Clear and comprehensive, the 6th edition of Central and East European Politics: Changes and Challenges offers an authoritative and up-to-date analysis of the transformations and realities in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Ukraine.
Featuring a set of comparative country case studies as well as thematic chapters on key issues, this new edition includes updates surrounding the effects of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on politics across the region, the rise of new centers of power for the region, and the continued challenges of sustainable democratic governance following the rise of influence in populism and illiberal political movements.

This book explores the lessons that can be gleaned through a look from the East Central European experience of dissent for dissent and resistance as general modern phenomena.

Lessons from the Revolutions of 1989 in East Central Europe has a two-fold purpose: (1) to teach about, in an accessible way, the East Central European culture of dissent, and (2) to explore connections between that time and place and our own post-1989 globalized world where dissent and resistance are more prominent and necessary than ever. Scholars of the pre-1989 East Central European culture of dissent do not, as a matter of course, look for lessons in their subject, and the scarcity of scholarly literature that explores this angle only confirms our point. At the same time, this avoidance, perhaps for good methodological reasons, does seem rather odd. Why not try to draw lessons-for us in the here and now-from studying the cultural-historical space of pre-1989 East Central Europe? This question seems especially important given that the intellectual dissidents did not think that what was happening in their time and place was isolated from the modern world as a whole: they thought that there were lessons to be drawn for the "West" from the experience of the "East."

Exposes the inner workings of Orban's Hungary and assesses how his style of politics has affected states and electorates worldwide.

How did a simple boy from the Hungarian countryside end up leading political life in his country for decades? How, as Prime Minister of a small Central European state, did he become one of the most influential illiberal rulers in the world? How and why did Hungary turn into a neo-authoritarian laboratory? And what geopolitical game is Viktor Orban playing between continental alliances and global powers?

This book is a political biography of Orban, but also offers first-hand historical analysis of Hungary post-1989. What started as an imperfect, albeit fully-fledged, democracy has been replaced by a new constitutional system. Orban's Hungary is a constantly radicalising electoral autocracy, with two intertwined role models: Putin's Russia and Trump's new America.

The Orban Enigma explains how Hungarian democratic backsliding has become a hot-button issue for the Western political community; and charts how, over the course of fifteen years, the Orban regime has ushered in illiberal rule while maintaining Hungary's global connections via the EU and NATO. Stefano Bottoni's timely study reminds us that democracy dies if it loses its spirit and civic commitment.

A kaleidoscopic portrait of Georgia's capital city since 1989.

Located on Europe's periphery, at the edge of Asia, Tbilisi has always been a crossroads of culture, peoples and politics. From architecture to art, protest to religion, nationalism to language, this book offers a pen portrait of the modern Georgian capital-a city where old and new live side by side in restless harmony.

Tbilisi has played an outsize role in modern global politics. Beginning in 1989, Maximilian Hess shows how the city's experiences over the last four decades shed light on the historical, political and cultural forces shaping the world today. Momentous events in Tbilisi helped drive the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this was where the neoliberal era of the early 2000s found its firmest foothold. The city's post-Soviet years also foreshadowed the devastation that Russian interference and aggression have now brought to Ukraine, while the rise and subsequent dominance of a Georgian billionaire-turned-politician have clear echoes across the Atlantic.

Delving into Tbilisi's remarkably great influence on contemporary music and the arts, Hess showcases the intriguing capital's entrepot nature, and its turbulent recent history. This is a place which blurs the lines between the real and the imagined; between past and present, East and West.

Almost a million Russians went into exile after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

This study reveals how dissident activism continues in the face of repression. This book captures the largest post-Soviet exodus in Russian history, triggered by the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Through hundreds of interviews, the authors trace the journeys of those who fled Russia-crossing the steppes of Kazakhstan, the mountains of Armenia and Georgia, and even the Atlantic-in search of safety, belonging and peace.

Rejected by their homeland and confronted by global suspicion, these wartime exiles face the challenge of defining what it means to be Russian in an era of war and authoritarian retrenchment. Many turn to action as a path forward: mutual aid, support for Ukraine, anti-war activism. For others, survival is the priority.

Set against the backdrop of a shifting global order-renewed Great Power politics, tightening borders and migrant fatigue-Sudden Departures gives voice to a diaspora in motion. These stories offer a rare ground-level lens on exile, resistance and the high personal costs of standing against Putin's regime.

Despite its centrality to so many of our life choices, the question of what it means to live a successful life has been a neglected topic within philosophy.

