tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/post-communist-countries-41118/articlespost-communist countries – The Conversation2021-01-07T12:55:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522022021-01-07T12:55:04Z2021-01-07T12:55:04ZHow the transition from communism has left Bulgaria’s elderly out in the cold<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376141/original/file-20201221-13-xq5b1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C83%2C3200%2C2360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deljana Iossifova</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Maria is 84. Now that she can no longer move as easily, she spends most of her time in the kitchen of the two-bedroom flat she shares with her adult son, his wife and their two teenage daughters. She sits on the sofa-bed for most of the day.</p>
<p>She used to spend the summer months in the Balkans in a small village where they had a house. There, she worked in the garden, grew fruit and vegetables. When she returned to the city with the onset of winter, she used to bring back jars of pickles and preserves to help feed the family.</p>
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<img alt="A boarded up block of flats in Bulgaria." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376556/original/file-20201223-50514-1aj9ga7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A boarded up entrance to block of socialist-era housing flats in Sofia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">author provided</span></span>
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<p>A few years ago, when Maria’s grandsons were born in England, she had been called to Bristol to help out so her daughter could go back to work quickly. They go to school now, so her help is no longer needed. Now she waits for her pension to arrive so that she can help with the energy bills and for her son and daughter-in-law to find work so that she can buy the medicine she needs. She says she aims not to be a burden.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375559/original/file-20201216-13-k7r1bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Figure 2: Living environment of an older person sharing a home with adult children/grandchildren and confined to one living/bedroom. August 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Bulgaria is on the margins of Europe, it is one of the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=sdg_08_10">poorest member states of the EU</a>. Following 45 years of communist rule, the country was released into the free market in 1989 and has since been undergoing a series of dramatic transitions, each of which has had consequences for generations of Bulgarians. In this context, Maria’s story is not unique. In fact, it is one of the most common stories I heard when researching my book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-60823-1#about">Translocal Ageing in the Global East: Bulgaria’s Abandoned Elderly</a>.</p>
<h2>The state safety net</h2>
<p>In Bulgaria, older people had their lives shaped by the rise and fall of the communist era between 1944 and 1989. The idea that the state would take care of everyone and everything was formative for many of them as they grew up. Now, as they grow old, they find that is not the case. </p>
<p>This is not the only way the communist state has shaped their lives. They were, for example, given jobs and homes in cities but encouraged to retain close ties with the villages of their ancestors. This strategy had several advantages: for one, urbanites had the opportunity to get away from the city easily and breathe the fresh air of Bulgaria’s mountains and valleys. More importantly, they could help bring in the crops from the fields - and take bags full of produce, such as chickens and eggs, bacon, cheese and canned goods, back to the city. This would include specialities not easily found in stores as well as staple foods, which often helped families in the city cope with ubiquitous supply shortages under the planned economy. </p>
<p>Women were fully integrated into the socialist workforce. They could enjoy some of the world’s longest maternity leave without having to worry about the security of their jobs. Once they returned to work, their children were looked after in nurseries and kindergartens provided by the state. An early retirement age also meant that generations of grandparents could devote their time to looking after grandchildren – in exchange for the security of being looked after by adult children and grandchildren in old age.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375564/original/file-20201216-19-1fk9hs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Figure 3: Abandoned buildings in the centre of a former industrial centre in Bulgaria. August 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Transitioning to neglect</h2>
<p>Everything changed with the fall of communism and the onset of the transition era, which began in 1990. State-owned businesses closed or were sold off. Villages were left behind as younger people looked for livelihoods in cities. In turn, cities <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10545458/Ghost-towns-left-by-Bulgarians-seeking-work-in-UK.html">lost their populations to destinations abroad</a>. Younger people fled the country for the greener pastures of the west, and only a few of them returned. Fertility rates dwindled in the face of uncertainty, contributing to some of the most rapid population ageing in the world. The inability of Bulgaria’s leadership to respond appropriately to political and economic change is mirrored in <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/322891511932837431/Cities-in-Europe-and-Central-Asia-Bulgaria">unemployment rates</a> that are far higher than the European average. After 13 years as a member state of the EU, almost <a href="https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=ilc_li01&lang=en">35% of those over 65 in Bulgaria are at risk of poverty</a>.</p>
<p>Today’s older people are bearing the burden of decades of political mismanagement, out-migration and austerity. They have to make do with meagre pensions and often keep track of every penny spent. Many take up post-retirement jobs when they cannot manage to make ends meet. They have to adapt and mend the tattered homes of the socialist era to keep them habitable – a task that is particularly difficult during the winter months, when turning on the heating is tempting but not an option due to the exorbitant cost of energy in cities.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376558/original/file-20201223-13-17ugix5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 4: Wood-burning stove - typical in Bulgaria’s village homes. August 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the face of sometimes unimaginable hardship, Bulgaria’s older people in cities and in villages have shaken off any remaining expectations of the state. They have had to find their own ways to adapt. Perhaps a more positive legacy of the socialist way of life has been that travelling between places to live and work is the norm for this generation. They think little of travelling abroad to help out with grandchildren, as Maria did. </p>
