Social Science in Eastern Europe NEWSLETTER July 2000 SPECIAL ISSUE Publisher Social Science Information Centre, Member of the German Social Science Infrastructure Ser- vices, Bonn Editors Department Information Transfer Eastern Europe at the German Social Science Infrastructure Services (GESIS) Branch Office Becker, U.; Schleinstein, N.; Sucker, D.; Schwefel, E.; Hausstein, B. Layout Mallock, W. Frequency Minimum 4 issues per year; presently free of charge Print Printed in Germany Distribution Social Science Information Centre, Department Information Transfer Eastern Europe at the GESIS Branch Office Schiffbauerdamm 19, 10117 Berlin, Germany Tel.: +49-30-308 74-246, Fax: +49-30-28 23 692 e-mail: [email protected] This publication is financed by the German Social Science Infrastructure Services (GESIS) which is jointly funded by the Federal and State governments. ISSN 1615-5459 2000 Social Science Information Centre, Bonn. All rights reserved. The reproduction of excerpts is permitted but subject to the condition that the source be mentioned and against specimen copy. Social Science Information Centre (IZ) of the Association of Social Science Institutes (ASI) Lennéstr. 30 • 53113 Bonn Telephone: +49-228-2281-0 The Social Science Information Centre, Hotline: +49-228-2281-100 the Central Archive for Empirical Social Fax: +49-228-2281-120 Research at the University of Cologne e-mail: [email protected] (ZA) and the Centre for Survey Research and Methodology (ZUMA) are institutional Department members of Information Transfer Eastern Europe at the GESIS Branch Office GESIS Schiffbauerdamm 19 • 10117 Berlin German Social Science Telephone: +49-30-308 74 246 Infrastructure Services, Fax: +49-30-28 23 692 member of the Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft e-mail: [email protected] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (WGL) Editorial.......................................................3 Editorial SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH ON EASTERN Almost two years ago, the Social Science In- EUROPE: formation Centre published a special issue of COUNTRY REPORTS our Newsletter (1998, No. 3) on the occasion of the 29th German Congress of Sociology in Austria which ten articles on different aspects of Ger- Christian Haerpfer, Institute for Advanced man social science research on Eastern Europe Studies .......................................................4 were presented. The purpose of this undertak- Belgium ing was to highlight the main research issues in Katlijn Malfliet, Institute for European the frame of transformation research, which Policy, Catholic University Leuven.............9 stood in the center of attention of German so- Denmark cial scientists after the fall of the Berlin wall. Ole Nørgaard, Department of Political The September 1998 issue is available via Science, University of Aarhus..................13 Internet at Finland http://www.berlin.iz- Markku Kivinen, Finnish Centre for Russian soz.de/publications/en/newsletter/socsci- and East European Studies, University of eastern-europe/nl983/ Helsinki or can be ordered free of charge1. Pekka Sutela, Institute for Economies in The present issue is designed for the Sixth Transition..................................................17 World Congress of the International Council for France Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) Georges Mink, Centre National de la to be held in Tampere, Finland, July 29 to Au- Recherche Scientifique............................22 gust 3, 2000. This time we have addressed well Italy known and recommended researchers2 in a Daniel Spizzo; Alessia Vatta, Department number of North, West and South European of Political, University of Trieste countries with the invitation to report on the Science ....................................................27 situation of social science research on Central Norway and Eastern Europe in their countries. As far as Anton Steen, The Norwegian Institute of we know, a similar review still does not exist Foreign Affairs (NUPI)..............................33 anywhere. Our aim is to encourage and support Sweden mutual information, networking and cooperation Kerstin Nyström, Department of East between social scientists from different parts of European Studies, Uppsala University ....36 Europe. Switzerland Christian Giordano, Daniel Henseler, Although we had started our call for papers Andreas Künzli, Interfaculty Institute of rather late our request was accepted very posi- East and Central European Studies, tively. The invited authors were asked to deal University of Fribourg...............................38 with research topics, list outstanding research Spain centres/institutions, name leading researchers Francisco Veiga, Departamento de Historia in the field, describe institutions offering special