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Tag: Society

“The village of war widows”: how women in Kosovo rebuilt life after war

Among financial insecurity and taboos, 27 years on, the challenges facing survivors of Kosovo’s war serve as a warning for other conflicts.

January 14, 2026 - Lola García-Ajofrín

From Bologna to Kutaisi: Georgia’s university “reform” undermines its European path

Higher education in Georgia has long been viewed as an integral part of the country’s European integration. Despite this, new reforms proposed by Georgian Dream threaten not only these connections but the very independence of the system itself.

December 23, 2025 - Giorgi Odoshashvili Nino Dolidze Tamar Gamkrelidze

Czechia between 1989 and 2025: From Velvet hopes to right-wing populism

The recent elections in the Czech Republic appear to offer a clear contrast to the values that once enthused the population as it threw off socialism. Despite this, the current situation on the ground is not so clear cut, with a variety of issues impacting how Czechs view their position at home and abroad.

December 19, 2025 - Pavlína Janebová

Slovenia’s security paradox: from UN leadership to domestic regression

Slovenia's shift on internal security risks turning a diplomatic triumph into a European vulnerability.

December 12, 2025 - Mensur Haliti

Inside a new Cold War brewing in an Eastern European capital

How decades of geopolitical conflict between Latvia and Russia have resulted in an internal crisis for the young Russian-speaking minority in Riga.

June 12, 2025 - Athan Yanos

Where do Ukrainians find the strength to stand?

Hope and anxiety are the two feelings that Ukrainians are experiencing the most during the current war. A recent survey shows that for 55 per cent of Ukrainians, the strongest feeling that they were experiencing at the end of 2024 was hope. Anxiety came in second with 45 per cent.

The winter of 1948. Europe is returning back to normal life after the years of the Second World War. European nations are preparing to conclude the Brussels Pact. Formally known as the Treaty of Brussels, this agreement was signed on March 17th 1948 by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In other words, these were the members of the Western Union, which operated as an expansion of the Treaty of Dunkirk.

May 6, 2025 - Olha Vorozhbyt

Countering FIMI. A review of seven countries under the Beacon Project

Last year, the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Beacon Project did a comprehensive study to understand foreign information manipulation and interference in various European countries (as well as Taiwan). The results show different approaches, but also common lessons that can and should be applied to strengthen democratic resilience against growing these increasing threats.

January 15, 2025 - Oktawian Milewski

The return of ideology

Russia and Iran are well known for their traditionalist politics both at home and abroad. Despite this, questions still remain as to how these outlooks are supported and maintained over time. It appears that deeply rooted social factors are responsible for this reality.

February 16, 2024 - David Hallbeck

Why Russians still regret the Soviet collapse

In 2019, a Levada Centre poll revealed that 66 per cent of Russians regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union while just a quarter did not. This represented an increase of 11 per cent in ten years. In the same time, Russia’s economy shrank by 23.2 per cent. The most stated, and consistent, reason for regret was the “destruction of a unified economic system”.

On December 25th 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev admitted defeat live on Russian television. The red flag came down from the Kremlin after more than 70 years. Thirty years later, Muscovites found themselves voting in a referendum on whether to restore Felix Dzerzhinsky’s statue to Lubyanka Square (headquarters of the FSB, formerly the KGB). Its toppling symbolised the rejection of Soviet socialism and a repudiation of the October 1917 revolution, which few initially believed in. Yet since 1991, a clear majority of Russians have consistently regretted the USSR’s collapse.

April 25, 2022 - James C. Pearce

Uncovering the paradoxes of values in Ukrainian Society

This past February was seven years since the climax of the Maidan and the sniper shootings. From today’s perspective those events are intrinsically connected to the attempted annexation of Crimea by Russia and its aggression in eastern Ukraine. When we now ask people about their feelings to those events, we cannot disregard everything we now know and all that has happened since.

Different values and attitudes and their prevalence in different societies are probably one of the most popular topics to study in social science in general and sociology in particular. Quite often we even tend to think about other societies in terms of cultural stereotypes. Data collected from a number of surveys and opinion polls over the last two years suggest some noticeable changes towards values and attitudes within Ukrainian society. Eighteen per cent of people in Ukraine think they are very happy and 60 per cent see themselves as rather happy, according to the latest edition of the World Value Survey; these numbers are 10 per cent higher than the previous edition in 2011. Similar trends are seen in other surveys with different methodologies.

June 23, 2021 - Anna Osypchuk

Incident. Or three short essays on solidarity

In the absence of civic traditions and positive social capital, society often organises itself along mafia-style norms. Ukrainian society after communism developed in two different ways: it developed mafia structures centred on the post-communist authorities, as well as grass-root civic networks as an alternative to these hierarchies. Every Ukrainian revolution since then can be seen as a clash of two different projects of state-nation building.

July 7, 2020 - Mykola Riabchuk

How the coronavirus may force us into an existential crisis

The coronavirus could become a catalyst for a systemic transformation of the multipolar order, like the collapse of the Berlin Wall was to the bipolar order. It has further highlighted the limitations of binary systems based on any one-size-fits-all models. Neoliberalism teaches that humans are rational fools motivated by self-interest, but the dual-threat of coronavirus and climate change illustrates the need for a new paradigm, one in which individuals are encouraged to achieve balance between love of self and love for society.

April 21, 2020 - Epidamn Zeqo

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