<p>Living in this way, ageing across multiple locations in and outside Bulgaria is a common approach to coping with the burdens of ageing for a generation raised by one kind of state and abandoned by another.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deljana Iossifova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>They grew up understanding that the state would take of them into old age. But that was before communism fell.Deljana Iossifova, Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401262020-07-01T11:02:43Z2020-07-01T11:02:43ZRussia’s post-Soviet transition offers warning on hidden unemployment of coronavirus furlough schemes<p>Can the world really press the pause button on the economy for months without mass unemployment? The experience of the Russian Federation as it emerged from the central planning of the Soviet Union nearly 30 years ago may provide some indications of what is to come.</p>
<p>When the USSR collapsed in 1991, many western economists advised the post-Soviet states to enact <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10758216.2002.11655992?casa_token=X_3JgR6ns1oAAAAA:NWAbmtPF25cGtzWk5Ju2Rijg3yo_om3S5YnwOkmgcx-nhSyt2H0yJpWZKnYQbK1jogngYTpOy1ax0Mk">a process of “shock therapy”</a> designed to quickly move the centrally planned economies of the communist era, to market-based systems. </p>
<p>Within months the Russian ruble floated freely on exchange markets, barriers to international trade were lifted, and a mass privatisation process of state-owned enterprises had begun. The economic and social stability of the past was replaced by almost immediately by hyperinflation and the influx of western consumer goods. </p>
<p>In a report for the US government published in 1992, the American economist William Moskoff famously asserted that <a href="https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/pre1998/1992-806-36-2-Moskoff.pdf">30 million, or 25% of the Soviet workforce would be unemployed</a> as a result of the transition from central planning to a market economy. But this expected surge in unemployment did not happen. In reality, unemployment never got higher than <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/unemployment-rate">13%</a> in 1998 when Russia experienced a financial crisis due to the default on international debt payments. Prior to this, unemployment hadn’t exceeded 10%, despite the fact that the Russian economy had contracted by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405473916300307">40% between 1991-98</a>.</p>
<p>Officially, between <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20007780.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Afbc9d365d126961d3d5bca924b4b1094">1993-94, the Russian unemployment rate was 1.5%</a>, lower than nearly every <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3601042.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ad50c43b7498426a4049b97ddd885bdf0">EU country</a> at that time. Others estimate that for every <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668130120052917">1% contraction of industrial output, only 0.5%</a> of the labour force was laid off. It appeared, on the surface at least, that the architects of shock therapy and economic transition had performed some kind of miracle, and achieved structural adjustment from communism to capitalism, without mass unemployment. </p>
<p>And yet an unexpected phenomenon was taking place: hidden unemployment.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Listen to Recovery, a series from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-anthill-podcast-27460">The Anthill Podcast</a>, to hear more about how the world recovered from past crises, including an episode on the post-Soviet transition in the 1990s.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Employed but not working</h2>
<p>Some of the <a href="https://web.warwick.ac.uk/russia/employment.pdf">factors</a> contributing to the hidden unemployment problem arose from the policies of the new <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/39528/wp138.pdf?sequence=3">government of Boris Yeltsin</a>. If firms made people redundant they had to pay severance. If staff were paid a salary more than four times the minimum wage, then the firm would incur additional taxes. This meant that firms had an incentive to keep their wage bill low. </p>
<p>Some workers were sent on <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/39778/wp394.pdf?sequence=3">long, unpaid holidays or administrative leave</a> either with no pay or very low pay. Others were at work but were <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/40027/wp641.pdf?sequence=3">not paid</a>. And others were asked to go part time or reduce hours. </p>
<p>It’s estimated that between 1991-98, at any given time, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20007780.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Afbc9d365d126961d3d5bca924b4b1094">one in four</a> of the Russian workforce was on some form of unpaid or low-paid leave. Many Russians took side jobs in the <a href="http://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/617361/1/Final%20draft%20-%20submitted.pdf">grey economy to bridge the income gap</a>. </p>
<p>Those in work, but with little to do, clocked in – but then went off <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0351.2006.00233.x">moonlighting</a>, driving a taxi for example – and then came back to clock off. In the absence of cash due to the collapse in demand, firms also started to pay their employees in kind, giving them the goods they were producing. Sadly, the value of these goods shrunk to zero as many left the factory to sell the same shoes or tins of paint on every street corner. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344741/original/file-20200630-103661-6e0pbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A flea market in Rostov-on-Don in 1992.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kelleys/20156196100/in/photolist-wH8LSq-BV2EGN-wXryHw-wH4qd5-w3KETY-x1cLYi-w3TzcR-wHgNcc-w3MWux-wHgeYV-w3DdF9-JR9pMt-KfNYiB-2j8QEbv-2hdBBXJ-2j8QE1f-sgQtw-2gbRYZX-2d1Z9Qf-2iXU4nk-2gY1PDD-2j8LUsR-BtcWbK-YBjLyh-2cFHKzx-2j8QTts-w3T6ba-wZM5bt-wZKCmp-wXrTyC-wZLAnn-2eHj6bJ-wHoAtt-ovMaEa-2cFHKun-faYykN-23KksEP-vFgdgo-27aw5iD-2jb3WWi-i436ca-2gxSaD6-2hKSdde-22a8dA3-DrMZjA-ZR37Fd-fJCnN4-7xYLn-ca2vyu-21fVJoK">Brian Kelley/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The burden of these approaches to labour retention also led to down-skilling as people adapted to the new circumstances by being willing to do any role, regardless of their qualifications and experience to stay working. Many Russians over 55 years of age also <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/03068299910248504/full/html">withdrew completely from the labour force</a>. Rather than adapt to the new market conditions, many preferred to take their meagre pension and retire to their dachas in the country.</p>
<h2>Furlough fragility</h2>
<p>There are many parallels with today. In the UK, as of mid-June, around <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/11/more-than-a-third-of-employees-furloughed-in-some-uk-towns">one in four workers</a> were furloughed. </p>
<p>Some UK sectors such as retail and the arts, like sectors of the old Soviet economy, were either in receipt of significant state subsidy, or on life support before COVID-19. With the collapse of <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/09/debenhams-collapses-putting-22000-jobs-risk-12534106/">Debenhams</a> and other retailers during lockdown, and <a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/-coronavirus-most-theatres-will-run-out-of-cash-by-christmas-solt-warns">reports</a> that many arts venues will be out of business by Christmas, it’s likely that many of the jobs from which people are currently furloughed have already been lost. </p>