The Pursuit of Success: A Philosophical Examination of Happiness, Well-Being, and Meaning in Life suggests that both our commonsense and philosophical assumptions about success focus on external achievements and overlook the importance of happiness to achieving success in life. Drawing from Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, the Stoics, and other ancient moral thinkers, Christine Vitrano addresses our misguided assumptions about success, which have led us to relentlessly pursue external goods and achievements at the expense of our own happiness.

Vitrano defends the view that the key to living successfully is to find happiness, arguing that everything else we typically associate with success is important only insofar as it contributes to happiness. She criticizes contemporary philosophers who emphasize the importance of activities that are objectively valuable or meaningful and proposes that just as it is a mistake to associate success with external goods like wealth and material possessions, it is also a mistake to place restrictions on how one finds happiness in life.

How did Putin co-opt Russia's political and economic elites, ensuring no more than fitful resistance to the regime's war on Ukraine?

When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the West slapped crushing sanctions on Russia. Many expected the country's elite-prominent liberals and global businessmen-to defend their assets and cosmopolitan lifestyles by forcing Putin to stop the war. Instead, liberal-minded officials rewired the economy for war; corporations obeyed new rules; and only a handful resigned or spoke out. Why?

Built on dozens of candid conversations with top Russian officials and businessmen since the mid-2010s, this book dissects their moral reasoning, and how their boundaries of ethical acceptability expanded over time, in line with the expectations of their superiors. Though the Russian upper class retained formal attributes of power, in reality it lost its agency, essentially becoming a mere instrument of governance.

Alexandra Prokopenko illuminates the war's pivotal moments: Western sanctions, mass mobilisation, the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, and Yevgeny Prigozhin's aborted mutiny in 2023. She traces meticulously how competing factions, from technocrats to hawks, rationalised each shock and recalibrated their loyalties. And she sets this process within an inside history of Putin's regime, analysing the transformation of mindset at individual and sociological levels. These people will continue influencing global politics; we must understand how they think and act.

Since the mid-1990s, the perspective on Belarus that Western authors have been guided by has been the promotion of democracy and the perceived necessity to fight the authoritarian regime. However, repeated failure in this area has called attention to the inadequacy of the research informing this approach. This book considers the fundamental issue of handling society pervaded by a schism or fundamental disunion in terms of values and geopolitical issues.
Belarus in the Time of Crisis considers the societal split between the pro-Russian and pro-Western Belarusians, the relationships between these two segments of society, and the Belarusian political regime to be the internal factors of political change in Belarus. In contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's war in Ukraine, and the Western sanctions imposed on Belarus are the external factors. As a relatively small country squeezed between the two centers of power, Russia and the European Union, Belarus has always stood out for the exceptional role of external influences on all aspects of its existence.

In the two decades since the attack on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, a new world has taken shape-one defined by endless war, mass surveillance, and militarisation. Season of Wolves is a sweeping and urgent account of how this post-9/11 age of brutality was born, and how it continues to shape our lives today.

From the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya and Syria, Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou traces the international reverberations of the so-called 'War on Terror' and the political, economic, and cultural transformations it unleashed. He examines the rise of militarised foreign policy, the securitisation of everyday life, the global surge in authoritarianism, and the invasive creep of technology into the most private corners of our lives.

Drawing on decades of research and a truly global perspective, Season of Wolves is both a damning indictment of the post-9/11 governance and a crucial guide to understanding how we got here-and what must change.

Drawing on empirical case studies, leading scholars discuss the global and regional implications of this developing rivalry, covering key topics including regime security, the technological race, US-China competition in international institutions, Beijing's role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the challenges that Canada faces in the US-China rivalry, the fragility of the US-South Korea alliance, and strategic choices that East Asian democracies have to take amid the US-China rivalry. In an era of intensified great power competition, strategic realignments and growing uncertainty, this book considers how the US-China rivalry is reshaping international governance institutions and norms, fracturing economic and technological networks and reconfiguring alliances across the globe.

The US-China Rivalry is a valuable resource for scholars, students and researchers of international relations, political science, international economics and Asian politics. It is also beneficial for policymakers and government officials seeking to formulate effective policies and strategies in the areas of diplomacy, trade and technology.

By examining how three American national security institutions (the U.S. Army, Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development) adapted to address unexpected and unfamiliar post-combat crises, this book reveals the four shared techniques which led to their success.

Focusing on topics such as crisis response, adaptation, pragmatic policy solutions, and personal relationships, Jeremy Kasper introduces four pivotal case studies which examine how national security institutions responded to post-combat operations in Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, and Afghanistan between 1983-2008.

