Study of Youth Activism in Post-Socialist Countries

• In Event: "Activism and Global Citizenship: Transnational Perspectives on Solidarity and Protest"

Proposal

The rise of the democratic systems of government in post-socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union set off a period of hope for the development of open, democratic civil societies (Carmin & Fagan, 2010; Szabo, 1994) but the transformation process has been uneven and diverse across the region. While some states have been adopting Western ideas of democracy and capitalism, joined NATO and the European Union; other states encountered much political turmoil and setbacks (Silova, 2009; Schwartz & Winkel, 2016).

In terms of youth and education, the post-socialist countries share many educational legacies and some early aspirations to embrace Western democratic educational values (Birzea, 1994; Silova, 2009). However, ‘the heterogenic developments in the following period brought about a high degree of pluralism in regard to young people, with various degrees of estrangement from and engagement in their countries’ politics’(Schwartz & Winkel, 2016, p. 7). Despite that, not much attention has been given to the analysis of youth activism (YA) in post-socialist countries. Furthermore, most of the studies in the field focus on student activism and there is a lack of research on YA in schools. A closer analysis of forms and causations of school-age youth activism is necessary to support curricular strategies in addressing YA and the development of the activism culture.

The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review of the publications in peer-reviewed journals, books and book chapters on YA in selected post-socialist countries between 1989 and 2023, with a specific focus on young people of school age. The following post-socialist countries are covered: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The main databases of this analysis include EBSCO Academic Search Complete, Education Source (via EBSCO), ERIC, Web of Science (ISI) and Google Scholar as a complementary source. Our research is focused on the predominant causes, forms and contents of YA in post-socialist countries and is inclusive of country-specific variations. Moreover, we ask who is the research subject in different countries? What are the organizations and who are the authors that principally conduct studies on YA in post-socialist countries?

Our preliminary results show that it is important to account for the complexity of the post-socialist transformation processes and the related YA in both regional and historical contexts. Moreover, we took notice of the significance of political, non-governmental and other organisations that influence YA in post-soviet countries. For example, just within the political spectrum of YA, our preliminary results show that YA in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine with groups such as Otpor (Resistance), Kmara (Enough) and Pora (It's Time!) concentrates on securing these countries’ democratic futures (Nikolayenko, 2017) while in Czech Republic anti-communist framing became a tool of political activism used by political parties and their youth organisations for two decades after the transition (Navrátil & Hrubeš, 2018). In Hungary, we can observe a surge of far-right activism with The Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) of which many of the reported new members are teenage boys trying to find their place in the community (Pirro & Róna, 2019). While in Poland, NGOs find challenges in trying to implement anti-discrimination and equality education programmes in schools (Zagulski, 2022) but despite this, several Polish NGOs continue to run civic education programmes directed toward young people in post-communist countries, and a study by Pospieszna et al. (2020) showed that youth from Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine were more likely to show greater support of democratic institutions, hold democratic attitudes, and perceive themselves as having political efficacy after completing NGO organized civic education programmes.

Although the majority of analyzed papers are in English, some papers in country-specific native languages are also included for improved understanding of the subject area, e.g. we incorporate literature on YA of the Polish minority in Lithuania (Wysocki, 2022) which even further illustrates the complexity of YA in the region.

Thus, we believe our research is significant as it will show the historical and current state of the literature on YA in post-socialist countries, shed light on its gaps, and establish possible directions for future theoretical and empirical research on the topic.

REFERENCES:

Birzea, C. (1994). Educational Policies of the Countries in Transition. Council of Europe Press.

Carmin, J., & Fagan, A. (2010). Environmental mobilisation and organisations in post-socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union. Environmental Politics, 19(5), 689-707. DOI:10.1080/09644016.2010.508300

Navrátil, J., & Hrubeš, M. (2018). Contesting communism after its fall: exploring two modes of anti-communist activism in the Czech Republic. East European Politics, 34(1), 6-26. DOI:10.1080/21599165.2018.1423966

Nikolayenko, O. (2017). Youth Movements and Elections in Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press.

Pirro, A. L. P., & Róna, D. (2019). Far-right activism in Hungary: youth participation in Jobbik and its network. European Societies, 21(4), 603-626. DOI:10.1080/14616696.2018.1494292

Pospieszna, P., Lown, P., & Dietrich, S. (2023). Building active youth in post-Soviet countries through civic education programmes: evidence from Poland. East European Politics, 39(2), 321-344. DOI: 10.1080/21599165.2022.2102608

Schwartz, M., & Winkel, H. (2016). Introduction. In M. Schwartz & H. Winkel (Eds.), Eastern European Youth Cultures in a Global Context. (pp. 1-18). Palgrave Macmillan. DOI:10.1057/9781137385130_1

Silova, I. (2009). Varieties of Educational Transformation: The Post-Socialist States of Central/Southeastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. In R. Cowen & A.M. Kazamias (Eds.), International Handbook of Comparative Education. (Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 22, pp 295–320), Springer. DOI:10.1007/978-1-4020-6403-6_19

Szabo, M. (1994). Greens, cabbies and anti-communists: collective action during regime transition in Hungary. In E. Laran˜a, H. Johnston & J. Gusfield (Eds.), New social movements: from ideology to identity. (pp. 287–303). Temple University Press.

Wysocki, A. (ed.), (2022). Aspiracje i dylematy młodych Polaków na Litwie. Wydawnictwo Rys Tomasz Paluszyński. DOI:10.48226/978-83-67287-48-7

Zagulski, S. (2022). Bieżące wyzwania edukacji antydyskryminacyjnej w Polsce. Studia Pedagogiczne. Problemy Społeczne, Edukacyjne i Artystyczne, 41, 133-153.

Author

• Martyna Maria Elerian, Technion