Contemporánea, Universidad Autónoma de information in the field, data sources and ar- Barcelona.................................................42 chives, list research networks as well as recent United Kingdom publications, important research projects, par- George Kolankiewicz, School of Slavonic ticipation in international research projects, na- and East European Studies - SSEES -, tional funding sources/programmes. This was a University College London.......................45 very ambitious call for the time left for the con- tributors to prepare their articles was very short. We would like to thank the authors for their na- RECENT PUBLICATIONS...............................50 tional reports, which allow an insight into the framework of social science research in the dif- CONFERENCES .............................................50 ferent countries. We are proud to present articles on the follow- ing eleven countries: Austria, Belgium, Den- mark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Spain, 1 Requests can be sent by mail to Social Science Informa- tion Centre, Schiffbauerdamm 19, D-10117 Berlin, Germany or by e-mail to [email protected]. 2 Our thanks go to all those colleagues who helped us find the right persons for the contributions. NEWSLETTER Sozialwissenschaften - Osteuropa, July 2000 3 Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH ON Countries missing will get a chance in later is- sues of this Newsletter. EASTERN EUROPE: COUNTRY REPORTS Almost all contributions report on recent trends in research on Eastern Europe. Frequent pat- terns are the reorganization of or reduced fund- Austria ing for the traditional area studies institutes (viewed upon as children of the Cold War) and the increasing interest of social scientists in fo- Christian Haerpfer, Institute for Advanced Stud- 3 cusing their research on Central and Eastern ies Europe. New sources of funding have been Research on Social and Political Transfor- opened especially with regard to comparative mations in Post-Communist Eastern Euro- research involving mixed research teams. In pe: The Case of Austria countries like Italy and Spain with very weak traditional interests in the area, the political In Austria, three research institutes have done events aroused some enthusiasm for such en- extensive research on the dynamics of social gagement, which could be stabilized only in It- and political change from the perspective of so- aly. Of all the countries presented the United ciology and political science in the period 1990 Kingdom has the most elaborate tradition of re- until 2000. These specialised institutes are the search on Eastern Europe, which has been 'Institute for Advanced Studies', the 'Austrian successfully restructured during the past dec- Institute for East and Southeast European Stud- ade to meet the new demand for scholarly in- ies' and the 'Institute for Human Sciences'. All formation on Central and Eastern Europe. three institutes are located in the capital of Aus- Since the political bifocal division of Europe tria, Vienna. There is also some research on came to an end and the post-Communist coun- social and political transformations taking place tries were relieved from the political restrictions in several Austrian Universities, but these activi- being imposed on them by the Soviet Union, ties are less focused and specialised. the specificities of the individual countries in the A. Institute for Advanced Studies - IAS4 area of Central and Eastern Europe have reap- The Institute for Advanced Studies is the big- peared and had a chance to develop. Thus, gest Austrian research institute in the social some of the real or interpreted similarities be- sciences with a staff of 110 research fellows tween the countries have disappeared and and 30 administrative and technical personnel. have lead to the prediction that in a not too dis- The Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna tant future most research on Central and East- has had a special research focus dealing with ern European countries will be conducted within post-Communist Eastern Europe. The research the frame of the different social science disci- programme in Sociology of Eastern European plines or will get integrated into the newly de- transformation is directed by Prof. Claire Wal- veloping field of European studies. But even if it lace from the Department of Sociology, who is should be the case, we are of the opinion that also Professor of Social Research at the Uni- there will be permanent demand for special in- versity of Derby (UK). The research programme formation from and about the countries in tran- in Political Science of Eastern European trans- sition. formation is directed by Prof. Christian Haer- pfer. Christian Haerpfer is Head of the 'New We kindly ask our readers to comment on the Europe