Democratic Transitions

Ce mémoire a pour but d’évaluer le rôle de la société civile dans le processus de consolidation démocratique sud-coréen à travers l’exemple de la mobilisation sociale ayant suivi le naufrage du ferry Sewol en avril 2014. La préoccupation principale est de déterminer si la société civile est toujours mobilisée vingt-cinq ans après la transition à un régime démocratique. La mobilisation du Sewol montre que la société civile sud-coréenne s’est remobilisée et participe de la politisation d’enjeux afin de mettre à l’agenda des réformes démocratiques destinées à être entreprises par l’Etat. Néanmoins le gouvernement et plus généralement la société politique sud-coréenne est immobilisée, léthargique et ne prend pas la mesure des aspirations de la société civile. Ainsi le dialogue entre société civile et société politique, crucial dans ce contexte de consolidation démocratique, est miné. En raison du manque de confiance entre les deux parties, les membres de la société civile et plus généralement les citoyens ont tendance à contourner le jeu des partis politiques, ce qui pourrait être dangereux pour le futur de la consolidation démocratique sud-coréenne.

Mots-clés : Corée du Sud – Sewol – société civile – société politique – transition démocratique – consolidation démocratique – politisation – mouvements sociaux

This thesis is intended to assess the role of civil society in South Korean democratic consolidation process through the example of the social mobilization following the April 2014 Sewol ferry tragedy. The main concern is to determine whether civil society is still mobilized or not twenty five years after the transition to a democratic regime. The Sewol mobilization shows that South Korean civil society re-mobilized and is currently politicizing issues in order to push for democratic reforms to be implemented by the state. However the government and generally speaking South Korean political society is immobilized, lethargic and does not understand civil society’s aspirations. Therefore the dialogue between civil society and political society, crucial in this democratic consolidation context, is undermined. As a consequence of the lack of trust between both parties, civil society members and citizens more generally tend to bypass the political parties arena, which could be dangerous for the future of South Korean democratic consolidation.

Key-words: South Korea – Sewol – civil society – political society – democratic transition – democratic consolidation – politicization – social movements

Slovakia’s relations with the states of Eastern Europe not only have a bilateral impact, but contain geopolitical, security and economic dimensions as well. This article analyzes the domestic, bilateral and multilateral aspects of relations between Slovakia and Russia before and after the parliamentary elections of 1998, when Slovakia adopted a pro-Western course aimed at EU and NATO membership. The article also focuses on bilateral relations with Ukraine, where Slovakia is among the most active supporters of Ukraine’s future EU membership. The final sections analyze the Eastern policy of Slovakia – particularly within the framework of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and the Visegrad Group – as well as Slovakia’s relations with the new Eastern European partners, such as Belarus, Moldova and Georgia, as target countries of Slovakia’s “soft power.”

The textbook Transition to Democracy in Central Europe focuses on the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and their transition from communist regimes to democratic ones. Different problems of democratic development are under scrutiny. These states lie in the part of Europe, which is from the regional perspective called Central Europe. But this perspective and the determination of this region can be different going more to West or more to East. The aim of the present textbook is to give an overview of selected topics related to political development in Central Europe in the last one hundred years. The focus is put on the installation, character and fall of communist regimes, mode of transition to democracy and the given issues of democratic consolidation as it was with the state division in the case of Czechoslovakia, transition from one party system to a multiparty system, dealing with the communist past, economic transition and international influence on the democratization process. A great part of the book is also dedicated to an overview of relations with the European Union and to a lesser degree with NATO. Each chapter is accompanied by questions, by which the students can verify their acquired knowledge, and by further reading developing the topic.

يتناول عبد الفتاح ماضي في كتابه عثرات في الميدان: كيف أخفقت ثورة يناير في مصر؟ الصادر عن المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات، المسار المتعثّر لثورة 25 يناير 2011 في مصر؛ باعتبارها جزءًا من نضالٍ ممتد في التاريخ الحديث للشعب المصري من أجل التغيير، وحدثًا أداره فاعلون داخليون وخارجيون بقناعات ومصالح مختلفة، وفي سياقات إقليمية ودولية غير مواتية.