This book gives a key account of the soldiers, diplomats, and foreign aid practitioners who responded to unexpected crises during post-conflict reconstruction - a dynamic, unfamiliar, and complex mission far outside their respective organization's core mission. Focusing on how bureaucracies struggled to apply the diplomatic, military, and economic dimensions of national power in pursuit of U.S. policy goals, this book ultimately exposes institutional forgetfulness, such that hard-won lessons did little to shape subsequent crises.

Examines how contemporary populism in the United States is the political expression of an underlying cultural decadence.

By scrutinizing both the far left and the far right, and seeing them as sharing the same locus classicus, this book offers concrete recommendations for engaging in genuinely inclusive language that gets Americans back to doing the hard work that liberal democracy demands. With a new theoretical framework, built upon an exploration of cultural decadence and postmodern communication technology, O'Keefe brings a fresh approach to the field of populism studies. Both progressive and traditional-minded readers will be better equipped to engage with and understand the causes and draws of populism in today's increasingly polarized political culture.

For over a century, the Anti-Defamation League has been regarded as one of the most prominent civil rights watchdogs in the United States, dedicated to fighting white supremacy, antisemitism, and extremism. Its data informs law enforcement. Its trainings shape classrooms. And its talking points influence the headlines.

But behind the ADL's progressive image lies a very different reality. The Anti-Defamation League: A Critical Reader brings together a collective of scholars, organizers, and activists to expose the ADL as a deeply reactionary and conservative force in American politics. From its roots in a Cold War-era framework of Western supremacy and settler colonialism, to its modern day support for militarized policing, surveillance, and the repression of Palestinian rights, the ADL has long advanced a vision of justice rooted in empire, not liberation.

Contributors trace how the ADL has weaponized the charge of antisemitism to shield itself from criticism, silence dissent, and undermine movements for racial justice, Palestinian freedom, and collective safety. As the call to #DropTheADL grows louder, so too does the need for urgent reflection and action.

An intimate portrait of Estonia and all things Estonian from the UK's ambassador, as entertaining as it is informative.

Near the top of most international league tables comes a surprising name: Estonia. This small country has many brilliant achievements to its name which can and should inspire the rest of the world: top globally in both environmental performance and human rights; the second-biggest per capita donor to Ukraine, after Denmark; second globally in digital government; home to more tech unicorns per capita than any other state; and boasting the best exam results in Europe. Estonia has the best tax system (seven years in a row!) and the world's most performed living classical composer. All underpinned by a deep commitment to freedom.

Ross Allen, UK Ambassador in Tallinn and a fluent Estonian-speaker, explores how this country has come to excel in so many fields, and what the rest of the world could learn from it. He offers insights from his diplomatic work, but also shares his embrace of local culture, from song festivals to smoke saunas. Having travelled across Estonia's towns, villages, islands and bogs, his understanding of and enthusiasm for this relatively obscure country shine through.

With elements of travel, history, geography and international politics, this highly enjoyable book will make you see Estonia and the Baltics in a new light.

In the late 2010s, the Portuguese immunity to the far right came to a sudden end at the 2019 general elections, after the election of Chega's leader - Andre Ventura - to the Assembly of the Republic. In 2025, Chega became the second party with the largest parliamentary representation after securing 23 per cent of the vote and transformed the bipolar party system observed since 1974. This book is the first in-depth examination of the new Portuguese far-right party - Chega, whose ascension prompted a watershed in Portuguese politics.

Overall, the Portuguese case study suggests that no country is immune to the emergence of far-right parties or to their quick normalisation in the national party system. Secondly, this investigation highlights the absence of a rule that fits all cases to understand far-right parties' electoral breakthroughs or their consolidation at the national level. Drawing upon qualitative and quantitative data, the book's contents examine the new Portuguese far-right party according to different perspectives following the dichotomy of political supply and political demand.

This book will appeal to undergraduate students, postgraduate researchers, and scholars interested in topics such as South European politics, the far right, populism, and comparative politics.

American political history has a rhythm and a progression. Part of that progression is White populist anger and resentment. The Forgotten Man and White Populist Resentment: Power, Politics, and Narrative Dominance in the Trump Era traces how this White populism rose to dominate the Republican Party primary base, how the populist campaigns of Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich paved the way for the rise of Donald Trump, and how he maintains narrative dominance over both parties and American political discourse.

Elites in Britain were the focus of resentment in the Revolutionary Era, as they presumed to tell the colonists that they were subject to taxes and domination of Great Britain. By the 1850s, populist resentment was transferred to the national government because it told the freedom-loving, individual liberty-defending, slave-owning South that slavery was evil and would not be allowed to spread into the west. Both before and after suffering defeat, the poor White Southern male was told that he was equal with the elites of the Southern slave aristocracy because both are White and superior to all Blacks.