<p><a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/04/coronavirus-career-swaps-people-changed-jobs-amid-pandemic-12606224/">Daylighting</a> has also emerged, where those on furlough are permitted to take causal work elsewhere. It’s unclear how many of these casual jobs will become permanent once furlough schemes lift. Some people, such as the over-55s in Russia in the 1990s, may also choose to exit or dramatically reduce their participation in the workforce. In the absence of the commute and the flexibility that comes from home working, some may decide to do less, volunteer or retrain for something less stressful – the equivalent of spending time in at their dachas. </p>
<h2>Life and death</h2>
<p>Yet there was another phenomenon that kept the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a36f1400abd0420bf59145f/t/5aad352e88251b56303ce06c/1521300784597/Reviving+dead+souls+WP+Jan+1997.pdf">absolute number of unemployed</a> lower than predicted during the post-Soviet transition in Russia: male life expectancy collapsed.</p>
<p>In 1988, a man could expect to live to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN?end=2002&locations=RU&start=1990">65</a> in the Soviet Union. By 1994, this had dropped to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN?end=2002&locations=RU&start=1990">57</a> and did not return to 1988 levels until 2012. </p>
<p>Unemployment – hidden or otherwise – and its social, economic and personal consequences, are a disease in themselves. Pushing the pause button on the economy has undoubtedly saved lives in the short term, but it may cost many more once the cost of hidden unemployment is revealed in years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Crotty receives funding from the Economi and Social Research Council and British Academy</span></em></p>When Russia transitioned from a command economy to a market-based one, many thought it would lead to huge unemployment. It didn’t – but that’s because much of it was hidden.Jo Crotty, Professor of Management and Director, Institute for Social Responsibility, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202712019-09-24T11:28:47Z2019-09-24T11:28:47ZFidel’s Cuba is long gone<p>Cuba is no longer the Americas’ lonely outpost of communism.</p>
<p>This Caribbean island has become a nation of entrepreneurship, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/opinion/international-world/cuba-youth-revolution.html">democratic aspiration</a>, even pro-Americanism. About <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article216243190.html">13% of Cuban workers</a> are in the private sector, operating their own businesses. They are called “cuentapropistas,” meaning “people who work for themselves” – not for the government. </p>
<p>Much of this economic activity is due to former president Raul Castro, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/opinion/cuba-economy.html">who expanded</a> the rights of Cuban business owners, albeit in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-politics-castro-changes-explaine/explainer-the-state-of-raul-castros-economic-reforms-in-cuba-idUSKBN1HO0CL">fits and starts</a>.</p>
<p>Raul’s brother Fidel Castro, who led Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution and ran the country until 2008, would not recognize his country today. </p>
<p>Since Cuba’s emerging private sector depends heavily on tourism – including, until a recent Trump administration crackdown, from the United States – the cuentapropistas have transformed the nature of U.S.-Cuban relations, my area of <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/1732572/h-diplo-article-review-759-%22%E2%80%98between-two-communities-so-diverse%E2%80%99">research as a historian</a>. </p>
<p>Anti-Americanism is still official Cuba policy. But now, for the first time in Cuba’s modern history, some people openly disagree.</p>
<h2>Economic transformation</h2>
<p>When I first traveled to Cuba as a graduate student in 1996, Cubans were suffering through what Fidel called “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period">The Special Period in Time of Peace</a>” – an era of economic distress after the fall of the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>A Cuban friend recalls it as “the time when we ate cats and dogs.”</p>
<p>For decades, the Soviets aided the Cuban economy by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/16/world/soviet-said-to-reduce-support-for-cuban-economy.html">purchasing</a> Cuban sugar at above-market prices and supplying Cuba with free oil. Cuba re-exported excess oil for profit.</p>
<p>The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 deprived Cuba’s economy of <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/06/18/Soviet-aid-to-Cuba-11-million-a-day/2328424756800/">about US$5 billion dollars</a> a year. </p>
<p>Food and consumer goods disappeared from stores in under a month. The Cuban economy shrunk by <a href="http://www.environmentandsociety.org/tools/keywords/cubas-special-period">more than a third</a> between 1991 and 1995. Cars disappeared from roads, replaced by horses, bikes and overcrowded buses. Blackouts were common. Eggs became a luxury, given as gifts. Cubans lost anywhere from <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/how-cubans-health-improved-when-their-economy-collapsed/275080/">12</a> to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8YzDOtRjNlcC&lpg=PT14&dq=cuban%20lost%20kilograms&pg=PT14#v=onepage&q=cuban%20lost%20kilograms&f=false">20 pounds</a> during the Special Period.</p>
<p>By the mid-1990s, even Fidel Castro knew that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Cuba#cite_note-35">Cuba needed to update</a> its economic model. So the country embraced tourism, <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Cuba">investing over $3.5 billion</a> in hotels and resorts, aimed at Europeans. </p>
<p>Tourism fueled <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NGjxCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=Due+to+the+continued+growth+of+tourism,+growth+began+in+1999+with+a+6.2%25+increase+in+GDP&source=bl&ots=snVGnpwUeL&sig=-fxiBUZKRRtLjPqhUgvCFHVFfHE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR6-XqjdzRAhXLl5QKHdPCBvgQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=Due%20to%20the%20continued%20growth%20of%20tourism%2C%20growth%20began%20in%201999%20with%20a%206.2%25%20increase%20in%20GDP&f=false">Cuba’s recovery</a>, but the economy really took off after Fidel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/world/americas/20castro.html">relinquished power</a> in 2008. His brother Raul Castro trimmed bloated state payrolls and <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article214855810.html%20%22%22">encouraged Cubans</a> to start their own businesses. </p>
<p>By 2014, the government had <a href="http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2014-01-17/entrega-de-tierras-en-usufructo-al-compas-de-la-actualizacion">transferred millions of acres</a> of idle land into private hands, reigniting Cuba’s agricultural sector.</p>
<p>Cuba’s government is still officially communist and it <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-cuba-the-post-fidel-era-began-ten-years-ago-71720">still controls the economy</a>. But it has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cubas-new-president-what-to-expect-of-miguel-diaz-canel-95187">new president who’s not a Castro</a>, internet access is expanding, and it’s home to a community of taxi drivers, hair stylists, restaurant owners and tattoo artists who meet demand with supply and pocket the profits.</p>
