In the post-communist era it has become evident that the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe will be determined by many factors, only some of them political. Throughout the region, the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Greek Catholic churches have tried to impose their views on democracy through direct political engagement. Moreover, surveys show that the churches (and the army) enjoy more popular confidence than elected political bodies such as parliaments. These results reflect widespread...

This book is the first to systematically examine the connection between religion and transitional justice in post-communism. There are four main goals motivating this book: 1) to explain how civil society (groups such as religious denominations) contribute to transitional justice efforts to address and redress past dictatorial repression; 2) to ascertain the impact of state-led reckoning programs on religious communities and their members; 3) to renew the focus on the factors that determin...

Taking stock of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the collapse of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe, this volume explores how these societies have grappled with the serious human rights violations of past regimes. It focuses on the most important factors that have shaped the nature, speed, and sequence of transitional justice programs in the period spanning the revolutions that brought about the collapse of the communist dictatorships and the consolidation of new democratic...

This book examines Romania’s efforts to consolidate liberal democracy and market economy, as desired by the generation who effected change in 1989 and required by the European Union. The ousting of Nicolae Ceausescu, leader of an autarchic and nationalistic dictatorship, underscored the limitations of politically engineering change when rule of law is weak, institutions are misused, and intolerance and cheating are prevalent. Despite initial hopes, Romania’s transition combined progress an...

In the twenty-five years since the Soviet Union was dismantled, the countries of the former Soviet Union have faced different circumstances and responded differently to the need to redress and acknowledge the communist past and the suffering of their people. While some have adopted transitional justice and accountability measures, others have chosen to reject them; these choices have directly affected state building and societal reconciliation efforts. This is the most comprehensive accoun...

Post-communism, Democracy, and Illiberalism in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union explores how the downfall of communism brought about a difficult transition for Eastern and Central Europe. The collapse of communism in this region varied from one case to another and the consequences of this process can still be noticed to varying degrees today. Although most of the countries that were part of the former Soviet bloc are now members of the NATO or of the E...

A close examination of an understudied European Union member state such as Romania reveals that, since 1989, post-Communist state and non-state actors have adopted a wide range of methods, processes and practices of working through the Communist past. Both the timing and the sequencing of these transitional justice methods prove to be significant in determining the efficacy of addressing and redressing the crimes of 1945 to 1989. In addition, there is evidence that some of these methods ha...

During the last two decades, the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have attempted to address the numerous human rights abuses that characterized the decades of communist rule. This book examines the main processes of transitional justice that permitted societies in those countries to come to terms with their recent past. It explores lustration, the banning of communist officials and secret political police officers and informers from post-communist politic, ordinary c...

The Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice remains the premier reference tool that presents the state of the art in the field of reckoning with the legacy of past gross human rights abuses. Almost 200 scholars and practitioners from all continents summarize country efforts to address and redress the recent past, and present key transitional justice methods, debates, institutions and concepts. Both state and non-state initiatives are concisely overviewed. Written in an accessible style but wi...

2014 marked the 25th anniversary of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The events of 1989 are widely seen as having ushered in new all-encompassing reforms in almost all areas of life. In few other places were reforms more contested and divisive than in Romania, a country that suffered greatly under the sultanistic-cum-totalitarian dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, faced the region’s only bloody anti-communist revolt, and as such had the longest to travel on the road fro...

The present volume focuses on the relationship with Communism of Romania's most important religious denominations and their attempt to cope with that difficult past which continues to cast an important shadow over their present. For the first time ever, this volume considers both the majority Romanian Orthodox Church and significant minority denominations such as the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, the Reformed Church, the Hungarian Unitarian Church, and the Pentecostal Christian Denomi...

Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region focuses on the nexus between geopolitical challenges and cultural framework in the Black Sea region. The volume shows how the common inheritance interferes with different religious and political institutional backgrounds, fostering the formation of a particular cultural area. The interdisciplinary approach combines contributions from the domains of sociology, political science, international relations, and security studies and employs qu...