This resentment found a new iteration when the national government, using the power of the courts and the army, ended a century of Jim Crow forcing the White voters in Congressman Jim Jordan's flyover country to live with Blacks as equals under the law. In 1969, Newsweek famously depicted the "Forgotten American" in this new social-engineered America and the resentment of the imposed change in the cultural society the White voter was required to live in by the late 1960s. These voters resented that the America they now lived in was not the one they grew up in. The loss of "their" America was attributed to the federal government being controlled by social elites in Washington D.C. as well as Wall Street elites who in the 1990s asserted free trade and moved the factory jobs of the forgotten man overseas.

Presenting a clear and accessible narrative around the development of white populism and its resentment that shapes the narratives and rhetoric of the Trump era, this book is crucial for understanding the domestic and foreign policy initiatives of "America First" and "Make America Great Again."

This book explores the complex web of Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs) - defined as deliberate efforts by state and non-state actors to manipulate public opinion and emotions using digital technologies - that intersect with political ambitions to create a complex environment ripe for manipulation.

Drawing from extensive research and case studies, the book examines how actors ranging from authoritarian regimes to extremist groups such as ISIS, and even political entities in democratic countries, leverage digital platforms to further their agendas. As such, it provides a comprehensive overview of SDIOs, their evolving tactics, and implications for democracy, governance, and international relations. It examines the diverse tactics employed by these actors, from spreading half-truths and distractions to leveraging historical and religious narratives in the form of conspiracy theories or non-conspiracy narratives, aiming to control the discourse and shape the online environment to their advantage. This research challenges the conventional focus on disinformation, highlighting the shift toward more sophisticated and less discernible means of digital manipulation globally, and argues that SDIOs have become a pivotal tool for influencing public opinion, shaping political narratives, and even undermining democratic processes.

This book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in communications/media studies, political sociology, comparative politics, security studies, political science, and international politics.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

The Mnemonic Warriors of the European Far Right is a comparative analysis of the politics and policy of memory as seen through the conceptual lens of Pierre Nora's lieux de memoire. More specifically, the research in this volume is carried out through the prism of national-populist and conservative-sovereignist narratives in the Western, Central, and Eastern European public sphere. The overall aim of this book is to examine how the European populist far right, both the governing elites and those operating on the fringes of mainstream politics, has adopted the instrumentalization of 20th-century authoritarian and totalitarian lieux de memoire to boost their political legitimacy. The contributors to this volume explore critically the interplay between politics and collective memory, the role of historical myths in shaping collective consciousness, and the manipulation mechanisms of political communication aimed at monopolizing the "real" memory of the past. They explore how different and sometimes mutually exclusive narratives about "places of memory" interact in the public sphere of societies that have experienced non-democratic regimes in their history. This volume will be of interest to researchers of European history and politics, the far right, populism, and memory studies.

This book analyses and reveals evidence of changing patterns and processes of democratic or autocratic direction at subnational levels (provinces and cities) along with their relationship to those at central level.

With Poland as a case study, the book examines the interrelationship between national and lower territorial levels and identifies and explains reasons for emerging democratic deficit. It argues that decentralisation processes constitute an opportunity for subnational authorities to become more democratic but also more autocratic, as they may enhance the divergence in democracy levels between different territorial tiers of governance.

This book is of key interest to students and scholars of democratisation studies, local and regional politics, Central and East European politics, local government and policymaking.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

This cutting-edge collection of essays analyzes the pivotal year of 1989 and the transformation processes that resulted from a historical perspective. It takes the events of that momentous year as a pivot to explore longer-term processes of economic, social, political, and cultural transformation linked to the rise of neoliberalism and globalization since the 1970s and enduring until now.

Referencing the work of Karl Polanyi, the handbook advances four main arguments: that the "great transformation" presented here started earlier than 1989; that its legacies linger in spaces, practices, and objects; that in order to grasp the scale of what happened around 1989, it is important to bring Eastern and Central Europe into conversation with other global regions; and that the former Eastern Bloc served as an important node in a larger, global transformation. Insisting on the "Second World's" place in the global history of the past five decades, this handbook challenges straightforward core-periphery dichotomies. The contributions to this volume provide different case studies-some national, some comparative, some international or global-each illustrating particular trends and developments.

The handbook is directed at students and scholars of contemporary history of East Central Europe, of global and economic history, and at scholars of sociology, anthropology, and political science interested in post-1989 transformation, neoliberalism, and globalization.

