When Poland went through its “shock therapy” years of the early 1990s, many people lost out as a result of the economic reforms. The unemployment rate went up rapidly from under one percent in January 1990 to over 16% in 1994. And even though the reformers had promised that the pain would be relatively brief,… Continue reading Organizing the Disappointed
At the beginning of the changes in 1989 in East-Central Europe, civil society activists were very interested in alternative approaches to economic development. They’d seen the failures of Soviet-style Communism up close, and they didn’t want to import the worst kind of McDonalds-style capitalism. In 1990, when I visited East German pastor and dissident Wolfgang… Continue reading Building a New Economy
When I travelled in the Transylvania region of Romania in 1993, relations between ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Romanians were still tense. There had been outright confrontation and violence in 1990, particularly in Targu Mures. By 1993, the conflict had largely migrated to the political realm. In Cluj – the old Hungarian town of Kolosvar –… Continue reading Speaking One’s Tongue
The social distance between Roma and non-Roma communities in Europe is quite large. In other words, there is not a great deal of mixing between the two communities. Applying the scale developed by Emory Bogardus in 1925 – which asks people questions about willingness to intermarry at one end to eagerness to deport at the… Continue reading Bridging Social Distance in Slovakia
When Communism collapsed in East-Central Europe, it should have been a golden opportunity for the Greens. Newly enfranchised voters were looking for something new. They were skeptical of old-style parties. For decades they’d been breathing polluted air, drinking polluted water, and suffering other consequences of unrestrained growth. Meanwhile, in Western Europe, “post-industrial” politics were becoming… Continue reading From Greens to Guns
Vaclav Havel wrote for the theater. When change came to Czechoslovakia in November 1989, the velvet revolutionaries of Prague met and planned in the Magic Lantern theater. The events of those ten days that shook the country unfolded like a massive, open-air performance, with dramatic speeches, a soundtrack provided by local bands, and a huge… Continue reading Creating a Spectacle
Solidarity was not just an opposition movement. With 10 million members – more than one quarter of the population of Poland in 1980 – it was an unprecedented phenomenon. The Communist governments had faced protests from individual dissidents and even from small groups like Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. There had also been reform efforts launched… Continue reading Solidarity After Solidarity
The Hungarian Guard, a far-right paramilitary organization founded in 2007, followed a pattern. It would solicit an invitation from someone in a village. Then it would show up to hold a rally or a paramilitary exercise. The Guard would specifically target villages with large Roma populations and justify its presence as an effort to protect… Continue reading Becoming a Leader
Several years before William Shakespeare wrote his first play, England was rocked by a bloody political scandal. Queen Elizabeth, the virgin monarch who had been on the throne for nearly three decades, was in a battle of wills with her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. England’s religious future was at stake. Would it stay Protestant,… Continue reading Kim the Third
The long-serving U.S. politico Tip O’Neill is credited with the observation that “all politics is local.” If a politician hopes to stay in power, he or she must connect with people at a local level and respond to the concerns of constituents. Trips to far-off places might be glamorous, but you win votes by fixing… Continue reading All Politics is Local