Publications

The current publication is a specific event, a type of its own in the row of writings about trade unionism in transition societies. It comes with a pretty engaging name - about trade unions and the 21century. Taken at face value one may expect that the book is a product of applying fashionable developmental concepts or highly celebrated organizational designs to the realities of trade unions and societies undergoing complex transformation processes. This is exactly what it is not about. This is a book derived from real life and aimed at the practical problems that the trade unions face in the process of “transition” to democratic societies and market economies in Eastern Europe. Inspired by the direct experience of living and working in the…

Politics requires a clear sense of direction. Only those who are able to state their goals clearly will achieve them and inspire others. In light of that, in this Reader we would like to address the question of what social democracy means in the twenty-first century. What are its core values? What are its goals? How can it be put into practice? One thing is clear: social democracy is not predetermined or set in stone for all time, but must rather be constantly renegotiated and subject to democratic contestation. This volume will therefore not provide ready-made answers but rather seek to encourage further reading and reflection.

At the end of 2008, the then EU-Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, declared 2009 as the “Critical Year of the Balkans“. It remains to be seen if this prediction will come true, whether it is meant to be a warning or an offer, and to whom it has been directed. The “To-Do-List” for both the countries in the Balkans, as well as for the European Union ́s enlargement policy is long. The apparently endless period of transition and preparation for the accession into the EU has resulted in an increasing impatience and frustration on the side of the Balkans, whereas on the side of the European Union the question is asked more frequently these days why the political elites in the Balkans apparently lack the will and the capacity to overcome the…

Obviously, none of the ex-communist countries of the European periphery could escape the great crisis. Regardless of their integration in global markets (such as Hungary) or their peripheral position (such as Serbia) - no macroeconomic plans, no market integration made them immune to the crisis.

According to Max Weber, political parties represent voluntary associations whose mail goal is to control the resources of the state (power, jobs, money) through their leaders. However, Weber notes that north and western Europe are a special case, where parties are constituted as "ethos communities" of which the German social democracy is a prime example.

In this issue we try to answer a few crucial questions on the future of regional cooperation and EU accession from four different standpoints (the Albanian, Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian). How do the four mentioned states and their foreign policies accept the imperative of good neighborly cooperation as a condition for the accession processes.