PECOB's Papers series

The main goal of this paper is to try to understand in what the Chinese cultural diplomacy consist of and to which extend it influence the perception central and eastern Europeans have in regards to China, taking into account also the economic aspect of the Chinese presence in that area.

Religion is back in Central Eastern Europe after a long experiment in Godlessness. The fall of communism was followed by a radically changed religious situation in the former Central East European block countries. Certainly, the post communist years were perturbed for most of the countries of Eastern Europe, especially for filling the spiritual desert that the fall of communism left behind. For Pope Benedict XVI, the real depredation that the communist regimes left behind was not economic. Instead, it consisted of the destruction of souls, and...

The search for a Third Way, intermediate between socialism and capitalism, began even before the birth of the Soviet Union, whose observed drawbacks encouraged a further search. There have been at least three alternative projects within this approach: (1) Market Socialism, combining public ownership, market allocation and socialist values of high employment, growth and equality. This was the target of many failed attempts at reforming the Soviet-type model, in the 1960s to the 1980s. Its best, though partial, embodiment is the Chinese economy circa 1980-2000. (2) The New Labour paradigm...

Since 1991, Russia has been searching for a niche for itself in the new European (Western) system. The various integrationist projects it has pro-moted in the post-Soviet space (Commonwealth of Independent States, Eurasian Economic Community, Collective Security Treaty Organization, Shanghai Cooperation Organization) suggest that it also seeks to create a system of its own there. This regional design, however, clashes with the European Union’s regional policies such as the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership. Tensions are heightened by the new in-dependent states as well, which often experienced periods of state weak-ness, economic instability and persistence of unresolved conflicts, exposing their vulnerability to external forces. The result of these dynamics is

The paper entitled "The EU’s “policy of engagement” in Belarus: another failure? " will focus on the most recent stage of EU-Belarus relations, from 2008 until 2012.

Although there were several kinds of cruelty during the Second World War, Yugoslavia and Hungary had close relations from 1945 to June 1948. However, everything was changed after the decision of the second meeting of Cominform. It had a great inference on Hungarian diplomacy toward Yugoslavia and Hungary took the lead in active anti-Yugoslav propaganda by Stalin during the late 1940’s and the first 1950’s.

The project of Yugoslavia has failed. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been broken down into seven new states in the bloody civil war in the beginning of the nineties of the twentieth century. Many experts were searching for the reason of disintegration of Yugoslavia. Was the authoritarian rule of Josip Broz Tito the main reason that was preventing the aspirations for breaking the Yugoslavia?

New “cold” winds seem to come back in international relations (Baker, 2014). Because of the events of Ukraine, relations between the United States (US) and Russia have been rapidly deteriorating.

The Iraqi war created a clash within the European Union between the so called “Old” and “New Europe”. This division was soon associated to another one, that between “Atlanticists” and “Europeanists”.

This paper examines the changes to street names and squares in Budapest since 2011, and the significance of those changes. The topics of national identity and the significance of public space in forming an identity will be examined in general, then as they apply in Hungary, and more specifically in Budapest.