s, and examining them in the broader context of social struggles over neoliberal restructuring and transnational integration.

"A useful text and reference book. These essays are at their best in serving both area study and political sociology."--Slavic Review --

Informal relations have been one of the major research topics of the social sciences since the 1990s. In order to allow for meaningful comparisons between different combinations of the positive and negative effects of informal relations on democratic representation, this book focuses on post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe as a particular region where formal democratic rules have been established, but competing informal rules are still strong. A broad spectrum of related analytical concepts is discussed from different perspectives and from different academic disciplines, then empirical cases of the relationship between informal relations and democratic representation are analyzed. The contributions span the whole continuum, as we perceive it, from civil society networks seen as supporting democratic representation to the perversion of democratic representation through political corruption. The final part of the book takes a closer look at corruption through four case studies from Russia.

This text assesses the impact of non-governmental organizations' efforts to build democratic institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Case studies provide a portrait of the mechanisms by which ideas commonly associated with democratic states have evolved in formerly communist states.