Eastern Europe Publications
224. The October 5th Mass March on Belgrade: An Eyewitness Account
Jul 07, 2011February 2001- The regime of Slobodan Milosevic created great problems not only for those of us who live in Serbia, but also for the entire world. His regime, which was probably one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world, basically brought the Serbian people to the edge of insanity - to a point where they did not know what to do. The terror and repression that occurred in terms of kidnapings, arrests, and even murders, had tremendous impact on the people of Serbia. more
304. Father of His Country? Franjo Tudjman and the Creation of Contemporary Croatia
Jul 07, 2011October 2004 - Whether or not Franjo Tudjman was the father of his country, there can be no denying that he played a pivotal role in the creation of contemporary Croatia. While it can be argued that someone else may have been better able to lead the Croatian people through the wastelands of war, occupation and diplomacy during the early 1990s, it was Tudjman who actually did so. If his Croatia was not the peasant republic envisioned by Stjepan Radic or the Croatian state imagined by Ante Starcevic, it was a viable democratic state with a powerful military, a skilled diplomatic corps and citizens who both fought for its survival and criticized its policies. more
65. Violence Against Women in Post-communist Societies: Benefits and Changes
Jul 07, 2011This paper will present the findings of the author's research entitled “Violence against
women and social changes in post-communist societies,” conducted during 1999 in
Hungary, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia. The author focuses her analysis on findings regarding both the negative and positive impact of changes on women’s vulnerability to and protection from domestic violence. The paper is based on both quantitative and qualitative analysis of interviews with 86 people (58 women and 28 men), 45 professionals and women’s groups activists, documentation of victim support organizations, and media and research reports from the above mentioned countries. more
206. An Assessment of the Peace Process in Bosnia and Kosovo
Jul 07, 2011June 2000 - Shortly after the referendum on independence in the spring of 1992, war exploded in Bosnia- Herzegovina (BiH) and ended only when the Dayton Peace Accords were agreed to in November 1995 and formally signed in December 1995. Expected to bring peace and stability to the area, many critics today are declaring Dayton a failure. Yet, to conclude that the Dayton Peace Accords are a failure after less than five years of implementation is premature. more
288. Ethnic Minorities and Access to Mass Media: The Case of Estonia
Jul 07, 2011December 2003 - Approximately one-third of Estonian residents are not ethnic Estonians, and an overwhelming majority of that proportion of the population are Russian-speakers. Probably the most telling fact about Estonia's ethnic minorities is that only 38 percent of them hold Estonian citizenship, despite of having been residents for decades. The remaining are either stateless persons or citizens of the Russian Federation. Since 1998, the government has made efforts to encourage these residents to apply for Estonian citizenship. The major obstacle to obtaining the blue Estonian passport for many is passing the Estonian language proficiency examination. more
49. Russia and the Baltic States in the Age of NATO Enlargement
Jul 07, 2011Since the Paris and Madrid conferences, which created a NATO-Russia Joint Council and ratified NATO's enlargement, Russia has modified its Baltic policies. Because those policies are widely regarded as a litmus test of Russia's European policy, this modification bears close scrutiny. Although Russian opposition to NATO's enlargement has not declined, the most recent terms Moscow has offered the Baltics, though insufficient to stabilize the region, seem to represent a small but measurable step away from the negative, bullying tone that has characterized much of Russia's Baltic and European policies-and which is still heard, if less strident than before these conferences. This paper attempts to both explain and assess Russia's new Baltic Policy. more
190. Mediating Inter-ethnic Relations: Successes and Failures in the New Europe
Jul 07, 2011January 2000 - Inter-ethnic disputes have been one of the worst setbacks in Eastern Europe since the fall of communism, and their impact has been disastrous. These conflicts have inhibited peaceful development in the post-communist period by displacing and killing large populations, retarding regional economies and investments, dragging reluctant Americans and Europeans into unpopular regional conflicts, as well as placing serious strains on the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Despite these outcomes, the majority of these conflicts have proven to be a case of political will. Their peaceful resolution necessitates the creation of institutional forms and practices which will accommodate rather than isolate and ignore inter- ethnic disputes. more
272. Peacekeeping in the Balkans: An Assessment of the Decade
Jul 07, 2011In April 1992, the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was deployed to Croatia with a 12-month term and a mission to demilitarize and protect "the continuing functioning, on an interim basis, of the existing local authorities and police, under United Nations supervision, pending the achievement of an overall political solution to the crisis." More than ten years, thousands of peacekeepers, and hundreds of millions of dollars later, the former states of Yugoslavia are arguably as far from a political solution as they ever were. In a recent meeting sponsored by the East European Studies Program, two Balkans experts, A. Ross Johnson and Misha Glenny assessed the past ten years of peacekeeping in Southeastern Europe and offered alternative strategies for the future. more
32. The Significance of Political Elites in Post-Communist Poland
Jul 07, 2011This paper analyzes the disintegration of communism in Poland and the formation of a new socio-economic and political system. The actions of political elites have been pivotal in this process. One of the basic conclusions of the analysis that follows is that, because of the weak articulation of the structures of civil society, political elites were not subjected to precise social demands and pressures. more
354. A Litmus Test of the Century and its Social and Moral Order: Lithuania in the Twentieth Century
Jul 07, 2011October 2008 - Lithuania cherishes historical memories of once belonging to a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country. It also cherishes the most generous and noble-spirited traditions of the Romantic ethos of liberal nationalism, and quite justifiably so. In the late 1980s, Lithuania's national rebirth movement, Sajudis, and its "singing revolution" not only revived the spirit of the 19th Century epoch of the springtime of the peoples (whose slogan—For your and our freedom!—was raised as the banner), but also became a litmus test for the Soviet policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reorganization). As the first republic to breakaway from the Soviet Union, Lithuania came to embody the historical triumph of East-Central Europe's time-honored struggle for freedom. more