<h2>More money, less red tape</h2>
<p>Cuba’s new entrepreneurs seem to have little faith in socialism.</p>
<p>The owner of a successful eatery in Havana, Alejandro, mostly sees the Cuban government as a barrier to success. To protect their identities, I do not use the names of Cubans when writing about my research.</p>
<p>“Even if I have money, there is no guarantee that I will be able to get supplies from abroad,” Alejandro told me over dinner recently. “No one in the government helps me.”</p>
<p>Contradictory legislation makes it <a href="https://thecubaneconomy.com/articles/tag/private-sector/">difficult to open bank accounts in Cuba</a>, sign contracts and import goods from abroad. Alejandro relies on “mules” to get kitchen equipment, rare foodstuffs and other goods into Cuba. </p>
<p>During the Special Period, most Cubans I met blamed the U.S. trade embargo for their troubles. And not without <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy-un/us-trade-embargo-has-cost-cuba-130-billion-un-says-idUSKBN1IA00T">justification</a>: The embargo prevents U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries from investing in Cuba.</p>
<p>The embargo is still in place. But now I meet Cubans who are openly anti-communist, not anti-American. They have relatives and friends in the United States. They sell smuggled American goods. And they want politicians to get out of the way of the economy so that American dollars return to Cuba.</p>
<p>Only about <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20704879/ns/travel-destination_travel/t/americans-break-law-visit-cuba/#.XTdkyi-ZOuU">20,000 Americans</a> visited Cuba in 2007. In 2017, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/sharp-decline-u-s-travel-cuba-spurs-overall-drop-tourism-n868856">1.5 million Americans</a> traveled to the island, including Cuban Americans. They spent millions at businesses run by cuentapropistas. </p>
<p>“Politics means nothing to me,” a young woman named Yemayá told me. “It’s just a way for some people to make themselves rich while I work hard.”</p>
<p>Research validates her view. A study from Baruch College found that Cuba’s bureaucrats <a href="https://thecubaneconomy.com/articles/tag/private-sector/">have responded</a> to Raul’s initiatives by creating more burdensome regulations. They know that if all the red tape goes away, so will their jobs.</p>
<h2>Cuban capitalists</h2>
<p>The United States remains a major obstacle to Cuba’s economic development.</p>
<p>Rejecting Obama’s policy of more open relations with Cuba, the Trump administration has waged <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-declares-economic-war-on-cuba-115672">economic war</a> on the regime, putting severe <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/05/730057551/the-fallout-of-the-trump-administrations-new-restrictions-on-travel-to-cuba">restrictions on travel</a> to and <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-declares-economic-war-on-cuba-115672">investment in</a> Cuba. </p>
<p>Overall tourist activity in Cuba has declined <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/sharp-decline-u-s-travel-cuba-spurs-overall-drop-tourism-n868856https:/www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/sharp-decline-u-s-travel-cuba-spurs-overall-drop-tourism-n868856">20% this year</a>. That primarily <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3fe98af293ce4cbd8c60b072054bcf89">harms Cuban capitalists</a> – not the government. </p>
<p>“We who work are suffering,” Miguel, an English teacher turned tour guide, told me. “The military will not suffer. Neither will the police. They know how to feed themselves.”</p>
<p>But Cuban entrepreneurs blame Cuba’s leaders for their hardships, too.</p>
<p>“[Cuba] wants Trump and the U.S. to shut off the tourists,” a taxi driver named Pablo insisted. That way, “they can blame the Americans for their own economic failures.”</p>
<h2>Change from within</h2>
<p>Cubans have changed, says Luis, an expert on Afro-Cuban religions.</p>
<p>Cubans used to depend on the government for everything. Now, he says, “there are more like me who want to work for themselves.”</p>
<p>“I have a nice apartment and a good life,” Luis told me. “The government did not give me that.”</p>
<p>Cuba’s capitalists still value the social achievements of the Cuban Revolution, which gave their country world-class <a href="https://countryeconomy.com/demography/literacy-rate/cuba">literacy rates</a> and <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=CU">life expectancies</a>. They want to keep those gains.</p>
<p>“The rest we will change,” said Tony, a restaurateur in Old Havana. </p>
<p>A transformation is underway in Cuba, and the United States can help or hurt it. But I doubt anything can stop the process.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph J. Gonzalez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some Cuban entrepreneurs are so openly anti-communist that they sound like, well, capitalists.Joseph J. Gonzalez, Associate Professor, Global Studies, Appalachian State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1187092019-06-13T08:57:34Z2019-06-13T08:57:34ZChernobyl: we lived through its consequences – holidays in the fallout zone shouldn’t be a picnic<p>We were five years old when the Chernobyl disaster happened. At the time, Milka was living in the small mountain town of Razlog in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, about 1500 km away from the disaster area. Dorina was born and grew up in a small town in the Socialist Republic of Romania, approximately 850 km south of Chernobyl. </p>
<p>Bulgaria and Romania were heavily contaminated by radioactive material from the explosion that blew the lid off reactor No. 4 at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant – more commonly known as Chernobyl – in the town of Pripyat, at the time in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. While we were soon dubbed “the Chernobyl children”, the communist authorities kept Bulgarians and Romanians in the dark about the magnitude and implications of the explosion. It wasn’t until the Iron Curtain lifted that many of us would learn the truth.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1133773782605340672"}"></div></p>
<h2>Bulgaria, May Day 1986 – Milka</h2>
<p>As a Bulgarian, I don’t often think about Chernobyl, even though I study communist heritage tourism. Remembering the events of spring 1986 and my government’s mishandling of the crisis still makes me angry, but I try to maintain some emotional separation from my research. When the HBO miniseries Chernobyl aired, I expected the buzz it generated would <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2019/06/09/as-seen-on-tv-fans-of-hbo-series-flock-to-chernobyl-geiger-counters-in-hand/#3a2139fb3897">renew public interest in visiting Chernobyl</a>, and interest in the communist past in general. What I did not expect was to relive my recollection of the days after the disaster.</p>
