Lisa Sundstrom

Our Roundtable will explore the varieties of 21st century civil society activism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In an era of recent backsliding of democracy in many countries of the region, civil society activism looks different than that during the immediate transition from Communist-party rule.  Instead, today civil society actors are more often engaged in informal modes of activism that address concrete problems: what we call "everyday activism". We will bring together international scholars and policy specialists who are experts on the CEE region, to engage in a wide-ranging discussion of the emerging qualities characterizing civil society groups and their relationship with democratic politics in the region; to give feedback to the organizers on their ongoing comparative project on civil society trends in the region; and to engage with the wider UBC community about civil society and democracy in the region, which is today frequently perceived as "in crisis".