Publications / Tr@nsit Online

Tr@nsit Online

Tr@nsit was the online sister journal of Transit, published until 2017. Here, authors, fellows and friends of the IWM offered further articles, reflections and comments related to ongoing research and debates at the Institute.

What Became of the Soviet Dissidents?

Author: Keith Gessen, Masha Gessen
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A correspondence between Masha Gessen and her Brother Keith Gessen on the issues raised in his article about Soviet Dissidents living in the United States

Wer spaltet die Ukraine? Über die Wandlungsresistenz neopatrimonialer Systeme

Author: Claudia Šabi
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Glancing at the political situation of Ukraine the spectator remains rather helpless. The debacle of the call of early parliamentary elections for December 2008, which had to be postponed ever since, and the elites’ disability to build an efficient coalition after the Orange Revolution in 2004 led to various explanations of the ongoing crisis. Above all, cultural factors are used as an explanatory factor. Culture is said to be different in eastern and western Ukraine due to historic, ethnic and religious circumstances.

Solidarität – Ein Netzwerk von Zugehörigkeiten

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Krzysztof Michalski:  Unser Thema ist „internationale Solidarität“. Es geht um die Institutionen, die Mechanismen, die Solidarität fördern oder behindern. Wenn man mit der allgemeinen Frage anfängt, wie Institutionen es möglich oder mindestens leichter machen, dass Menschen sich helfen, dann gerät man sofort in zwei Spannungsfelder. Das eine ist, dass man Solidarität als Anschluss an eine Gemeinschaft versteht. Solidarität fördern heißt, Ausschlussmechanismen beseitigen – aber eben nicht alle. Sonst würde Solidarität inhaltsleer und der Begriff von „Wir“ wäre ganz entleert. Es gibt offensichtlich Formen des Zusammenhalts, mit denen Menschen einander helfen können, aber das umfasst eben nicht alle Menschen. Solidarität hebt Ausschlussmechanismen auf, aber sie macht unter Umständen dafür andere Ausschlussmechanismen stärker, Nationalität zum Beispiel. Wir sind nicht nur Menschen sondern auch Polen, wenn ich das so sagen darf. Und dann wäre da das zweite Spannungsfeld: zwischen Solidarität und individueller Freiheit.

Romania and the Balkans

Author: Sorin Atohi
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Romanian intellectuals, academics, writers, artists, and politicians have been “imagining the Balkans”, and have been reflecting on their own ambivalent connections to that part of the world over the past two centuries or so.

Returning to Reality: Culture, Modernization, and Various Eastern Europes. Why Functionalist-Evolutionary Theory Works

Author: Daniel Chirot
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Cultural anthropologists have largely given up on the notion that there has been social evolution, despite the uncomfortable fact that their archeological colleagues are faced with the reality of evolutionary stages all the time.

Poland’s Road to Europe in the Eyes of Public Opinion

Author: Jacek Kucharczyk
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In June 2000 the Institute of Public Affairs conducted an extensive survey of Polish public opinion on a wide-ranging set of issues related to Poland’s accession process. The present article aims to give the reader an overall view of the results as well as to verify some of the claims made during the above mentioned debates and political controversies.

Religion Today

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What is the place of religion in today’s society? People vigorously debate the question, whether religion is “retreating”. or “returning”. But two impressions seeem to have gained wide currency: (1) that our North Atlantic world is and will continue to be more secular and neutral in its public life, that is, that the public sphere is and will have to be more and more “neutral”, and religion more and more a “private” affair; and (2) that this world is marked by a more and more pronounced individualism, in all spheres, including the religious; so that large, structured churches will lose members. and the gap will be filled by a less structured spirituality.

Wieviel Gemeinschaft braucht die Demokratie?

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Im Folgenden möchte ich über die Voraussetzungen der Demokratie am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts nachdenken. Gleichzeitig möchte ich im Zuge dieser Überlegungen danach fragen, was wir heute unter dem Begriff “Demokratie” verstehen.