<p>Both the Soviet and Bulgarian governments kept quiet, even while Western news agencies reported the disaster on April 26 1986. The first official announcement within the Soviet Union came on the evening of the 28th. In Bulgaria, the <a href="http://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/2018/04/26/how-bulgarias-communist-regime-hid-the-1986-chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-from-the-public-protecting-only-itself/">first brief announcement came three days after the explosion</a> on April 29.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279187/original/file-20190612-32373-w68kfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Milka’s father, Blagoy Ivanov, pledges allegiance to the flag of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. A portrait of Todor Zhivkov – the communist leader of Bulgaria from 1954 to 1989 – looms in the background.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Family archive</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I don’t remember much about the announcement itself or the general reaction in Bulgaria. What I remember is my grandmother getting a phone call from her brother, who had connections to the upper echelons of the Bulgarian Communist Party. He warned her not to give five-year-old me any milk to drink. He gave no reason, and my family didn’t know what to make of it.</p>
<p>I remember that the Labour Day parades went ahead as usual and that all the children in my home town had to attend. <a href="https://mycentury.tv/en/bulgaria/106-chernobyl-sofia-1-may.html">We were all marching in radioactive rain</a>.</p>
<p>Once the Communist Party admitted there had been an incident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, they reassured the Bulgarian people that things were under control and that radiation in the atmosphere and food was below dangerous levels. At the same time, the leaders of the Bulgarian Communist party were <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/12/12/Bulgaria-deals-with-Chernobyl-legal-fallout/9215692514000/">eating and drinking imported food and water</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279441/original/file-20190613-32317-few35u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marchers turn out for the Labour Day Parade of May 1 1986 in Sofia, Bulgaria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mycentury.tv/images/stories/bulgaria/May_Day_1986.jpg">Velislav Radev/MyCentury.tv</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>On the Romania-Ukraine border – Dorina</h2>
<p>I grew up in Romania – another child of the Chernobyl generation. Still, Chernobyl rarely invaded my thoughts – though the memories are there now, churning in the back of my mind. There’s a certain inner revulsion to most political events from those times for me. I haven’t watched the new miniseries and I’m unlikely to revive some of the personal and collective trauma by doing so.</p>
<p>In 1986, my father was a captain in the Romanian army, patrolling the border with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He remembers the army were on high alert in the months after the blast and they were asked to collect information from truck drivers crossing the border, to understand the unfolding situation around the disaster area. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279223/original/file-20190612-32347-14few4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dorina’s father, Ioan Buda. At the time of the nuclear disaster in 1986, Ioan was a captain in the Romanian army.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Family archive</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, the army increased the intensity of their chemical training for soldiers and officers and were given courses on how to better understand and prepare for biochemical attacks. My mother was told to avoid lying in the sun, or risk burning her skin. Only later did she realise that radioactive fallout was the real concern.</p>
<p>As I write this – decompressing my memories and digging up those of my family back in Romania – there’s still a heaviness in my chest. Milka and I channel our anxieties over Chernobyl and life in communist eastern Europe into our research. To overcome the restraints of those days, I have travelled, worked and studied in eight countries on four continents. My published work deals with <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Affective-Tourism-Dark-routes-in-conflict-1st-Edition/Buda/p/book/9781138822467">psychoanalytic theories of the death instinct</a>, trauma and nuclear tourism – the industry that monetises a fascination to visit places where nuclear accidents have laid waste to people and their communities. The Fukushima disaster of March 2011 in Japan created the most recent entry in this list of tourist hotspots.</p>
<p>Interestingly, 2011 was also the year that Chernobyl was <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx">officially declared a tourist attraction</a>. The HBO miniseries has generated interest in nuclear tourism, but this fascination with our communist history is nothing new among western tourists.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279208/original/file-20190612-32335-13zt4q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A derelict school within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Pripyat, Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/abandoned-premises-old-school-227262961?src=jI_IWQZb3UHFDTkWCdqnlw-1-9">Separation51/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s an understandable desire among people in eastern Europe to distance ourselves from our difficult – even traumatic – past, but Chernobyl’s heritage, like most communist heritage, is as much about the past as it is about the future.</p>
<p>The HBO miniseries no doubt illuminates the cover-ups and information blackouts that characterised the early response to the nuclear disaster. The events of April 1986 warn us about the cost of lies and of what happens when regimes distort the truth to preserve their grasp on power. In today’s climate of fake news, deceit and dishonesty, Chernobyl remains a lesson from which there is still sadly much to be learnt.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dorina-Maria Buda has received funding from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Milka Ivanova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The HBO series ‘Chernobyl’ has reignited interest among tourists to visit Pripyat, but growing up in the disaster’s shadow has made us wary.Milka Ivanova, Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality, Leeds Beckett UniversityDorina-Maria Buda, Professor of Tourism Management, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898102018-01-12T13:38:40Z2018-01-12T13:38:40ZIs the EU subsidising autocracies? Hungary and the rise of the ‘illiberal’ model<p>The rise of self-proclaimed illiberal democracies in East Central Europe arguably constitutes one of the most formidable – albeit perhaps still underestimated – challenges the EU is currently facing. </p>
<p>Whether and how the EU should react has been debated. All sides portray the EU’s role in these illiberal regimes as that of an outsider. But a closer look at the political-economic functioning of these nations suggests that the EU – through its structural development funds – is actually part of their illiberal model. That, in turn, suggests that cutting funding from Brussels could be a potentially powerful incentive to bring them back into line.</p>
<p>After years of relative inaction, the EU has started to take measures against some of these states. In June 2017, it launched <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-illiberal-states-why-hungary-and-poland-are-turning-away-from-constitutional-democracy-89622">infringement proceedings</a> against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for refusing to comply with agreed quotas by taking in refugees.</p>
