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Ideologically committed to the neoclassical notion of "market discipline," the neoliberal regime is argued to promote principles of ethno-cultural neutrality and to create a level-playing field for all individuals regardless of race, class, gender, or other marker of minority status. However, in practice, neoliberal policies have increased the incidence of economic marginalization among lower and middle socio-economic classes in Europe, and have contributed to growing tensions between cultural majorities and ethnic minority groups. While similar sentiments associated with the rise of nationalism in nineteenth century Europe clearly predate the neoliberal era, in this paper I argue that neoliberal policies, backed by European Union institutions, have created material conditions which have exposed and widened structural incompatibilities between the notions of state and nation. Since the 1990s, these incompatibilities have legitimized the resurgence of radical nationalist sentiment within European nation-states, creating a favorable terrain for the populist rise of far-right factions. In lieu of promoting ethno-cultural neutrality, neoliberal policies have weakened liberal and social principles of inclusion, and have eroded welfare state provisioning systems in European democracies. They have fueled what Thorstein Veblen (1923, 28) referred to as "unreasoning habits of national conceit, fear, hate, contempt, and servility." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prospects for young people in Europe look bleak. The ‘social condition’ of young people is characterised by experiences of exclusion, and a sense of betrayal and anger at having been ‘sacrificed’ by the older generation. Many more young people, from more diverse backgrounds and perspectives, are now exposed to precarious social circumstances. Spontaneous and planned ‘riots’ and urban protest have displayed the anger and the anxieties of youth in Europe. How young people will continue to respond to these conditions is clearly a matter for conjecture and there is a range of possibilities. The democratic imperative is by no means certain. This paper advances a scenario in which historically socially disadvantaged youth may connect with newly intellectually disaffected young people to produce either more toxic or more creative alliances amongst the young. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Successful governance of multiethnic democracies and advancement of social and political equity for minorities in Europe are well-recognized goals. As has been noted recently in the activities of the Working Group on Democratic Governance of Multi-ethnic Communities of the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe (NISPAcee), The importance of finding effective long-term solutions to the management of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic difference and reduction of conflict in the region is without question. Strengthening the capacity of the public and NGO sectors to manage diversity is an essential step to improving governance and service delivery in general. Sustained attention to issues of diversity require long term capacity building through public administration education in addition to current efforts to reform laws and intervene in existing conflicts. The challenge has drawn attention from many sectors and is being tackled in a wide range of ways (Brintnall, 2004; Kovacs, 2002). Solutions have been viewed variously, and often simultaneously, as a matter of law (Weller, 2005), as a matter of education (Tibbetts, 2002), as one of social psychology, community organizing, and social integration (Danchin and Cole, 2002; Petrova, 2002), as a matter of new policy and institution building (Ablyatifov, 2004; Krizsán, 2004; Marinova, 2005), and as one of reform of governance (Gal, 2002). The issue is genuinely multidimensional. This paper explores what the civil service can contribute to achieving these goals, and particularly the role that education and training for public administration can play. It reports on a survey of public administration education and training programs in the region intended to learn how they approach this problem and what progress they are making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction refers to the Across Nations project and describes its evolution in the Cross-National Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training Program (CONSIRT). In this context all of the authors contributing articles to this issue of the International Journal of Sociology performed their work. CONSIRT uses the European Social Survey for research and training purposes, and all of the studies presented here are based on data from this survey. The articles ask the following questions: What are the determinants of trust in democratic institutions? How is trust among religious minorities affected by the size of the religious majority? Does trust influence political participation? To what extent does fear of crime depend on crime rates and the experience of victimization? And what mechanisms determine the level of women's involvement in housework? The first three articles deal with trust, the fourth with fear, and the fifth with the issue of micro-inequality. This introduction situates the five articles within the larger project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this cross-national study, soft political-protest behavior is defined as participation in a legal demonstration, signing a petition, or contacting government officials. We find that in Europe in 2006 (1) the proportion of political protesters is significantly higher in old democracies than in the new, predominantly postcommunist, democracies, and (2) the greater the income inequality in both old and new democracies, the lower the proportion of political protesters. These two regularities, established for country-level data, hold even if the democracy index and gross domestic product per capita are controlled. Using individual-level data, we find that in all countries included in the European Social Survey trust in both parliament and social position positively influences the probability of individuals' protest behavior. Combining both levels of analysis, we pay particular attention to the effects of two macro-characteristics: old/new democracies and income inequality. Both of these characteristics prove to be significant predictors of soft political-protest behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contest to define ‘democracy’ has become a fundamental concern of global politics. As Noam Chomsky has argued, the guardians of world order have sought to establish democracy in one sense of the term, while blocking it in others. The article interrogates the theoretical and material underpinnings of the great-power-defined agenda of democratisation. It argues that the democratisation project seeks to constitute (neo)liberal polities with a procedural notion of democracy, through coveted transformations in three domains: the minimal ‘neutral’ state, the liberal public sphere or ‘civil society’, and the liberal ‘self’. The impetus to constitute African social relations in its own particular image may be attributable to liberalism's universalist pretensions. But ideas have materiality. Liberal democracy qua liberalism maintains a strong historical association with the birth and evolution of the modern capitalist world. The article contends that the democratisation project endeavours to reproduce within Africa (and elsewhere) the patterns of transformation that characterised the transition to capitalist modernity in north-west Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the issues of lustration and democratization in East-Central Europe. Contribution of lustration to the consolidation of democracy; Reconstruction of the definitions of lustration and democratization; Moral and legal controversies associated with the issue of dealing with the past; Three main types of democracy.

The perceptions of Europe by Israelis are interesting subjects in themselves. The principal findings, researchers have first to state that in the eyes of respondents there is something that can be called Europe. This Europe is not a uniform entity or a well-integrated whole; as sociologist Max HaIler described, Europe represents a diversity of cultures, socioeconomic developments, and regimes. It is the relatedness of these diverse realities that makes up the distinctiveness of Europe as a concept. In the eyes of the Israeli respondents, the major aspect of the notion of Europe is culture. This culture is not homogeneous, but its dominant aspect is the fact that it constitutes a major focus, if not the focus, of reference for the whole world; as such it is associated with cultivation itself. Moreover, for the Israelis the variety of languages and heritages one finds in Europe conveys a common body of values and symbols, and this is what is meant by European culture. At the center of this set of values and symbols there is the theme of democracy. The notion of "Europe," though, does not only mean "culture"; it is also a political-historical entity that has witnessed a great deal of internal strife and ambitions of conquest and world domination; European states and armies have shown the most barbaric behavior. Israelis are especially sensitive to European anti-Semitism and the history of persecutions that culminated in the Holocaust.

Investigates the interaction between people and junior officials in various government sectors in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Public perceptions on the use of bribes and connections; Impact of public sector corruption to economic efficiency and civil rights records of new democracies.