يروم الكتاب فهم التحوّلات الكبرى التي طرأت على مسار الثورة، والبحث في عددٍ من القضايا المحورية، مثل دور النخب ومجموعة من جنرالات الجيش في الثورة، والعامل الخارجي والديمقراطية في مصر، وقضايا الهوية والتغيير في مصر.

مقدمات الثورة

يتألف الكتاب (300 صفحة بالقطع الوسط، موثقًا ومفهرسًا) من مقدمة وسبعة فصول وخاتمة.

في الفصل الأول، "مقدمات ثورة 25 يناير"، يعرض المؤلف مقدمات ثورة يناير، مع التركيز على إرث مرحلة مبارك في المجالَين السياسي والاقتصادي، موضحًا كيف أغلق نظام مبارك سبل الإصلاح السياسي التدرجي، وأفسد الحياة السياسية عقودًا طويلة، ما أدّى إلى إسقاطه وحزبه الحاكم عبر التظاهرات الشعبية. كما يعرض كيف ثارت قطاعات واسعة من المصريين ضد النظام، ودور الجماعات الاحتجاجية الشبابية والحركات الاجتماعية والعمالية في تعبئة الشارع ضد مبارك، ودور أدوات التواصل الاجتماعي والإعلام والجمعية الوطنية للتغيير وحركة 6 أبريل.

أما في الفصل الثاني، "اندلاع الثورة وردّ النظام"، فيرصد المؤلف اندلاع الثورة، وردّة فعل سلطة مبارك التنفيذية عليها، بدءًا من عناده وتهوينه شأن الحراك الشعبي ضده، مرورًا بخطابات التهديد والوعيد واستخدام القمع الوحشي ضد المتظاهرين، وانتهاءً بمحاولات التشبث بالسلطة وبدء تحرك الجيش.

تحولات الثورة

يُعنى المؤلف في الفصل الثالث، "تحولات الثورة المصرية"، بمسار ثورة يناير وتحوّلاتها، فيتناول تحول الثورة من كونها ثورة "ديمقراطية" تنادي بالحريات والعدالة الاجتماعية إلى ثورة "انتخابية"، من خلال البحث في الطريقة التي أدار بها الفاعلون السياسيون الرئيسون المرحلة الانتقالية بعد إسقاط مبارك (12 شباط/ فبراير 2011 - 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2013)، مركزًا على انفراد المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة بإدارة الدولة، واعتماد خريطة طريق تقوم على التنافس الحزبي الانتخابي قبل التوافق، وسلوك القوى السياسية التقليدية التي تصدّرت المشهد السياسي، إضافةً إلى غياب الحوار والتوافقات الكبرى. كما يتناول المؤلف تحوّل ثورة يناير مرة أخرى من كونها ثورة "انتخابية" إلى ثورة "مضادة"؛ من خلال عرض الطريقة التي أوقف بها جنرالات المجلس العسكري المسار الديمقراطي، وقادوا ثورةً مضادة أطاحت المكتسبات القليلة التي حققتها ثورة يناير، وأقامت نظامًا يقوم على الصراع الصفري مع القوى التي لا تصطف مع النظام. ويوضح هذا الفصل كيف كانت اختيارات النخب تُعبّر، في واقع الأمر، إمّا عن قناعات وأفهام مغلوطة، وإمّا عن مقدمات أيديولوجية متحجرة، أو مصالح ضيقة، أو نصائح غير مدروسة قُدّمت من أطراف مختلفة، أو عن خليط من هذا وذاك.

الحوار والتجربة الدستورية

ينصب اهتمام المؤلف في الفصل الرابع، "محاولات الحوار الوطني"، على محاولات الحوار التي جرت في مراحل مختلفة؛ حيث يبدأ بعملية الحوار التي بدأتها جماعة الإخوان المسلمين قبل اندلاع الثورة بشهور، واستمرت في الشهور الأولى للثورة، وتُوّجت بما سُمّي وثيقة التحالف الديمقراطي. كما يعرض المؤلف حوارات المجلس العسكري الحاكم حتى لقاء "فيرمونت" وانتخاب الرئيس محمد مرسي، إضافة إلى الحوارات التي أجراها هذا الأخير، ثم بعض المبادرات التي قُدمت بعد 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2013.

