In her popular book "Café Europa", the Croatian author and journalist Slavenka Drakulić mentions her observation that in nearly every Eastern European City a Café Europa could be found soon after the fall of communism. These Cafés in "Western style" often embodied the dreams and promises of a then changing world.
But how have these promises and hopes developed after twenty years? Could they be realised like in the vision of the former Polish dissident and author Adam Michnik who was looking forward to a Europe of "Humanism and tolerance, the same dignity for all citizens, the liberty of the individual, solidarity with the weak and political pluralism"? Or did people face other European realities, find rather disappointing results or develop own innovative approaches to the vision of a good society beyond Western ideas?
The issue 1/2014 is aimed to provide space for analyses on the changes that happened in different welfare systems as well as the social work profession in different Middle and Eastern European countries. Therefore, each article should be focussed on one Middle or Eastern European country and the predominantly perceivable effects from the system changes from the last twenty years on:
Please send your contribution to the ERIS Web Journal editors until December 15, 2013 the latest and mind our "Guidelines for submission of articles". The ERIS Web Journals’ Editorial Board will referee all submitted articles. All authors will be informed about the result of the peer review process in January 2014.
Beyond that, we also welcome contributions for the sections "news from research" as well as "book reviews". Ideally, these texts are as well related to the thematic focus of this issue.
With best regards,
Christian Spatscheck (Hochschule Bremen) and Iva Tichá (ERIS Office, University of Ostrava) Guarantors of the ERIS Web Journal 1/2014.