Roma and the Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Roma and the Transition in Central and Eastern Europe PDF Author: Dena Ringold
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821348017
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
This report brings together the available evidence from primary and secondary sources, including household surveys and results of recent qualitative studies, to develop a picture of the development challenges facing Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe. While living standards have declined for all population groups during the transition to a market economy, there are growing indications that conditions have deteriorated more severely for Roma than for others, and that Roma are poorly positioned to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities. This report focuses on five countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic. The first chapter of the report provides the historical context and an overview of the methodological issues and main data sources; chapter two presents the available evidence on welfare status and living conditions, examining poverty, housing education, employment and health; chapter three considers issues relating to access to social services; and the final chapter reviews the opportunities for Roma participation in the design and implementation of community development policies and programmes, and outlines policy implications.

Roma and the Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Roma and the Transition in Central and Eastern Europe PDF Author: Dena Ringold
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821348017
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Get Book Here

Book Description
This report brings together the available evidence from primary and secondary sources, including household surveys and results of recent qualitative studies, to develop a picture of the development challenges facing Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe. While living standards have declined for all population groups during the transition to a market economy, there are growing indications that conditions have deteriorated more severely for Roma than for others, and that Roma are poorly positioned to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities. This report focuses on five countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic. The first chapter of the report provides the historical context and an overview of the methodological issues and main data sources; chapter two presents the available evidence on welfare status and living conditions, examining poverty, housing education, employment and health; chapter three considers issues relating to access to social services; and the final chapter reviews the opportunities for Roma participation in the design and implementation of community development policies and programmes, and outlines policy implications.

The Romani Movement

The Romani Movement PDF Author: Peter Vermeersch
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845451646
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The collapse of communism and the process of state building that ensued in the 1990s have highlighted the existence of significant minorities in many European states, particularly in Central Europe. In this context, the growing plight of Europe's biggest minority, the Roma (Gypsies), has been particularly salient. Traditionally dispersed, possessing few resources and devoid of a common "kin state" to protect their interests, the Roma have often suffered from widespread exclusion and institutionalized discrimination. Politically underrepresented and lacking popular support amongst the wider populations of their host countries, the Roma have consequently become one of Europe's greatest "losers" in the transition towards democracy. Against this background, the author examines the recent attempts of the Roma in Central Europe and their supporters to form a political movement and to influence domestic and international politics. On the basis of first-hand observation and interviews with activists and politicians in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, he analyzes connections between the evolving state policies towards the Roma and the recent history of Romani mobilization. In order to reach a better understanding of the movement's dynamics at work, the author explores a number of theories commonly applied to the study of social movements and collective action.

Ten Years After

Ten Years After PDF Author: Iulius Rostas
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155053138
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
The volume presents the results collated in the frames of the fact finding project led by the editor. The analysis includes the examination of a large number of legal documents and policy statements issued by national authorities and the international community on the matter. A critical overview is also made about the various Roma-specific political campaigns on national and European scale. The second half of the book contains interviews with activists that assumed a leading role in school desegregation. These testimony pieces have been critically reviewed by educational and policy analysts from the concerned countries.

Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition

Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition PDF Author: Tommaso Piffer
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633861322
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
This book is a tribute to the memory of Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009), sociologist, émigré from the Soviet Union, Canadian citizen, public intellectual, and keen observer of Eastern Europe. In seventeen essays leading European, American and Russian scholars discuss the theory and the history of totalitarian society with a comparative approach. They revisit and reassess what Zaslavsky considered the most important project in the latter part of his life: the analysis of Eastern European - especially Soviet societies and their difficult “transition” after the fall of communism in 1989–91. The variety of the contributions reflects the diversity of specialists in the volume, but also reveals Zaslavsky's gift: he surrounded himself with talented people from many different fields and disciplines. In line with Zaslavsky's work and scholarly method, the book promotes new theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of totalitarianism for understanding Soviet and East European societies, and the study of fascist and communist regimes in general.