أما في الفصل الخامس، "التجربة الدستورية بعد الثورة"، فيقدم المؤلف الوثائق الدستورية التي ظهرت في مرحلة المجلس العسكري حين شهدت البلاد إعلانًا دستوريًا في 13 شباط/ فبراير 2011، ثم تعديلات دستورية متعلقة بـ 9 مواد من دستور 1971، ثم إعلانًا دستوريًا آخر في 30 آذار/ مارس 2011، ثم إعلانَين دستوريّين (في 25 أيلول/ سبتمبر و19 تشرين الثاني/ نوفمبر 2011) يعدّلان إعلان 30 آذار/ مارس، ثم إعلانًا دستوريًا مكملًا في 17 حزيران/ يونيو 2012. كما يقدم المؤلف الوثائق الدستورية التي ظهرت في مرحلة مرسي؛ وذلك حين عرفت مصر في 12 آب/ أغسطس 2012 إعلانًا دستوريًا جديدًا (ألغى الإعلان الدستوري الصادر في 17 حزيران/ يونيو 2012)، والإعلان الدستوري في 21 تشرين الثاني/ نوفمبر 2012، ودستور 2012. ويقدم المؤلف، أيضًا، الوثائق الدستورية التي ظهرت في مرحلة ما بعد 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2013، وشهدت فيها البلاد بيان القوات المسلحة في 3 تموز/ يوليو 2013، وإعلانَين دستوريين (في5 و7 تموز/ يوليو 2013)، ودستور 2014.

جنرالات الداخل والعوامل الخارجية

يتناول المؤلف في الفصل السادس، "جنرلات الجيش وثورات الشعب"، بعض الجوانب ذات الصلة بعلاقة مجموعة من جنرالات الجيش المسيطرين على المؤسسة العسكرية بثورة يناير، فيعرض حالات مقارنة من خارج العالم العربي لإيضاح ما يأتي: سبب استيلاء العسكريين على السلطة، وطبيعة الحكم العسكري، وطريقة خروج العسكريين من السلطة. ثم يعرض باقتضاب الحالة المصرية، بدءًا من جذور تدخّل الجنرالات العسكريين في السلطة، وتطور أدوارهم السياسية والاقتصادية، مرورًا بالمغالطات التي ردّدها إعلام ما بعد 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2013 بشأن دور الجيش، وانتهاءً بالمخاطر المترتبة على طبيعة النظام الإقصائية والبوليسية؛ لا على الحياة السياسية والثورة فحسب، بل على المؤسسة العسكرية ذاتها والأمن القومي العربي أيضًا.

في الفصل السابع، "العوامل الخارجية والثورة المصرية" (الفصل الأخير)، يعالج المؤلف بعض الأدوار الدولية والإقليمية في مسار الثورة المصرية، فيتناول موقف القوى الغربية من مسألة الديمقراطية في البلدان العربية قبل ثورات 2011، ثم موقف الولايات المتحدة الأميركية وأوروبا وروسيا من الثورة المصرية، ودعم القوى الإقليمية نظامَ ما بعد 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2013، إضافةً إلى أثر استخدام خطاب الحرب على الإرهاب واستراتيجياته في مسار الثورة.

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

In countries with histories of political crisis, polarisation or violent conflict, social groups often have different stories about what happened in the past, why it happened and what it will take to create a lasting peace that benefits their group and larger society. These established narratives together form a narrative ‘landscape’ that is specific to each context, which can either deepen or mitigate divisions. Introducing the analogy of the ‘narrative tree’, this discussion paper draws on the expertise and experience of IFIT’s Inclusive Narratives Practice Group to provide a framework for understanding how narratives form and function, as well as an approach for facilitating narrative enrichment at the national or subnational level. This approach includes three cyclical phases – assessment, strategic planning and implementation – with a set of process guidelines and a menu of activities and tools from which to choose. Together, they can help policymakers and stakeholders understand their own narrative biases, reduce the salience of divisive narratives and amplify constructive narratives that can gain traction at scale.

