News

On 20th and 21st of September 2018 the international workshop: “Voters and political Parties in post-communist Europe: New Challenges and Opportunities” took place at Södertörn University, Stockholm/Sweden. The workshop was organized by the Center for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) of Södertörn University. Over 20 PhD students, from all over Europe gathered to discuss populist and far-left parties in Eastern Europe, as well as political participation and political marketing in the region. In total five panels were held, where each participant acted as a discussant regarding the paper of another one which led to in-depth discussions on the above mentioned topics. The participants were representing, amongst others, the following institutions: University of Glasgow, City University of New York, Central European University (CEU), Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Vilnius University.

Kristine Margvelashvili presented a paper on the “Political Participation, Trust and Religiosity in post-communist Orthodox Europe”. Ukraine and Georgia were taken for a comparative case study and in addition World Values Survey Wave 6 data was used to find correlations between religiosity (behavior and belief) and political participation (voting on national level) in the Orthodox Christian population in Europe. Statistically significant correlations have been found between trust towards religious institutions and voting on the national level, while in the case of Georgia negative correlations have been observed between active membership in church and voting on national level. After the presentation of the paper a discussion commenced, where discussants gave certain comments to the author of the article.

Finally, after all presentations were held, participants and organizers reviewed future plans on the publication of all papers as a special issue of an academic journal. The final versions of the articles will be ready before the end of academic year.