<p>In December 2017, the European Commission took actions against Poland based on the view that a recent reform undermined the political independence of Polish judges. The Commission took the unprecedented step of proposing action under <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/news/poland-brexit-negotiating-directives-and-investment-firms-2017-dec-20_en">Article 7</a> of the EU treaty. That could potentially lead to Poland losing its voting rights in EU decision-making.</p>
<p>There is some debate about how efficient and legitimate such measures are. French ex-MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit wants to go further. He says illiberal democracies should be encouraged to <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/daniel-cohn-bendit-sieht-brexit-als-vorbild-fuer-andere-eu-mitglieder-a-1185651.html">exit the EU altogether</a>. Meanwhile, Polish MEP <a href="https://global.handelsblatt.com/opinion/its-time-to-rescue-europes-illiberal-democracies-869139">Danuta Huebner</a> warned that the EU would only hurt the citizens of these countries, not their elites, if it were to cut off funding. In her view, that could serve to further reinforce anti-liberal sentiments.</p>
<h2>Funding from Brussels</h2>
<p>To decide these moral and practical questions about intervention, it may be necessary to look more closely at the political-economic functioning of the illiberal model and the role the EU has played in its emergence. One of the key features of the Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic) during the 1990s was their heavy reliance on foreign direct investment. The process of post-socialist industrial restructuring and modernisation depended on support from outside their own borders.</p>
<p>Social scientists Andreas Nölke and Arjen Vliegenthart dubbed this emerging model of capitalism <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/316716">“dependent market economy”</a>. The FDI-led industrial modernisation meant that these countries lived by decisions made outside their national borders in the headquarters of multinational companies. </p>
<p>Part of this model was what social scientists Dorothee Bohle and Bela Greskovits called an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233090034_Neoliberalism_Embedded_Neoliberalism_and_Neocorporatism_Towards_Transnational_Capitalism_in_Central-Eastern_Europe">“embedded neoliberal arrangement”</a>. This consisted of providing multinationals with very favourable conditions, both in terms of taxes and relatively low wage levels, in exchange for relatively highly-skilled workers. To compensate for low wages and other negative consequences of industrial restructuring, the state offered its citizens generous welfare payments. </p>
<p>For some time, this model enabled these countries to grow economically. It provided citizens with decent jobs in fairly high-value-added industries, such as car manufacturing. Further to the east, countries such as Russia and various central Asian republics were struggling with resources-export-based models.</p>
<h2>Hungary spurns international investors</h2>
<p>Events in Hungary illustrate how the rise of illiberal governments has all but put an end to this model. After years of wooing multinationals, the government of prime minister Viktor Orbán has started to take increasingly aggressive steps against them.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3100775">research</a> shows that many companies are increasingly experiencing pressure from a regime that doesn’t shy away from using what one of the CEOs we interviewed called “mafia tools” to increase its control over the economy. These methods include essentially blackmailing companies to partially or completely give up control of the firm to members of the Orbán clan. The threat of arbitrary tax audits, prohibitive special taxes or special legislation directly geared towards undermining specific companies’ business models are also concerns.</p>
<p>There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a state deciding to assume a more prominent role in the economy, including (re)nationalising private companies. Yet in Hungary these measures seem to be mainly aimed at enriching members of the clan around Orbán.</p>
<p>Such an aggressive stance – both in rhetoric and action –- against foreign capital seems surprising given the country’s dependence on foreign direct investment. It can partly be explained by Hungary’s membership of the EU. Joining the union in 2004 meant Eastern and Central European countries could access structural funds – an alternative source for much-needed finance for industrial restructuring and modernisation.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="http://unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/2922/1/199-879-1-PB.pdf">research by Dénes Bank</a> found that these EU funds are now more important to these nations than FDI inflows. Between 2007 and 2013, EU funds for Hungary alone amounted to €35 billion whereas total FDI inflow was €28 billion.</p>
<p>These structural funds may largely explain why Orbán and his clan can afford the luxury of boldly expanding their grip on the economy without fearing the consequences of an increasingly hostile investment climate. As such, EU structural funds may be much more central to the emerging illiberal model in Central and Eastern European countries than is commonly acknowledged. Indeed, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to draw the troubling conclusion that they may be the very fuel that makes the illiberal motor turn. </p>
<p>From this perspective, the <a href="https://euobserver.com/political/139720">idea</a>, which is part of discussions about the next EU budget, of making some EU funding conditional on criteria such as respecting the rule of law should be very seriously considered. Removing the fuel may well be a necessary measure to make sure the illiberal fire does not spread any further.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Poland and Hungary have recently clashed with Brussels over democratic freedoms, but economic drivers are at play, too.Gerhard Schnyder, Reader in International Management, Loughborough UniversityDorottya Sallai, Senior Lecturer in International Business, University of GreenwichLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812422017-07-28T05:46:58Z2017-07-28T05:46:58ZCastro’s conundrum: finding a post-communist model Cuba can follow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179809/original/file-20170726-2676-1q8xnpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Cuba, unlike in many Latin American countries, when you see children on the street, they're not begging; they're playing. And therein lies Castro's dilemma: how to reform Cuba's stagnant economy without losing what's working?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/HAaxKZ">Dan Lundberg/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When US President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/politics/trump-cuba-policy/index.html">imposed new restrictions on Cuba</a> in June 2017, he professed his administration’s aim was to “encourage greater freedom for the Cuban people and economic interaction”.</p>
<p>Raúl Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has been trying to <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-cuba-the-post-fidel-era-began-ten-years-ago-71720">figure out that last part for years</a>. In 2010, Castro spoke of the need to “<a href="http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/cuba-es/article139985523.html">update the economic model</a>”, but the world has regrettably few models for a communist country in transition can follow.</p>