The article explores the conditions under which incumbent leaders in initially competitive political systems manage to offset democratic resistance and establish an authoritarian regime. Autocratisationthe transition from a competitive political system to a regime dominated by a single political forceis a challenging effort for an incumbent and involves interventions in three 'arenas' to achieve a) public legitimation, b) institutional reforms increasing political repression and c) mass-scale co-optation. Focusing on Slovakia and Belarus in the 1990s, where autocratisation efforts failed and succeeded respectively, the article finds that cooptation plays a catalytic role in helping the incumbent pass institutional reforms and escalate repression without risking de-legitimation. In Belarus, co-optation engulfed society and the economy whereas, in Slovakia, a socioeconomic environment with greater autonomy from government limited the scope for co-optation. The Slovak opposition was able to find the resources and supporters necessary to fight back against the incumbent.

Ukraine is an outsider in terms of political values and standards of governance. Transparency, efficiency and accountability, rubber-stamped in official papers and declarations, are superseded by other standards: informal networks, patronage, and a patron-client system are what truly shape the performance of state institutions, making them serve the interests of the elected rather than the electors. The article traces the rise of Viktor Yanukovych to the Presidential office through extensive use of these informal patterns and formation of a vertikal of his own, laying preconditions for his fall.

Scholars have recently become attentive not only to the institutional designs that constitutions set up, but also to the constitutional change processes. Most authors, who are concerned with the effects the design of constitution-making processes have on outcomes, have focused on the main constitution-making bodies and their characteristics, leaving aside the question of what happens before members of constituent assemblies meet to deliberate. This article makes the point that to better understand constitution-making and its outcomes, we need to take into account the overlooked early stage of constitutional change when political actors debate and set the rules for how a constitution will be made. Building on various political science perspectives and the case study of the 2011–2012 constitutional reform in Egypt, it underscores the inevitably contentious nature of the design of a constitution-making process. It also highlights the impact that unresolved conflicts over the design can have for the agreement on a constitution between political opponents in the context of a democratic transition. In Egypt, adoption of a broadly accepted constitution was hindered by on-going struggles between Islamists and non-Islamists over their preferred constitution-making designs. The article also outlines the factors that make the settlement on constitution-making rules unlikely.

Are large landowners, especially those engaged in labor-dependent agriculture, detrimental to democratization and subsequent democratic survival? This assumption is at the heart of both canonical and recent influential work on regime transition and durability. Using an original panel dataset on the extent of labor-dependent agriculture in countries across the world since 1930, I find that labor-dependent agriculture was historically bad for democratic stability and stunted suffrage extension, parliamentary independence, and free and fair elections. However, the negative influence of labor-dependent agriculture on democracy started to turn positive around the time of democracy's Third Wave. The dual threats of land reform and costly domestic insurgencies in that period – often with more potent consequences under dictators – plausibly prompted landowners to push for democracy with strong horizontal constraints and favorable institutions that could protect their property over the long term with more reliability than dictatorship. The shift in support for democracy by labor-dependent landowners is a major untold story of democracy's Third Wave, and helps explain the persistent democratic deficit in many new democracies.

Has economic development made Kazakhs more democratic? This article explores the effects of economic development on political culture of citizens in Kazakhstan. Drawing on the thesis of the modernization school that economic development is likely to result in the development of democratic political culture it argues that modernization process is not a linear process leading to the emergence of democratically minded citizens and that for a democratic political culture to emerge it must be complemented and accompanied with the development of democratic political institutions.

Telle est la contribution politique de la littérature qui rappelle, documente, prédit et invente tout ce que l’Académie, encadrée par une dictature, engoncée dans son besoin de citer des sources, alourdie par ses notes de bas de page, ne peut dire ou n’ose pas faire : penser le politique et ses injustices, sa répression des individus et de leur mémoire, ses métamorphoses et ses espoirs. La littérature rappelle que la politique est nationale, mais aussi locale, avec ses factions, ses intérêts, ses surprises, que la vie politique est individuelle autant que collective. Elle montre que Taiwan est toujours, et de plus en plus, un État, une société, où la démocratie, parce qu’elle est à l’origine une greffe, a l’audace de se réinventer souvent, là où, chez nous, elle semble vouloir s’éroder. Pluralité culturelle, strates historiques, croisements de civilisations, frontières de valeurs et de cultures, la société taïwanaise est un objet complexe à appréhender. Quel meilleur endroit que Taiwan, où la littérature s’exprime en mandarin de Pékin, en minnan du Fujian taïwanisé, et dans une moindre mesure en langue hakka et dans les langues austronésiennes, pour illustrer la vivacité – la vie dans la cité – de ces processus à l’œuvre dans une société ouverte sur le monde et à la convergence d’identités multiples ?

