After World War II the state-socialist systems in Eastern Europe virtually abolished the legal basis of the free civil movements. With the elimination of the market economic conditions, the economic role of non-profit organizations has also ended, while with the establishment of the state social political institutes, the voluntary social organizations disappeared. The fate of the ideologically “incompatible” civil movements was also sealed, so the voluntary sector collapsed nearly totally by the middle of the 1950s, the central power strove to eliminate everything it could not keep under its control. The numerous signs and reasons of the weakness of the Eastern European civil sector, resurrected in the 1990s, is well-known in the literature. These include the failure of independent activity, the problem of limited funds, the low participation rate of the residents, the distrust and disappointment, as well as the signs of over-dependency on the state and the local government. These weaknesses have also been revealed by the recent international research projects. Our research institute studies the civil sector on a macro level, seeking to answer the question whether a specific Eastern European model for the development of civil society, different from that of the Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean or Scandinavian, can be observed.

Research reports are available in Hungarian. For further information concerning the research projects, please contact us via the projekt@echomail.hu e-mail address.