<p>As Rafael Hernandez, editor of the Cuban journal <a href="http://www.temas.cult.cu/">Temas</a>, informed America’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/159466378/cuba-views-china-vietnam-as-economic-hope">National Public Radio</a> in 2012, “a new model for Cuba is still taking shape, but it would be foolish for the island to try copying China or Vietnam”. </p>
<p>In both of these countries, but particularly in China, the transition to a market economy in recent decades has created <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13945072">gross economic inequality</a> and come at a <a href="https://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/three-gorges-dam">high social cost</a>. Such outcomes would be unacceptable in Cuba, where <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-donald-trump-change-cuba-79734">the revolutionary spirit of egalitarianism lives on</a>.</p>
<h2>Cuba’s <em>cuentapropistas</em></h2>
<p>In the meantime, Castro is giving Cuba’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/11/26/fidel-castros-economic-disaster-in-cuba/#563ca56f6b65">stagnant economy</a> a cash injection by pursuing a simple premise: maintain state control of the economy but give the private sector more room for manoeuvre. </p>
<p>At the March 2011 <a href="http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/documentos/2011/ing/l160711i.html">Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party</a>, Castro spearheaded the approval of 300 historic measures to unlock the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, including reducing public sector jobs, decentralising the state apparatus and encouraging self-employment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rickshaw drivers are among Cuba’s burgeoning self-employed class.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Castillo</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a half-century of prohibition on where and how they could earn money, Cubans jumped at the opportunity to start their own small businesses. </p>
<p>Ramiro is one of them. “It was unbelievable, I took more than a hundred photos of Obama,” he told me on a crisp April afternoon while walking along the Malecón, the eight-kilometre esplanade along Havana’s north coast. </p>
<p>Barack Obama and his family landed at José Martí international airport in March 2016, the first US president to set foot on the island since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. </p>
<p>Ramiro, who sells <em>churros</em> in touristy Old Havana, is also a freelance photographer, and he followed the Obamas around the city, documenting their stay.</p>
<p>“Look at this one,” he said, showing me an image of the former president entering a restaurant with his wife and two daughters. “This is Obama when he went to have dinner at San Cristobal”, one of Cuba’s top-rated <em>paladares</em>, or private eateries. </p>
<p>“You should try the food there, you know Mick Jagger ate there, too?” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tourism is the engine that fuels Havana’s upscale private eateries, called <em>paladares</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">advencap/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The tourist engine</h2>
<p>Ramiro’s recommendation is tongue-in-cheek: I can’t afford San Cristobal and he knows it.</p>
<p>Happily, there are more affordable options among Havana’s 1,700 <em>paladares</em>. These in-home restaurants are part of the new economic model that encourages <em>cuentapropismo</em>, or self-employment, in Cuba. </p>
<p>By the end of 2016, there were more than 535,000 <em>cuentrapropistas</em> on the <a href="https://www.martinoticias.com/a/cuba-mas-medio-millon-cuentapropistas-cifras-oficiales/136867.html">island</a>. Self-employment now represents 26% of non-state employment, and it is projected to rise to 35%. </p>
<p>Other than owning a <em>paladar</em>, Cuban entrepreneurs may now legally engage in 202 other private activities, including being an electrician, animal trainer, gardener, hairdresser, street vendor and rickshaw driver.</p>
<p>Tourism is the engine of this change. According to Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism, more than <a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2017/07/12/ministro-del-turismo-cuba-proyecta-cerrar-el-ano-con-cuatro-millones-700-mil-turistas/#.WXe4jNOGNPM">4 million tourists are expected to land on the island in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>US tourism has long been banned here, even under Barack Obama, so Americans must seek one of 12 specific licences to avoid <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/cuba.aspx">violating US sanctions against Cuba</a>.</p>
<p>Lester and Laura, a Catholic couple in their 60s, told me that they “came in under the religious activities” license, citing one reason Americans can <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/how-to-travel-to-cuba_n_6489024">get authorisation to travel Cuba</a>.</p>
<p>Both schoolteachers, Lester and Laura were staying in an affordable <em>casa particular</em> (private home) on Old Havana’s Plaza Vieja. Like the <em>paladares</em>, these bed and breakfast-style accommodations are part of the <em>cuentapropista</em> economic plan.</p>
<p>The average host makes US$250 per booking, <a href="http://fortune.com/cuba-havana-airbnb/">according to Fortune magazine</a> – good money in a country where the average monthly salary is US$23. Business is clearly booming.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"872035360896933888"}"></div></p>
<p>Jaime and Mario, the owners of the <em>casa particular</em> hosting Lester and Laura, have impeccably renovated the fourth floor of their six-floor apartment building, splitting it into two self-contained bedrooms. </p>
<p>They’d like to add a third, they told me, but navigating Cuban bureaucracy is as slow as dancing <em>merengue</em>. Approval to expand will take months.</p>
<h2>An equitable society</h2>
<p>Fidel Castro, who died in 2016 at the age of 90, remains a revered figure among Cubans. He is buried 800 kilometres from Havana, in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/04/fidel-castro-funeral-ashes-interred-cuba-cemetery">the Santa Ifigenia cemetery</a> in Santiago de Cuba, the birthplace of the Cuban revolution.</p>
<p>Don Raúl, a <em>Santiagueño</em> engineer who drives an unpainted 1954 Chevrolet, met me at the cemetery on one of those steamy, scorching Santiago mornings. He directed me to Fidel’s tomb (“Walk to the entry and then turn left”). </p>
<p>Fidel’s ashes are encased under a bulky granite boulder bearing a minimalist dark plaque engraved with just his first name. To pay respects to the legendary <em>comandante</em>, just as with so many things in Cuba from buying coffee to accessing the internet, one must queue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fidel Castro remains a hero for many Cubans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Castillo</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Without Fidel we are heading to an unequal society,” Don Raúl told me. He is suspicious of <em>cuentapropismo</em>, which enriches some and leaves others out. “It’s not good.” </p>
<p>He doesn’t consider himself an entrepreneur. “I’m just a driver,” he said. </p>
<p>Don Raul, who still gets emotional when he speaks of Fidel, worries that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-castro-diaz-canel-idUSKBN13P0FC">Miguel Díaz-Canel</a>, Raúl Castro’s designated successor, will push Cuba to become a “US-style country” when he takes the reins in 2018. </p>
<p>A girl, perhaps ten years old, leaves a bunch of red roses at Fidel’s tomb. </p>