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the intelligence democratization process in new democracies comparing three South American countries: Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina. With a background of authoritarian legacies(‘political police’style intelligence agencies controlled by the military) under particular political circumstances and changing strategic environments, these countries experienced disparate trajectories, prescriptions, and outcomes in their efforts to reform their intelligence communities. Drawing on new institutionalism, historical moments and relevant events shaping the dynamics of intelligence democratization are highlighted for each case, depicting failures and successes, and identifying drivers of change.

The term 'fascism' continues to be very much in currency in Philippines society. To the Filipino people, its meaning is often drawn from pained memory of wholesale deprivation of democratic rights and large-scale human rights abuses. Yet, to many, the fear of fascism has still to give way to a deeper understanding of this menace. This may hold true even among those belonging to the progressive movement.

Questo libro affronta il tema della democrazia, che rimane centrale all’interno del pensiero filosofico-politico contemporaneo da una prospettiva deliberativa che pone l’accento su alcuni aspetti chiave (sfera pubblica, opinione pubblica, libertà di espressione e di parola). In questo testo vengono quindi analizzati il ruolo, il senso e il significato della libertà di stampa, di espressione e di pensiero nelle democrazie contemporanee, tracciandone al contempo le origini, contestualizzandole in una prospettiva costituzionale.
Al contempo, questo lavoro ha l’obiettivo di esaminare l’impatto delle immagini particolarmente violente e impressionanti sull’opinione pubblica e su quella che Gustave Le Bon identificò come “folla”, senza però trascurare di definire approfonditamente i tratti fondamentali dell’opinione pubblica in quanto tale, tanto da una prospettiva più propriamente sociologica e filosofica quanto da una più storico-politica.
Il saggio non ha la pretesa di fornire un’analisi complessiva della democrazia deliberativa, ma più modestamente vuole contribuire alla riflessione su questo tema a partire dal rapporto tra democrazia e diritti individuali fondamentali: libertà di parola e di espressione; libertà di stampa e diritto di cronaca.

This field research conducted in the fall of 2011 presents an organizational study of how the principles and practice of democracy work at the local level within a major progressive religious organization during a time of turmoil and change at the national level.  The study is presented in memo style to incoming Bishop Michael Vono of a diocese deeply divided over the differences in key issues such as ordination of openly practicing homosexuals and women.  The degree to which local leaders of the organization attempted suppression of transparent, open debate over national issues was a direct contradiction to the democratic principles espoused.  However, where debate was present, it sometimes contributed to, rather than bridged, the divide which centered around perceptions of the derivation of legitimate authority.  A key mechanism for suppression of debate and empowerment was found to be in the hidden means by which committees were formed and leaders were groomed.    Lessons learned are relevant to any social organization navigating change through socially controversial, ideological  issues.

The text looks into the importance of sate capture for the stability of hybrid regimes from the Serbian post-2000 perspective. It argues for an integration of these two research fields. Part one gives a list extractive institutions related to political state capture. These institutions provide better measurement of state capture. Part two emphasizes
the importance of state capture for other hybrid regimes’s critical areas such as elections and media. Although rigged elections and controlled media are important pillars of
hybrid regimes, they depend to a large extent on the public funds by which they can be financed. Extraction of public funds matters because these are used to pay both activists
who manipulate the electoral process in the field and the media that hide information on the basis of which citizens can decide how to vote. The issue of extraction has been understudied in the debates on the consolidation of democracy in Serbia after 2000 but also in the discussios on democratic decline.

