Publications

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is committed to the goals of social democracy and the ideals of the labour movement. The 150th anniversary of the SPD on 23 May 2013 provides the occasion for the Academy for Social Democracy to look back on the history of social democracy in the Social Democracy Readers series. This is the first English-language edition of this Reader. It is offered as a helping hand for political decision-makers and opinion formers in the more than 100 countries in which the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung promotes democracy and development, and contributes to peace and security.

Currently, it is difficult to understand and to assess the progress made in regional cooperation in South East Europe. The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), launched in 2008 as a successor to the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, focuses on promoting and enhancing regional cooperation in the Western Balkan region. RCC annual reports show that regional cooperation is improving in relation to economic and social development, infrastructure and energy, justice and home affairs, security cooperation, building human capital and other cross-cutting issues (RCC 2011), as well as, more and recently, media cooperation (RCC 2012).

The Balkan Media Barometer (BMB) is an in-depth and comprehensive description and measurement system for national media environments in South East Europe. Unlike other press surveys or media indices the BMB is a self-assessment exercise based on homegrown criteria derived from European standards as developed by the European Union and the Council of Europe. The first pilot Balkan Media Barometer was launched in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011, followed by Bulgaria in 2012.

Youth is not a universal human condition. A number of scholars have previously argued that

childhood and youth cannot be comprehended as a unique period (Aries, 1962); nor can youth be

considered as a special, homogeneous social group. Nevertheless, studies of youth, both as group and a concept were first articulated in the 19th century, predominantly in urban centers of the countries at the forefront of industrialization and modernization.

Since 1990, following decades of government control over media, the Albanian media faced horizons of freedom. The advent of independent media, quite naturally, was duly characterised by the mounting political pressure on them and a severe lack of professionalism among the journalists. These phenomena, to a considerable extent, were due to the absence of a regulatory framework. The first legislative interventions that attempted to regulate the conduct of media professionals were carried out in 1993 when Law no. 7756 »On Press« was adopted. The Albanian law was modelled after the law of the German state of Westphalia and was hardly adjusted to the Albanian context. The views of the most affected persons by this law, the media community, were…

For social democrats the welfare state is not a side issue, but a requirement of democracy. It ensures equal freedom – full freedom. It is in the welfare state that social democratic ideas about freedom are made real. It encompasses not only protection against the arbitrary intrusion of the state or society – for example, freedom of conscience and opinion. Full freedom also means freedom from need and fear, the material conditions of a self-determined life. Equal freedom: that is the constant standard that social democratic social policy sets itself. The goal and the direction are clear. Concrete measures need to be re-evaluated as times change and the traditional social democratic approach must be reaffirmed. This Reader is intended to…

The present comparative volume of case studies provides a snapshot and analysis of the existing normative regulation, practices, and public debates regarding the openness and transparency of parliaments in the Balkans. On the basis of in-depth research, the volume identifies a set of good practices, and elaborates recommendations for the improvement of the public knowledge and understanding of parliamentary work. The volume is the result of a project initiated by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Office Bulgaria (FES) and the Regional Secretariat for Parliamentary Cooperation in South-East Europe (RSPC). Its implementation was tasked to the Centre for Liberal Strategies (CLS) in Sofia. The empirical research for the project, entitled…

With the end of socialism, South East European societies experienced a most dramatic increase in poverty and socio-economic inequality. Some might have hoped that the transition from the generalised inefficiency of bureaucratic socialism to Western-style capitalist market economies would bring Western-style mass prosperity to South Eastern Europe, but the actual experience of social polarisation proves the opposite. It is much less clear how social inclusion can be re-established in economies that have pro-ductive employment only for a reduced part of the country’s work force and in states that no longer are able to appropriate and redistribute much of the national product. On the other hand, the protracted existence of large-scale social…