The Roma in Romanian History

The Roma in Romanian History PDF Author: Viorel Achim
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155053936
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
One of the greatest challenges during the enlargement process of the European Union towards the east is how the issue of the Roma or Gypsies is tackled. This ethnic minority group represents a much higher share by numbers, too, in some regions going above 20% of the population. This enormous social and political problem cannot be solved without proper historical studies like this book, the most comprehensive history of Gypsies in Romania. It is based on academic research, synthesizing the entire historical Romanian and foreign literature concerning this topic, and using lot of information from the archives. The main focus is laid on the events of the greatest consequence. Special attention is devoted to aspects linked to the long history of the Gypsies, such as slavery, the process of integration and assimilation into the majority population, as well as the marginalization of Gypsies, which has historic roots. The process of emancipation of Gypsies in the mid-19th century receives due treatment. The deportation of Gypsies to Transnistria during the Antonescu regime, between 1942-1944, is reconstructed in a special chapter. The closing chapters elaborate on the policy toward Gypsies in the decades after the Second World War that explain for the latest developments and for the situation of this population in today's Romania.

Roma in an Expanding Europe

Roma in an Expanding Europe PDF Author: Dena Ringold
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821354575
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Following the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004, Roma (or gypsies) are now the largest minority group in Europe. They are also one of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, living mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, suffering poverty levels as high as ten times that found within majority populations. The lack of information about the living conditions and needs of Roma people compound these stark gaps in human development outcomes. This publication, prepared for a conference held in Budapest, Hungary in June 2003, brings together original sociological research, evaluations of programme initiatives, and the first comparative cross-country household survey on ethnicity and poverty. It finds that Roma poverty is multi-faceted and can only be addressed by a inclusive policy approach which respects their diversity.

The Roma Cafe

The Roma Cafe PDF Author: Istvan Pogany
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745320519
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Written in a lively and accessible style, and illustrated throughout with photographs, The Roma Cafe is a poignant and intriguing analysis of the diverse problems facing Central and Eastern Europe's gypsy populations, including the largely unacknowledged legacy of the Roma Holocaust.Engaging with a broad range of issues including racism, stereotyping, and political and economic transition in the ex-Communist states, Professor Istvan Pogany challenges the most common preconceptions about the Roma. He also looks at the specifics of individual Romani lives, particularly in Hungary and Romania.Highlighting the difficulties that all marginal peoples face, Pogany explains how the Roma have been devastated by the economic transition from Communism to open markets in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. Mass unemployment, poverty, lack of education, as well as widespread anti-Roma discrimination and inadequate legal protection, have left the Roma facing intense hardship and marginalisation since the collapse of state socialism.However, this book is not just a catalogue of the challenges that the Roma face -- it is also a celebration of Roma cultures and of the acceptance of difference -- something that is more important than ever in our multicultural societies.

Transatlantic Central Europe

Transatlantic Central Europe PDF Author: Jessie Labov
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155053146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
While there are still occasional uses of it today, the term "Central Europe" carries little of the charge that it did in the 1980s and early 1990s, and as a political and intellectual project it has receded from the horizon. Proponents of a distinct cultural profile of these countries—all involved now in the process of Transatlantic integration—used "Central European", as a contestation with the geo-political label of Eastern Europe. This book discusses the transnational set of practices connecting journals with other media in the mid-1980s, disseminating the idea of Central Europe simultaneously in East and West. A range of new methodologies, including GIS-mapping visualization, is used, repositing the political-cultural journal as one central node of a much larger cultural system. What has happened to the liberal humanist philosophy that "Central Europe" once evoked? In the early years of the transition era, the liberal humanist perspective shared by Havel, Konrád, Kundera, and Michnik was quickly replaced by an economic liberalism that evolved into neoliberal policies and practices. The author follows the trajectories of the concept into the present day, reading its material and intellectual traces in the postcommunist landscape. She explores how the current use of transnational, web-based media follows the logic and practice of an earlier, 'dissident' generation of writers.

The Roma: a Minority in Europe

The Roma: a Minority in Europe PDF Author: Roni Stauber
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9789637326868
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The situation of the Roma in Europe, especially in the former communist states, is one of the more important human rights issues on the agenda of the international community, especially in the Euro-Atlantic bodies of integration. Within European states that have Roma populations there is a growing awareness that the matter must be confronted, and that there is a need for a concentrated effort to solve social problems and ease tensions between the Roma and the European nations among which they dwell. This volume is the result of an international conference held at Tel Aviv University in December 2002. The conference, one of the largest held among the academic community in the last decade, served as a unique forum for a multidisciplinary discussion on the past and present of the Roma in which both Roma and non-Roma scholars from various countries engaged.

A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia

A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia PDF Author: D. Crowe
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349606715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
David Crowe draws from previously untapped East European, Russian, and traditional sources to explore the life, history, and culture of the Gypsies, or Roma, from their entrance into the region in the Middle Ages until the present.