This video is spoken in Finnish.
Final year Finnish students Michael Jones and Erik Engberg talk about why they chose to study Finnish, what is easy, fascinating and difficult about Finnish, who they use Finnish with and their Finno-Ugric interests. Michael has studied North Sámi, Estonian and Livonian, whereas Erik talks about Karelian.  The interview was conducted 12 December 2014.

Interview With Final Year Finnish Students

Romanian Language Trails - Anca

Romanian Language Trails - Gabriela

Romanian Language Trails - Ion

Romanian Language Trails - Lucia

Romanian Language Trails - Marcel

Romanian Language Trails - Radu

Romanian Language Trails - Sorin

Romanian Language Trails - Vlad

Professor Andrew Wilson, of UCLSSEES, talks on 'The Faking of Russian Democracy and the Fracturing of Democracy in America: Political Technology versus Disruptive Technology' for his Inaugural Lecture at UCL.

Prof Wilson Inaugural Lecture 9 March 2017- Faking of Russian Democracy.MP3

Over the past decade a consensus has emerged that democracy in CEE is sharply deteriorating, perhaps even ‘backsliding’ into new forms of authoritarianism. Debate has, however, so far focused disproportionately on the two most dramatic and surprising cases: Hungary and Poland.

In this event contributors to a newly published edited collection seeks to inject fresh thinking into the debate on democratic deterioration in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), viewing ‘democratic backsliding’ through the prism of a range of cases beyond Hungary and Poland.

This collection reflects on the ‘backsliding’ debate through the experience of CEE countries such as the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Estonia; as well as neighbouring post-communist regions such as the Western Balkans and former Soviet Union (cases such as Moldova and Ukraine), whose patterns of failing or partial democratisation may be newly instructive for analysing the development of CEE.

Contributors discussed less frequently considered perspectives on ‘democratic backsliding’ in the CEE, such as the role of oligarchisation and wealth concentration; the potential of ethnographical approaches to democracy evaluation; the trade-offs between democratic quality and democratic stability; and the long-term interplay between social movements, state-building, and democratisation.

This book was originally published as a special issue of East European Politics.

Chair/discussant

Dr Sherrill Stroschein (UCL Department of Political Science)

Panellists

Dr Licia Cianetti (Royal Holloway)

Dr James Dawson (Coventry University)

Dr Seán Hanley (UCL-SSEES)

Dr Eleanor Knott (LSE)

Rethinking Democratic Backsliding - book launch - 20 May 2019

UCL SSEES (The School of Slavonic and East European Studies) is one of the leading global interdisciplinary centres, specialising in the study of the economics, politics, history, culture and language of Central, Eastern, South-Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia.

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