New Books In Eastern European Studies

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI's Director John Torpey interviews Grzegorz Ekiert, Chair of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, a propós of the recent election in Poland that installed a centrist government led by former prime minister and president of the European Council Donald Tusk. Ekiert starts by discussing the paradoxes behind the support of Putin and the antiliberalism in Eastern Europe given the imperialism these countries faced from the Russians historically.  In addition, Ekiert addressed Poland’s leading role in the democratization and economic development in the region after the end of the Soviet Union and how many of these initiatives were reversed by an authoritarian regime associated with the Catholic church. The interview concludes with a discussion of the challenges that the new government is going to face after the PiS (Law and Justice Party) seriously eroded the institutions of the state; the challenges are illuminated by a comparison of the institutional