African royalty, referred to as ‘traditional leadership’ in South Africa, evolved over centuries in Africa amidst the ravages and pillage of colonialism and apartheid through the strategies of indirect rule and divide-conquer-and-rule. This article focuses on the former approach and provides a brief outline of how the indirect rule affected the institution of African royals. However, specific focus is on the continuation, or not, of indirect control in post-apartheid South Africa by scrutinising Lord Frederick JD Lugard’s three specific institutional reforms promulgated in his indirect rule strategy. It will also be done by examining whether apartheid’s demise ended indirect rule or whether it continued in post-apartheid South Africa. Although Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s 1891 Natal Code of Natives Laws were briefly consulted, the focus is on Lugard’s reforms. The article argues that in many instances, the ushering in of democracy on the African continent, including South Africa, did not imply that African royals would revert to living and enjoying their precolonial status, roles, and powers. Instead, they continued to serve as disempowered cultural figureheads within their communities. Relying on the three institutional reforms of Lugard, the article uses different scenarios to demonstrate this view. This article is also a review of 25 years (1994 to 2019) of the ‘traditional’ leadership institution in South Africa.

This radical critique reclaims and recasts the ‘Transition Paradigm’, countering the habit of using advanced and successful democratic transitions as a template to be followed in other regions. It argues that the Arab (and broader Middle Eastern) experience has important lessons to offer, even in its failures. For example, it could help to explain the West's recent populist upsurge and other democratic reversals.

The article examines in detail the process of setting up the security services of Latvia in the period prior to and after regaining full independence. The author emphasizes that a successful transition towards a consolidated democracy requires decisive and quick actions as well as the need for a clear legislative framework, and comprehensive democratic control of the services along parliamentary, government,
judicial, prosecution, and financing venues.

The July 1974 invasion of Cyprus by Turkey caught the Greek Colonels (1967–74) off guard, as they proved entirely incapable of responding to the casus belli, partly provoked by their own actions. Greece remained technically in the state of military mobilisation for about four months and with the democratic transition well underway. This article catalogues the ways in which this conflict mobilised Greek civil society in unprecedented
ways. Using oral testimonies, press clippings and three major documentaries of the time (Nikos Koundouros’ The Songs of Fire, Michael Cacoyannis’ Attila 74, and Nikos Kavoukidis’ Testimonials), the article dissects the cultural resistances against the war in one of the most traumatic moments in contemporary Greek history. It analyses the gigantic concerts that took place in the largest stadiums of Athens to
protest the war, next to mass demonstrations and popular films protesting the invasion. It argues that these cultural events and artifacts re-enacted facets of the anti- Vietnam War movement and the respective countercultural scene in the US of the late 1960s. The article concludes that these modes of cultural and political resistance activated post-authoritarian Greek civil society, renegotiating the parameters of political participation and partly resetting the agenda of the country’s foreign policy following
popular demand.

Introduction to the recently restructered Mesopotamian Ecology Movement which acts in North Kurdistan on ecological subjects. In the movement are people active with different backgrounds. In 2015 it has become stronger than never before. The movement starts to fill the paradigm of an ecological society declared years before by the Kurdish Freedom Movement.

Is the neoliberal economic policy applicable in East and Central Europe after the breakdown of communism in 1989? The first part of the article defines neoliberalism as a system of market allocation of resources, the domination of private property, personal initiative for exchange, and the minimal state. This definition is derived from the two cases of neoliberal reforms in the US and the UK in the 1980s. The second part discusses market imperfections by considering the government solution for the principal-agent problem created by information asymmerty. Since the state intevention itself suffers from political failures resulting
in inefficient allocation, it can be justified only if it offers an institutional design that solves the principal-agent problem and political failures.

Keywords: neoliberalism; market failures; political failures; principal-agent model; supply-side economics

This article explores black Tunisian activism’s historical development since 2011 from its grassroots to a transnational level which seeks to create links with global African diasporic organizations. By tracing its origins to the early independence period in Tunisia in the 1960s with marginalized southern black Tunisian community’s low-key and repressed protests, through the early 2000s timid media attention to the phenomenon of racism, to the artistic forms of resistance to their marginalization, black Tunisians were able to build a niche in the social and cultural public sphere, usually through digital activism. With the democratization process in full swing since Ben Ali regime’s fall in 2011, Tunisia witnessed the progression of a historically forgotten minority population, long-time erased from the Tunisian narrative, into a full-blown rights movement.

