Workshop: Crisis, resilience and the future of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe - Reflection Workshop for Practitioners and Scholars

Join our reflection workshop and apply until 1st November - with the following application form

Why now? There is no doubt that democracies today are facing a plethora of challenges related to the complex dynamics in which our political systems are rooted. At the same time, there are numerous opportunities to learn from our experience and move forward together. This is especially true for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a region that underwent a recent transformation and was seen as a potential “exporter” of democratic “know-how”.

How do we want to approach this topic? We want to bring a diverse group of practitioners and thinkers from civil society, public administration, media and think tanks together to jointly start answering the question: What is taking place in CEE these days when it comes to the state of democracy and what follows from that for us, who care about its future? We thereby strive for a constructive exchange and cooperation between civil society, the state, media, business and academia in CEE and beyond.

In an interactive and moderated workshop, we invite members of the Bosch Alumni Network to share both your knowledge and professional experience in order to come closer to a more comprehensive picture of the state of play and develop perspectives for the future. In a combination of plenaries and group sessions, we want to find answers to the following set of questions:

• Examining the state of democracy in CEE today, what would the diagnosis look like?
• What have we learned from the democratization processes in CEE?
• How is our work in civil society, research and media, politics and government related to and/ or affected by these developments? How is our role evolving?
• How can we profit from/co-create international exchange around democracy in CEE?

We will kick start the gathering with a fireplace talk with a prominent, contemporary scholar of democracy (tbc) on Thursday evening, spend the following day diagnosing the state of play in CEE and on Sunday (until lunchtime) we work  on how our role and work should look like in the future?

If you are interested to join and actively contribute to the conversation, please join our thematic group  and take the time to fill in the following form by 1st November.  Working language is English. 70% of the costs of travel to Berlin and accommodation costs will be covered by the organisers.

We look forward to your application.

Ana Bojadjievska, Louisa Slavkova and Darius Polok

Robert Bosch Stiftung, Sofia Platform Foundation and the International Alumni Center