Lefteast
In an effort to regulate foreign influence in Georgia, the Georgian parliament, People’s Power, as it is called, introduced two bills in late February, “On the registration of foreign agents” and “On the transparency of foreign influence.” People’s Power broke away from the ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD) so it could be more open about […]
The introduction of Lela Rekhviashvili’s book Struggle for the Rioni Valley in between Political and Civil Society Terrains: Contested Infrastructures and Development Politics, published in Georgian by Heinrich Böll Foundation. Who can resist capitalism today and how? Who can resist capitalism in Georgia or in other peripheral countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia, where the […]
Note from LeftEast editors: This text was originally published in Courrier des Balkans (CdB), in two parts. The interview was conducted and translated to French by Florentin Cassonnet, a CdB correspondent in Bucharest. The current text is a slightly edited version of the original interview. Courrier des Balkans: You recently organized a seminar about fascism […]
After it invaded Ukraine, Russia became the most heavily sanctioned country in the world. This has provoked a new wave of discussion about the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool of political influence. Many commenters have pointed out that sanctions rarely achieve their goals, and, as Daniel W. Drezner points out, the sanctions currently imposed […]
Note from LeftEast editors: Problems stemming from deteriorating working conditions and low salaries for teachers in Hungarian public education have been accumulating over the years, a process which intensified further during the Covid-19 crisis. Such a development resulted in an acute shortage of teachers as well as an alarming situation in public education, and occurred […]
Public protest has always been a risky affair in Russia, but it has become even riskier as of late. As anti-war demonstrations swept the country earlier this year, the repressive state apparatus intensified, and the protest has been cast underground. Nevertheless, the most committed activists have remained defiant in the face of suppression, coming up […]
Several Montenegrin associations for nature protection filed a complaint with the Secretariat of the Bern Convention regarding the possible construction of a hydroelectric power plant in one of the last wild canyons in Europe. Montenegro has until mid-September to react. In the meantime, activists and experts insist that the construction of the HPP Komarnica must […]
Since the winter of 2017, hardly a day has gone by in Iran without public demonstrations. Largely unemployed or underemployed young people from the most marginalized and impoverished suburbs of south-western provinces of Iran, as well as the urban working class, have turned the streets into the primary venue for the expression of their discontent with […]
Note from LeftEast editors: We are pleased to publish the second part of Ivan Rajković’s two-part series on anti-lithium mining protests that have erupted in Serbia over the last several months, and the broader environmental movement around it. See the previous entry here. With Rio Tinto’s extraction of lithium in Serbia, the European Union was […]
Editorial note: Here, as part of an international solidarity campaign, LeftEast gathers four testimonies, all which tell, in very personal ways, the story of DOXA, a student journal at the Higher School of Economics (Moscow), which quickly outgrew the confines of its origins to become the voice of Russian students, and then one the main […]