In July 1990, about 5,000 Albanian citizens broke into foreign embassies in Tirana, mainly those of the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy and France, in a desperate attempt to leave Albania. This was the largest exodus since 1945 and the first case of a mass movement of citizens against the policies of the communist regime. The regime resorted to violence, resulting in one person being killed, dozens injured and several hundred arrested. The "occupation" of the embassies brought about a political and humanitarian crisis. The crisis could be temporarily solved through UN mediation. The UN enabled for the travel of about 5 thousand citizens by sea to Italy and other countries. The “Embassy Crisis” is one of the most important events that impacted politically the Albanian society in the nineties. It brought to the forefront a growing popular discontent, mixed with high levels of poverty, and a deep distrust in the ruling elite and in its promises of democratizing reforms. Albania appeared in the headlines of the western media. The western coverage of those 5000 refugees accelerated the fall of the one-party regime.

“The Embassies’ Crisis: Albania of 1990" dwells upon the most important events of 1990, the role of political and cultural elites, the role of the Western democracies, the "Popaj" issue, the first anti-communist protests in Shkodra and Kavaja, the visit of Peres De Cuelar, and the internal processes in the leadership of the Albanian Party of Labour. The book analyses the developments at the foreign embassies in Tirana, the official internal communications between the diplomatic corps and the Albanian government, the official and secret talks on the crisis, whilst addressing the myths that arose following to embassies’ crisis and their impact on Albanian society and politics. For the first time, several thousand Albanian and foreign archival documents were published on the developments of 1990. The documentation related to the German, Italian and French embassies, as well as those of the State Security (Albanian secret police) and the Politburo occupy an important place in this publication.

The book has 484 pages and is published in Albanian by the Institute of History, Academy of Albanological Studies in Tirana.

Resumen del libro: El presente volumen muestra los resultados de una década de investigación académica jalonada por varios encuentros internacionales de discusión e intercambio científicos sobre la Transición, celebrados en el Colegio de España de París, en los que siempre se dio voz tanto a historiadores como a protagonistas. Cuando comenzó este proyecto todavía estaba vigente el paradigma de la “modélica transición”, hoy ya fuertemente erosionado, por lo que cabe entender este libro como una aportación a la renovación historiográfica a la que estamos asistiendo en los últimos años. En estas páginas hemos intentado abrir un diálogo franco entre el pasado y el presente, entre los protagonistas, los investigadores y los lectores.

This article provides an overview of the historiography of El Salvador’s peace process. While drawing out the principal scholarly perspectives on the process, it also traces the development of a predominant intellectual trend from widespread enthusiasm to scepticism and pessimism. Highlighting political dynamics of postwar transition, including the postwar accommodation of existing power blocks, the article argues that the peace process is best understood as an open-ended process involving continued political and scholarly contestation regarding significance, meaning and outcomes. El Salvador’s peace has proven to be elusive, and does not provide easy, unidimensional answers as to its character and genealogy. The Salvadoran peace process defies simplistic characterization or straightforward extraction of “lessons learned.” Instead, I suggest El Salvador features as a particularly fruitful research subject for scholars interested the socio-political complexities and ambiguities of war to peace transitions.

Resumen: La Transición española ha suscitado debates políticos y culturales. Unos ven la Transición como un proceso modélico pero los críticos denuncian sus carencias. El debate político se ha reproducido en el debate cultural. Ambas posiciones se han desplegado en España y en Estados Unidos. En España los críticos culturales son una minoría, aunque el movimiento 15-M les ha dado una nueva oportunidad para relanzar sus críticas. En cambio, en Estados Unidos los hispanistas críticos con la cultura

L’Eglise catholique romaine au tournant de la transformation démocratique en Pologne : projets, réalisations et conséquences

