Political mobilization in East Central Europe

This article provides an introduction to the special thematic section on political mobilization in East Central Europe. Based on a brief presentation of the main arguments of the individual articles, the authors discuss the recent political volatility in East Central Europe. They highlight the tension between fierce political rhetoric and populist policies on the one hand, and low levels of voter turnout and overall political participation in the region on the other. The authors argue that recent cases of successful as well as unsuccessful political mobilization in East Central Europe point to structural re-alignments in the region’s political landscape. In particular, the parties that are successful are those that manage to communicate their visions in new ways and whose messages resonate with nested attitudes and preferences of the electorate. These parties typically rally against the so-called establishment and claim for themselves an anti-hegemonic agenda. The introductory essay also asserts that these developments in East Central Europe deserve attention for their potential Europe-wide repercussions – especially the idea of “illiberal democracy,” which combines populist mobilization and autocratic demobilization and finds adherents also in more established European democracies.     

The Hungarians in East Central Europe: a demographic profile

Tabular data are presented on the demographic characteristics of ethnic Hungarians in East Central Europe. Information is included on the total Hungarian population in neighboring states; nationality; language; and religion.     

The historical foundations of party politics in post-communist East Central Europe

This article gauges how plausible deep historical explanations are in accounting for the emergence of particular types of parties in post-communist Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Generating and testing hypotheses from the centuries-long historical logic of Lipset and Rokkan's model of cleavage and party development, it finds that the historical foundations of post-communist parties may be deeper than most analyses assume and that the influence of the communist era may be less than is often believed. While a full understanding of the emergence of post-communist party types requires both historical and non-historical explanations, historical ones should not be underestimated.     

The malleable homo sovieticus: transnational entrepreneurs in post-communist East Central Europe

This paper investigates the coping strategies of post-1989 East Central European transnational migrant entrepreneurs. Paradoxically, rather than facilitating transfer into the region of liberal-democratic orientations and practices, the incorporation of East Central Europe into late 20th-century consumer capitalism based on short-cycle flexible production in sectors unregulated by legal-institutional frameworks reproduces some of the features of the accustomed homo sovieticus syndrome: in particular, the reliance on the beat-the-system/bend-the-rules orientation on informal/crony patronage and connections, and immediate consumption rather than deferred gratification/investment-oriented capital accumulation renders effective strategies of economic action in the new situation. The effects of so-informed transnational migrant entrepreneurs' activities on the transformation processes in their home-countries are also discussed.     

East Central Europe on the eve of the changeover: the case of Poland

In contrast to the voluminous literature dealing with the post-communist transformation, much less attention has been paid to the circumstances that led to the communist collapse. The purpose of this paper is to redress the imbalance by trying to examine the socio-political and economic situation on the eve of the changeover and to determine which factors, taken collectively, produced a trigger which ignited the implosion of 1989. The focus will be on Poland, the country which—it is generally agreed—was the first one to launch the process of change and to initiate the “domino effect” which ultimately affected the entire region.     

中东欧现行政党制度及左翼政党地位初探

从1989年至今,中东欧国家经过十多年的政治、经济转轨,以多党议会民主制为特征的政党制度已初步确立.但由于特殊的政治、经济环境,中东欧国家的政党制度与西方相比仍有较大差异,作为中东欧政党格局重要构成力量的左翼政党,也面临着一系列的难题.     

Nation-state, nationalism, and the prospects for democratization in East Central Europe

Recent political developments in East Central Europe have resulted in contradictory and ambivalent tendencies towards the nation-state in post-communist democracies. The liberation from Soviet influence and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire have created political space for the reconstruction of sovereignty in former Soviet-dominated states. This liberation and the institutionalization of new constitutional structures has become a “national” issue. The reaffirmation and resurrection of national unity, national traditions, national culture, and national interest are current themes in post-communist politics.     

Knowledge-Sharing Subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper investigates reverse knowledge transfer of foreign multinational subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) in the light of the current political and economic transformations of these former communist countries. The study examines whether foreign subsidiaries in the region share their knowledge base with their sister-subsidiaries and parent company, and the role of various factors in this knowledge sharing. These factors include subsidiary initiative, subsidiary autonomy, local dynamism and corporate embeddedness. A proprietary dataset is used for statistical analysis.     

对东欧、中欧和东南欧国家社会转型的考察和思索

中东欧、东南欧地处三大文明的交汇处,社会发展受制于各种文明以及承载这些文明的东西方大国.这里的国家近二十年的社会转轨从本质上说就是从东方文明向西方文明位移的过程.但是,由于受不同文明和不同大国的影响程度不同,还由于国家大小、民族宗教构成和经济发展程度不同,中东欧、东南欧国家的社会转型也更加丰富多彩.近距离地接触这些国家,可以清楚看到它们社会转轨程度的不同梯度,还可以感受到这种转型背后的影响因素.