<p>“He was a friend,” she told me. “He fought for the country and for the education of children.” </p>
<p>She’s onto something. Unlike elsewhere in Latin America, kids in Cuba don’t beg or sell candy on the streets. Education levels <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salim-lamrani/world-bank-cuba-has-the-b_b_5925864.html">rival those of the developed world</a> and <a href="https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Progress_for_Children_-_No._4.pdf">childhood malnutrition</a> is almost nonexistent. </p>
<p>These are key indicators of human development. Even in bad times, Cuba has been an equitable society. And herein lies the existential dilemma facing Castro (and, soon enough, Díaz-Canal): Cuba is poor, but it has also avoided many of the maladies facing its neighbours. </p>
<p>Raul Castro has described his vision for the country as “prosperous and sustainable socialism”. Now he just has to figure out what that looks like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Antonio Castillo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cuba won’t tolerate the high social costs paid by China and Vietnam in their shift to market capitalism, but its economy desperately needs a reboot.Dr Antonio Castillo, Director, Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816302017-07-27T11:24:32Z2017-07-27T11:24:32ZPoland in peril: a legal expert on why democracy is threatened and what that means for Europe<p>Poland is on a collision course with the EU, facing unprecedented sanctions over the national government’s plan to effectively seize control of its courts and judges. </p>
<p>After three decades of steady progress away from commmunism and one-party rule, the governing Law and Justice party (PiS) is pushing for reforms to Poland’s judicial system which could seriously compromise the freedom of citizens. The measures could paralyse the courts, leaving constitutional rights open to abuse from the state.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-2161_en.htm">European Union</a> has already started legal action against Poland for infringing EU law and is now making an even more serious threat. In a statement published on July 26, it warned that unless the Polish government backs down from its reform plans within a month, the European Commission “stands ready to immediately trigger the Article 7 procedure”. This is the mechanism through which a member state’s EU voting rights can be suspended on the grounds that it has failed to meet the shared values of the EU – in this case, respecting the rule of law. Triggering <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3Al33500">Article 7</a> against Poland would be an unprecedented move against a member state.</p>
<p>The dispute centres around three bills presented by the government to the national parliament which would significantly curtail the freedom of the nation’s judges. One of these, the judicial bill, gives the justice minister the power to fire every single judge on the Supreme Court and to decide which of them gets reappointed. The bill was passed by the senate, but, in a dramatic turn of events, president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/24/poland-president-to-veto-controversial-laws-amid-protests">Andrzej Duda</a>, stepped in at the last minute to veto it.</p>
<p>It’s not clear why Duda blocked the bill, particularly since he is generally close to the PiS, but his decision may reflect the growing public backlash. Citizens have been on the streets of Warsaw, Krakow and other major cities protesting the bills. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the president has signed one of the three bills. This grants the government the power to appoint the presidents of the lower courts. The presidents of the courts decide upon the allocation of cases. If the government fills courts with politically malleable judges, then these cases can be filtered to specific courts in order to secure a favourable outcome.</p>
<p>Duda, a lawyer himself, has also sent the third bill back to parliament. This aims to enable the government to control who sits on the <a href="http://www.krs.pl/en/home">National Council of the Judiciary</a> – the body that nominates judges. Under this bill, the minister of justice would also have the right to select and dismiss judges.</p>
<h2>Sliding into authoritarianism</h2>
<p>This is just the latest in a series of attacks on democratic processes in Poland. The first targeted the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/18/poland-is-on-road-to-autocracy-says-high-court-president">Polish Constitutional Tribunal</a> – the body which assesses whether laws are compatible with the constitution. In 2015, the new PiS government refused to swear in judges nominated to this tribunal by its rival pro-European Civic Platform party, which had formed part of the outgoing government.</p>
<p>Since then, the PiS has moved to make the tribunal’s work increasingly difficult. It has refused to publish the tribunal’s rulings in the official gazette – a procedure needed to ensure those rulings are binding. It has also changed the rules so that the tribunal needs a two-thirds majority to make a ruling – and at least 13 of the 15 judges have to rule on every decision – making it incredibly difficult for the court to reach decisions on anything.</p>
<p>This effectively leaves the government free to interpret the Polish constitution as it sees fit. It might therefore clamp down on the free press, allow its critics to be locked up, or restrict freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.</p>
<h2>Brussels sanctions?</h2>
<p>After the collapse of communism, many Central and East European countries managed a “return to Europe”. The renewed relationship was a victory for democracy and the rule of law over the old systems of governance.</p>
<p>While there are grounds for reforming the Polish judiciary, democracy is always a work in progress. The proposed changes have little to do with reform. They are more squarely aimed at incapacitating the courts – beginning with the Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court. </p>
<p>The Polish government has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/26/poland-hits-back-eu-blackmail-judicial-reforms">accused</a> the European Commission of interfering with its national sovereignty by threatening to suspend its voting rights – perhaps seeking to tap into the “take back control” rhetoric that proved so successful in the UK ahead of the Brexit vote. But the sovereignty argument is misleading and dishonest. Sovereignty should not be about destroying the very institutions that uphold the rule of law.</p>
<p>This doesn’t just matter in Poland. The fact that cracks are appearing in countries that were thought to have been moving towards the rule of law shows that liberal democracy remains fragile. Having made so much progress to reform the practices of its communist past, Poland seems to be sliding back to authoritarianism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agata Fijalkowski has received funding for her research on post-communist Europe from the British Academy, the Socio-Legal Studies Association, Lancaster University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Lancaster University Law School.</span></em></p>The European Union is threatening to suspend the state’s voting rights if it pursues legislation to restrict its judiciary.Agata Fijalkowski, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster Law School, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.