What can Arab countries learn from the post-communist transition? MEDPRO Commentary, 31 May 2012

More than a year has passed since the start of the political uprising against the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. But, as demonstrated by the ongoing unrest in Syria, the process is far from over. Meanwhile, nations that have already rid themselves of their authoritarian rulers (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen), must decide where to go now and how to manage their political and economic transitions. To a lesser extent, a similar challenge is being faced by those constitutional monarchies (such as Morocco or Jordan) that accelerated reforms in order to avoid political destabilisation.   Many politicians and experts, especially those from Central and Eastern Europe, suggest that their Arab colleagues should learn from the post‐communist transition of the early 1990s. However, while learning from others’ experience is always a useful exercise, the geopolitical and socio‐economic context of the Arab revolution appears to be different, in many respects, from that of former Soviet bloc countries more than twenty years ago.

Low key but not low impact: the results of the EU's 'transition' summit. EPC Post-Summit Analysis, 27 October 2014

The European Council Summit of 23-24 October 2014 may have been relatively low key, but many important decisions were made which could encourage historical changes. In this post-summit analysis, Janis A. Emmanouilidis examines the agreement reached on a new climate and energy policy framework for 2020-2030 which despite falling short of the European Commission’s original proposals, it nevertheless delivers a positive message to international community ahead of the global climate negotiations next year. He also highlights the significance of the request from euro-zone leaders for a new report on ‘better economic governance’ by December. More broadly, he uses this moment of transition in the EU’s leadership to analyse the current state and future direction of the Union, and underlines the need to provide a coherent and holistic response to the damage caused by the crisis and the challenges facing the Union, on the basis of an ambitious but pragmatic ‘package deal’ – a new pact between EU governments, and between the Union and its citizens – to heal the divisions of recent years and restore public faith in the benefits of EU membership.

The Weakness of Post-Communist Civil Society Reassessed. CES Papers - Open Forum #11, 2012

During the last two decades, scholars from a variety of disciplines have argued that civil society is structurally deficient in post-communist countries. Yet why have the seemingly strong, active and mobilized civic movements of the transition period become so weak after democracy was established? And why have there been diverging political trajectories across the post-communist space if civil society structures were universally weak? This paper uses a wide range of data from various available sources to show that civil societies in Central and Eastern European countries are not as feeble as is commonly assumed. Some post-communist countries possess vigorous public spheres, and active civil society organizations strongly connected to transnational civic networks able to shape domestic policies. Following the calls by Anheier (2004) and Bernhard and Karakoç (2007) we adopt a multidimensional approach to the measurement of civil society. In a series of cross-section timeseries models, we show that our broader measures of civic and social institutions are able to predict the diverging transition paths among post-communist regimes, and in particular the growing gap between democratic East Central Europe and the increasingly authoritarian post-Soviet space.