Contributors highlight several opportunities presented by the increased use of digital co-production, such as reducing information asymmetry, improving co-design, making participation more inclusive, and enhancing scalability. They also draw attention to various risks, from the potential reduction of physical interaction to the rejection of responsibility and reinforced inequalities. Chapters explore the challenges and contradictions of digital co-production as a distinct mode of interaction between public services and citizens. Synthesising key insights, the book ultimately recommends ways in which digital co-production can be managed most effectively by discussing a range of tools and methods, including artificial intelligence, behavioural nudging and digital platforms.

This book is a valuable resource for scholars and students in the fields of public administration and management studies. Practitioners, especially those in public administrations experimenting with digital participation, will also greatly benefit from this book.

This book challenges the notion that strategic narratives, which carry soft power significance, are seamlessly projected to audiences. It offers the first book-length critical analysis of the non-linear dissemination of strategic narratives in the digital age, focusing on social media.

Through a case study of a Chinese state-aligned outlet's mediation of Russian broadcaster RT's videos and their remediation by Chinese social media users' danmu comments on Bilibili, it reveals disruptions by participatory media agents, including outlets and audiences. These multilayered mediations, driven by political and commercial agendas or online practices, yield unexpected benefits and challenges for narrative producers. The book's main argument is that state actors have little control over the dissemination of the strategic narratives they project in the digital age. The dissemination paths of these narratives are non-linear and involve multilayered mediations imposed by other political actors for their own political and commercial agendas, as well as mediations introduced by participatory audiences who impose their own online practices, conventions, and rituals onto the narratives.

A major intervention in the study of soft power projection through public diplomacy in the online era and the emerging geopolitical alliance between Russia and China, this interdisciplinary book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Media Studies, Russia-China relations, Political Communication, Digital Culture, and Studies of Russian politics and Chinese politics.

'Compelling .. a very interesting, challenging read' - Alastair Campbell, co-host of The Rest Is Politics

'Brilliant ... this is such a crucial book, and it's a book that had to be written. Everyone go and get it' - Owen Jones

'I cannot recommend it enough. A stunning work of data analysis proving the genocide incitement perpetrated by legacy liberal media' - Matthew Remski, co-author of Conspirituality

As bombs rained down on Gaza in October 2023, images of mass death and destruction gripped the world, and openly genocidal statements from Israeli leaders foretold the magnitude of horrors to come. But the US media was quick to downplay, obscure, and repackage an emerging campaign of extermination into a slick "war on terror" framework.

How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling-and, at times, directly inciting-one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitized Israel's war crimes, hid the US's central role, and dehumanized the Palestinian people.

Drawing from deep, original data-driven analysis, Johnson dissects the mechanics of propaganda, from the selective empathy, strategic omissions, overt racism and repetition of state-sanctioned falsehoods, to the demonization of humanitarian workers and dishonest coverage of campus protests. With clarity and moral force, Johnson argues that the genocide could not have been sustained without the active, sustained complicity of the US media.

All royalties from the book will be donated to the Middle East Children's Alliance.

We live in an age of counterrevolution. Liberal elites around the world are weaponising their fascistic narratives, creating political enemies of the 'other' as a means of consolidating even more power and wealth. While scapegoating minorities is nothing new, we have never seen it happen quite like this before.

Today, global capitalism is financialised, tech-driven and violently mercantilist. This collection of essays from leading researchers reveals new forms of the radical right, neo-nationalism, authoritarian neoliberalism, illiberalism and democratic backsliding.

Looking beyond the simplistic headlines, they reveal the deep systemic shifts that have been building for decades. Exploring India, Eastern Europe, the US, Argentina, Germany and more, Backlash draws the systemic connections between these seemingly nationalist movements, providing crucial information for those on the left looking for weaknesses in the terrifying rise of the right.

Media Literacy and E-Democracy in the EU examines the crucial role of media literacy in strengthening e-democracy within the European Union (EU).

In an era where digital media increasingly shape democratic processes, the EU faces both new opportunities and challenges in promoting active citizenship and transparent governance. This book explores how media education aimed at advancing digital media literacy can serve as the foundation for informed and responsible civic engagement, helping to build a more resilient democratic society. Drawing on a comprehensive analysis of current e-democracy initiatives in the EU, the book offers a fresh perspective on the relevance of media education to advance citizens' digital media literacy. It focuses on the EU due to its unique governance features and distinct digital policy framework. However, its insights and best practices are relevant globally, as media literacy and democratic engagement are universal challenges. The interplay between fast advancements of digitalisation of communication, media literacy and citizens' ability and willingness to participate actively in public affairs is examined in depth.

Interdisciplinary in approach, this book will interest students and scholars in political science, media studies, sociology and European studies, as well as policymakers and civil society actors focused on digital governance and civic engagement. Media professionals, journalists and educators will also find it valuable for understanding and shaping democratic participation in the digital age.