Much research on new democracies has focused on their purported low democratic quality. But there has not yet emerged a consensus on what democratic quality means or how to measure it. This lecture puts forward a new conception of democratic quality that is rooted in the idea of democracy as popular rule. It then procedes to apply this concept to the ten new EU members from postcommunist Europe. Its surprising finding is that democratic quality is relatively high in these countries; citizens do have the means to control their rulers.
After the breakdown of state socialism in Europe the societal role of youth changed dramatically from that of an ideological driving force of communism to that of an agent and carrier of democratisation and marketisation. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989, a symbol of both the raising of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War, this seminar takes a look at how the opening up of these societies to Europe and the world changed the conditions and experiences of growing up in the area.