Ce mémoire de recherche en Histoire s’attache à présenter et analyser le rôle de l’Eglise catholique romaine en Pologne au tournant de la transformation démocratique du pays survenue entre 1989 et 1991. Cette période charnière acte l’abandon progressif du régime socialiste de la République de Pologne populaire à la faveur d’un système à fonctionnement démocratique redéfinissant l’ensemble des structures sociales. L’introduction du pluralisme politique, l’ouverture à une économie de marché capitaliste et le rapprochement avec les pays occidentaux dans le domaine des relations extérieures, ont métamorphosé la société civile dans son ensemble. L’Eglise bénéficiant d’une place particulièrement importante en Pologne, elle est également concernée par ces changements structurels profonds ; ces derniers venant modifier le paradigme qui s’était instauré au cours des dix années précédant le basculement. Il convient de s’interroger sur la portée de son action lors de ces transformations qui l’impactent substantiellement dans son identité d’organisation religieuse et l’amènent à reconsidérer sa place dans une nouvelle réalité au lendemain de la Guerre froide.

This book tells the story of how Central and Eastern Europe became part of the Soviet empire. It explains how did this strange empire consolidate, how did it start declining and how it did fall apart in 1989. Even most importantly, this book explores how Soviet-ruled Eastern Europe strove to develop and implement its own pattern of modernization, and then, following the fall of the Iron Curtain, spent some two and a half decades posing as a kind of pupil of the West. The central argument of this book is that over the last years “transgression” of the liberal democratic model has become an increasingly popular response to the overall failure to catch up with the standards of living of Western Europe, a response fueled in part by disenchantment and national bias. To put is shortly: history is back. There is no way to catch up what is going on in the region without a deep understanding of the historical processes of the recent past.

»Das Volk will den Sturz des Regimes!« Unvergessen bleibt der Ruf der Menschen in Ägypten nach Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung, der im Jahr 2011 durch die Straßen Kairos hallte. Auf theoretisch innovative und interdisziplinäre Weise kombiniert Imad Mustafa strukturelle, netzwerktheoretische, konstruktivistische und kommunikative Aspekte des Transitionsprozesses zur umfassenden Untersuchung der revolutionären Mobilisierung säkularer Netzwerke sowie der konfliktiven Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Regime und der Muslimbruderschaft. So zeigt er auf, dass Demokratisierung ein widersprüchlicher und schwieriger Prozess ist, an dessen Ende die Re-Autoritarisierung der Politik stehen kann.

Twenty-five years after the emergence of the Other Serbia, this intellectual circle still remains an unexplored topic. It is often used as a mean for political disqualification, due to the fact that their ideas were never analyzed with structural and historical determinants taken into consideration. In order to do this, and provide an answer to the broad question, what Other Serbia is, this research used interpretivist approach with special emphasis on close-reading and historical method. The historical and structural determinants were subsumed into four ‘critical junctures’, Belgrade’s student rebellion in 1968, the 1974 Constitution, the 1986 Memorandum and the war as a direct trigger for the emergence of this intellectual circle. The main ideas identified are the anti-war platform (normative and analytical part), the struggle against collectivism and the struggle for modernization. They chose particular ideas, radically different in every sense from those embraced by the dominant nationalist intellectuals. This happened due to the public isolation they were subjected to, the context of war, and the fact that they represented intellectual counter-elite that sought to delegitimize the dominant intellectual elite, their position, as well as the factual foundation they were building it upon.

В монографии анализируются наиболее значимые тенденции и этапы новейшей политической истории, политической модернизации и демократизации Бразилии с 1960-х гг. по 2006 г. В центре анализа – особенности вызревания и эволюции демократического проекта, своеобразие старта демократизации, «демократического прорыва», а затем и эпохи консолидации демократии в крупнейшей латиноамериканской стране. Дан анализ дебатов в бразильской академической среде по проблемам демократизации, поставторитарного развития и по кардинальным аспектам эволюции страны за последние два десятилетия. Рассмотрены выявленные бразильским опытом модернизации и демократизации существенные черты поставторитарной эволюции. Показаны особенности бразильского варианта такого многопланового феномена политического развития Латинской Америки последних лет, как так называемый «левый поворот». Изучен пласт проблем, связанных с возможностями и критериями сравнительного анализа Бразилии и России как «стран-гигантов».Монография является итогом многолетних исследований автора по проблемам демократического транзита, эволюции политической системы Бразилии.