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From the Pandemic to a Sea of Ignorance: On Bulgaria’s Neoliberal Educational Reform

Note from LeftEast editors: We publish this article in collaboration with the regional portal Bilten, where it originally appeared in Croatian. The correlation between educational and social inequalities in Bulgaria has long been at the center of public debate. However, rarely do we hear reform proposals beyond the existing neoliberal educational model based on competition, decentralization […]

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All posts ELMO Series: Gig Work in CEE’s Platform Economy

Gig Work in CEE’s Platform Economy: Delivery Drivers in Croatia

Between a rock and a hard place: “For Uber and Bolt, we are nothing but slaves” Note from LeftEast editors: This article originally appeared in Radnička Prava. The English translation is part of a collaboration with Eastern-European leftist media platforms ELMO – East Left Media Outlet. In honour of international labor day, May 1st and […]

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Bulgarian elections of 2021: repackaging the same old (TV) story

Bulgaria held inconclusive general elections on April 4, 2021. The hitherto center-right ruling party GERB won them but with a result preventing it from forming a government. A nascent anti-GERB coalition is shaping up in Parliament, led by “There is such a people”: a new formation headed by a famous Bulgarian TV host.

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All posts FeminEasts

[PODCAST] E.A.S.T. and the Transnational Social Strike: organizing women, migrant and essential workers

Note from LeftEast editors: We share this podcast with the permission of its producers from Contrasens. “Contrasens” is a podcast which explores current themes in the field of the social sciences. The project aims to bring to the forefront and make as accessible as possible research conducted by sociologists, anthropologists and other specialists from related fields. […]

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One modernity lost, the other out of reach – Contested post-Soviet infrastructures

Note from editors: This text is a contribution to the Berliner Gazette’s BLACK BOX EAST text series; its German translation is available here on Berliner Gazette. You can find more texts, works, and conference information on the English-language BLACK BOX EAST website. Infrastructures serve as basis for developmental discourses, preconfigure our ideas, and literally build futures because of their decades-long lifespans. Debates on […]

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A Transnational Response to the Attacks on the Istanbul Convention

This text was originally published on the Transnational Social Strike Platform website. There is also a Turkish, a Polish and an Italian translation available. Authors’ note: On April 11th, EAST members, women and LGBTQIA+ people from Turkey, Poland, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, […], drawing from Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, gathered together in a […]

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De-carbonization and climate denial populism in Valea Jiului

On February 15, 2021, over 100 miners in Lupeni mine in Valea Jiului (Jiu Valley) – a mine that is still functioning but that is earmarked for closure following negotiation with the European Union – refused to come out when their shift ended and declared a strike. In the following days, hundreds of miners in […]

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All posts Solidarity Call

Elton Debreshi: the way to Parliament passes through trade union organizing

The candidacy of Elton Debreshi – a mineworker from a peripheral town north of the country – in the upcoming general elections in Albania could be genuinely considered as an unwarranted intrusion into politics as usual. Thirty years after the collapse of the old regime, the political scenery has crystalized into the systemic rule of […]

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The political economy of the post-socialist mortality crisis

Surviving and dying are life chances in the most profound sense, a truism that the corona pandemic has powerfully underpinned. Already before the pandemic hit, the declining life expectancy in deindustrialized, rustbelt areas and the accompanying deepening of health inequalities have been signaling the existential crisis of contemporary economic arrangements. Recent research by Ann Case […]

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Will Zagreb be Ours? The prospects for a left-green alternative in Croatia’s capital and beyond

With local elections due to be held in Croatia on 16 May 2021, a left-green political platform Zagreb je Naš (Zagreb is Ours – henceforth ZjN) stands on the brink of a historic achievement.[1] Its candidate for mayor, Tomislav Tomašević, holds a strong lead in the race and is predicted to defeat by a large […]