The Civil Society in the Transformation Process
Given the specific legacies of post-communist countries, the civil society has become very important in the transformation process. The classic transformation model has three stages: liberalization, democratization and consolidation. With the institutional and personnel vacuums partly due to the transformation process, actors in civil society have much scope, particularly in the democratization phases, to influence and accelerate the transformation process. When democratization moves more fully into consolidation, the civil society finds itself tested. This is an important period when the civil society needs to be able to assert itself against newly established political elites within the economic and social realities of transformation.
The transformation states of eastern, central-eastern and south-eastern Europe experience very specific problems and issues in the institutionalization of active structures of civil society as a result of their post-communist legacies. Given little experience with intermediary structures, the civil societies of transformation states lack, for example, political pluralism and wide political participation.
These issues are addressed by practice-oriented workshops run by the Institute for European Politics. Through political education seminars, the IEP supports citizen engagement in the democratic process and thereby aims to assist in consolidating civil society structures in these new democracies.
Projects to promote civil society processes have been conducted in Moldova.
Should you be interested in learning more about our programmes, the staff in the Training & Political Education Section of the IEP will be glad to help you with your enquiries.