East & Southeast Europe

On this issue of Perspectives, you will find stories written by citizens in the true meaning of that word. They describe what the “right for the city” means to them. Why they perceive their activism as fighting for a common rather than an individual right, and why they choose to fight for one of the most precious yet most neglected of human rights. Reading them, one learns also much about the perfidious ways those in power limit people’s right to the city.

Any international intervention has crucial limits: It can change the rules of the game, but it cannot empower local players. The articles collected in this issue of Perspectives Southeast Europe tell stories about the current challenges of international intervention in Albania,  Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia.

Approaches to understanding the meaning of accession to the European Union vary significantly among the post-Yugoslav countries. For some the process has been an important driving force for changes in their legal and institutional systems.

The first issue of Perspectives Southeastern Europe is about young adults in the Balkans. It is about young people with a specific kind of transition to adulthood who want to overcome the tradition of patriarchy and discrimination and who are striving for a more democratic culture.

The Heinrich Böll Stiftung, in cooperation with Hnutí DUHA and the Czech branch of the international organisation WISE, has attempted to describe in greater detail the causes and manifestations of nuclear energy’s exceptional position in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The result is this publication, which contains contributions by experts from five countries in the region: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria.