Introduction

The book Rethinking Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe examines how citizenship is practised in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from an interdisciplinary perspective. Through the lenses of interdisciplinary citizenship studies, scholars from the fields of educational and political science provide insights into how citizenship interacts with political engagement and interrelates with practices of citizenship. The volume adopts a pluralist approach, acknowledging that citizenship can have different connotations depending on the theoretical context, methodological approaches, and specific research interests across the subdisciplines of educational and social sciences.

While the focus on the broader region allows for a comprehensive examination of shared challenges and trends, the decision to limit individual country analyses was intentional, aimed at highlighting overarching patterns and fostering comparative discussions within CEE. However, this choice also opens avenues for future research that could delve deeper into specific national contexts regarding citizenship education and youth citizenship.

This volume expands on prior research, including Treviño et al (2021), to deepen the discussion on citizenship. While that book provides a rich theoretical analysis of youth citizenship across diverse cultures, Rethinking Citizenship extends the discussion specifically within the CEE context, emphasizing unique historical, political, and social dynamics. It situates youth citizenship within local frameworks, allowing for a deeper understanding of how practices differ from those in a more generalized global context.

Introduction

Extremism, climate change, political polarization – how can societies counter these developments? In the search for answers, the call for citizenship and civic education has been playing an increasing role for several years (Kolleck, 2022). At the same time, it has become clear that citizenship and civic education cannot be generalized and encounter different social traditions and conditions depending on the country and region. This chapter turns to this challenge and asks for the conceptual meaning of citizenship and civic education in CEE. Due to the specific contexts of civic and citizenship education in post-communist states, the countries of CEE are defined less by strict geographical boundaries than by their shared history and societal similarities (for example, regarding dictatorship and social transformation).

The development in CEE is particularly exciting. In the course of the post-communist transformation and the efforts towards Europeanization, the topics of citizenship and civic education gained increasing relevance. At the same time, ambivalences and dilemmas emerged that can be attributed to the specific situation in these countries. Since the end of the Cold War, however, citizenship education and civic education have been promoted not only by the countries themselves but also by the European Union (EU) and the European Council in particular, in order to support processes of democratization and the establishment of a market economy. However, it is apparent that this external promotion of citizenship and civic education, for instance in the European Partnership programme of the EU, led to actions that marginalized important goals inherent in the concepts of citizenship and civic education such as the development of democratic and responsible citizens and the integration of individuals into civil society, which are inherent in the concepts (Segert, 2016).

Introduction

The central focus of political socialization and citizenship education is to form the bedrock of a functioning democracy, primarily taking root during adolescence and shaped by the experiences of youth within their sociopolitical contexts (Eckstein, 2019, p 417). Influences range from vast, intricate phenomena such as the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine to more intimate socialization within peer groups, families, and schools. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly curtailed these essential socialization channels, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the future in terms of environmental conservation, education, and economic stability. Notably, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic rank among the primary concerns of German youth, signalling a significant shift in public opinion on these political issues (Schoen, 2006). These considerations emphasize the need to incorporate the political attitudes of Germany's youth into decision-making processes, bolster citizenship education, and counter the spread of extremist and conspiracy-linked beliefs. Especially in times of crisis, extreme or conspiratorial political positions often offer a seemingly simple solution to the complex challenges of the time and usually spread when people are confronted with surprising and frightening events (van Prooijen and Douglas, 2017). Conspiracy theories often act as catalysts for violence. For instance, right-wing groups in Germany have been at the forefront of promoting extremist and conspiracy theory-fuelled violence, with movements such as the anti-vaccination movement and PEGIDA representing vivid examples (Körner, 2020, p 388)

Introduction

In this volume, we have carried out a multifaceted exploration of citizenship education and citizenship practices in Central and Eastern Europe focusing mainly on insights from Political Science and Education Studies. Our point of departure was the acknowledgement of a significant gap in research on citizenship, which has necessitated a more interdisciplinary discussion of the topic at hand. Each chapter of the volume has contributed a unique perspective, allowing for insights that, taken together, have deepened our understanding of citizenship practices in this dynamic region.

Key themes

Citizenship is not a monolithic concept but rather a multilayered phenomenon, shaped by historical legacies, sociopolitical contexts, and educational systems. The pluralist approach adopted throughout this volume has allowed us to spell out the diversity of citizenship practices – from the conventional to the avant-garde – and has unveiled the interplay between citizenship and democracy. In this context, education emerges as a cornerstone in shaping citizenship practices. The role of formal, non-formal, and informal educational settings in cultivating civic virtues and political engagement has thus been a recurrent theme throughout the volume. By scrutinizing these civic and educational landscapes, we have uncovered the transformative potential of education in fostering active and informed citizenship among the youth – the future generations of citizens. Moreover, our comparative lens has highlighted both convergences and divergences across countries in the region. The impact of historical legacies, societal structures, and geopolitical shifts on citizenship practices has been explored, contributing to a map of citizenship practices in this dynamic region.

Introduction

Democracy in Europe currently faces multiple challenges stemming from strengthened neo-nationalist movements, the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU), and the effects of grand global issues including the changing climate, pandemics, migration, and, most recently, the Russian war within the east of Europe (Cambien et al, 2020). Especially in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), processes of de-Europeanization and de-democratization as well as a strengthening of political authoritarianism have been observed (Szymański, 2017). Citizenship education has been ascribed an important role by policy makers, civil society, and academics alike. Citizenship education can be understood as a concept that encompasses all educational efforts to qualify citizens to responsibly participate in social and democratic life (Solhaug, 2013). It can thus serve as a response to the developments mentioned previously since it has the potential to prepare learners for the challenges of the 21st century by using the indicated issues as learning opportunities and contributing to the development of civic competences (Besand, 2020).

However, the concept and practice of citizenship education is itself the subject of broad discussions and changes, especially in times of crisis (Ben-Porath, 2006). As comparative studies indicate, the way that citizenship education is currently understood and practised across European states is diverging: ‘Given that there is not one type of ideal citizen, there is not a single type of citizenship education either’ (EACEA, 2017, p 20). Thus, it can be seen as a complex matter linking a multitude of actors and levels.

The concept of a global administrative space (GAS) denotes the emergence of administrative structures beyond the territory of the nation state that underpin processes of global governance. Against this backdrop, this chapter argues that an environmental GAS is emerging, which combines the development of independent administrative capacities at the international level with an increasing integration of a broad range of governmental and nongovernmental organizations at different levels of government. The GAS constitutes a complex multilevel and multiactor structure. Based on an original dataset covering issue-specific collaboration and communication flows between organizations operating in the fields of global climate and biodiversity governance, this chapter uses techniques of social network analysis to describe and analyze the structure and composition of administrative networks. It finds a relatively stable pattern of mutual interaction among international environmental bureaucracies, international organizations, national and subnational bureaucracies, research institutes and nongovernmental organizations that can be interpreted as an indicator for the emergence of a GAS in environmental governance.

This chapter conceptualizes international public administrations (IPAs) as attention-seeking bureaucracies whose goal is to actively feed their policy-relevant information into the multilateral decision-making process. It suggests two avenues through which international treaty secretariats can attempt to influence international negotiations: (a) Secretariats may attempt to supply policy-relevant information to negotiators from the inside via their close cooperation with the chairs of multilateral negotiations or (b) they may attempt to build support for their preferred policy outputs by engaging with and communicatively connecting actors within the broader transnational policy network in order to exert pressure on negotiators from the outside. Taking the secretariats of the Convention of Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as examples, these potential pathways of secretariat influence are illustrated and explored empirically. The findings contribute to a growing body of literature that studies the role of national and international public administrations as agenda-setters, policy entrepreneurs, or policy brokers at the interface of public policy analysis and public administration.

This chapter reviews the most recent advances in the scholarly literature on international environmental bureaucracies and relates it to the long and fruitful research agenda on international public administrations (IPAs). In the first section, IPAs are defined and distinguished from the wider international organizations or treaty systems that they are an integral part of. The next section addresses the question of whether and how IPAs should be expected to matter in global environmental governance. It then presents selected empirical studies that find IPAs to have had an autonomous, discernible influence on international policy processes and outputs. The last section identifies the most relevant determinants and causal mechanisms of IPA influence and shows how the chapters in the book contribute to this continuously evolving research agenda.