Journal articles on the topic 'Unemployment – Soviet Union'

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in 1991 and separated into the 15 post-Soviet countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The post-Soviet countries have faced many economic problems, including unemployment. The association between suicide and unemployment in post-Soviet countries has not been well studied. Here, we researched the annual suicide rate and the unemployment rate during the 28-year period from 1992 to 2019 in the 15 post-Soviet countries. We calculated the correlation coefficients between the suicide rate and the unemployment rate in each of the countries during this period, and we determined the association between the suicide rate and unemployment rate. Our major findings were that (1) the suicide rates among both males and females were significantly associated with the unemployment rate in nearly half of the 15 countries, and (2) for nearly 70% of the males in the entire set of 15 countries, there was an association between the suicide rate and the unemployment rate. Suicide-prevention researchers and organizations should be aware of our findings, and specific suicide-prevention measures based on these results are desirable.

Migration is an issue for many countries. It affects several areas of social problems, for example, work and unemployment. A relevant issue to study in the context of unemployment and social welfare is, “Which are experiences of migrants with different language backgrounds in finding work and support?” For a running study with episodic interviews and mobile methods with migrants from the former Soviet Union to Germany, several issues are discussed in a “new critical inquiry”: Critical issues in the studied area (help, control, normative claims); applying (familiar) qualitative methods (interviewing in various languages and cultural backgrounds or mobile methods); triangulation in a new critical migration research.

Statistics reveal that some one billion employable workers are unemployed— almost 33 percent of the total global workforce. Unemployment has therefore come to be a significant political issue in Western Europe, the developing world, and the former ‘tiger’ economies of the Far East and South East Asia. Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, undergoing a process of structural reform, have also significant populations that are in search of employment. The world outlook for employment is therefore very grim. Such high levels of unemployment cause major economic losses not only to national economies but also to the world economy by reducing growth rates, thereby further adding to the problem of unemployment, a vicious cycle indeed. The rise of unemployment levels requires radical new measures that need to be put in place if this problem is to be tackled effectively at the national and international levels.

Between The European Elections of June 1989 and those of June 1994, the voters had to digest an extraordinary diet of change. The cold war ended, leading to the unification of Germany and replacing one monolithic security problem by a diversity of problems, including, most agonizingly, Bosnia. The Soviet Union disintegrated. Recession brought unemployment above 10 per cent for the European Union as a whole. Many were bemused by the complexity of the Maastricht Treaty and the political conflicts engendered by some of its major elements. Foremost among these was the project for the single currency, promoted by France in order to anchor Germany yet more firmly in the Union. The idea of a ‘common defence’ as a backbone for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) also had this motivation.

Labor (meaning both wage workers as well as their collective representation) in Russia was a major loser in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Aggregate data on prices, average wage and pension levels, wage arrears, and unemployment indicate a serious decline in workers’ standard of living that is unprecedented in the post-World War II era, while strike data show an upsurge in this form of worker militancy during the mid-1990s but a decline thereafter.This article seeks to explain both why these developments occurred and what prevented workers from adequately defending their collective interests. Four explanations have been advanced by Western and Russian scholars. The first is that workers were victims of state policies pursued in line with the“Washington consensus” on how to effectuate the transition from an administrative-command to a market-based economy. The second points to workers’ attitudes and practices that were prevalent under Soviet conditions but proved inappropriate to post-Soviet life. The third, claiming that several key indices of workers’ standard of living are misleading, denies that labor has been a loser. The fourth and most compelling of the explanations is derived from ethnographically based research. It argues that despite changes in the forms of property and politics, power relations at the enterprise level remained intact, leaving workers and their unions dependent on the ability of management to bargain with suppliers of subsidies and credits. The article concludes with some observations about workers’ survival strategies and the extent to which collective dependence on economic and political strongmen has worked against structural change in favor of labor.

In 1980, Poles were the first to jump the communist ship and organize outside of the Communist Party, forming a ten-million strong alternative labor union, Solidarity. When the Communist government banned the Union in 1981, Poles refused to dissolve it. They went underground forming Solidarity-sponsored schools, theaters, newspapers, and political groups. In so doing, Solidarity activists created an alternative civil society that emerged nearly intact in 1989 when Poles were the first to throw off Soviet-backed communism. Yet now, in this land of self-liberation and freedom, the highly conservative Law and Justice party, led by Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczyński, won the 2005 elections on a pro-Catholic, antigay, antiabortion, anticommunist, and xenophobic platform. Now the Kaczyński government is hounding government officials, professors, lawyers, doctors, managers, journalists, judges, and bank managers out of jobs for refusing to declare whether or not they collaborated with the communist security forces. Poles, who during the Solidarność era reached out in solidarity to activists around the world, are now redefining Polish citizenship as singularly Polish and Catholic. Founded as a worker's movement, Solidarity has overseen the diminution of the Polish working class, the emasculation of unions, the downward spiral of purchasing power, and one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe.

The main focus of this article is political cartoons from Krokodil — the Soviet flagship satirical magazine. The author uses social constructivism as a lens to analyze U.S.-Soviet relations through political cartoons which serve as a peculiar, but valuable primary source. The article focuses primarily on the works of prominent Soviet artists, i.e., the Kukryniksy, Boris Efimov, Yury Ganf, Boris Leo, Ivan Semyonov, Vitaly Goryaev, and Mark Abramov, all of whom were mobilized by the Soviet propaganda in the Cold War of images with the USA. The author traces the role of political cartoon as a litmus test of the changing bilateral relations from the early Cold War to the first international Thaw at the end of the 1950-s, dissects a repertoire of images of the US, and identifies the constant and the variable in the equation of Soviet perception. Among the “constant,” unchanging communicative strategies, were dichotomies “internationalism vs. racism and imperialism,” “disarmament vs. arms race,” “peaceful intentions vs. military propaganda,” “prosperity for all vs. wealth for the elites,” “social guaranties vs. poverty and unemployment.” The variables, meaning characteristics that served as an indicator of transformation in U.S.-Soviet relations, included expanding the repertoire of images and contexts, as well as the decreasing number of anti-American cartoons almost to the point of non-existence. The mutual interest of American and Soviet cartoonists toward each other was also notable as they aspired to understand satire produced “on the other side” and learn to mock mutual stereotypes. All these trends remained later and marked the beginning of the détente as well as new tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

This paper analyses the problems of the new peripheral regions after the European Union enlargement. The last EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007 were the logical consequences of political, social and economic changes associated with the break-up of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Communist Bloc. These two enlargements led to substantial geopolitical consequences. The European Union’s demographic and territorial potential increased by around one-third. At the same time, the European Union structures moved east and southwards. In 2004, one of the Polish regions, the Warmia and Mazury region, faced some new challenges associated with the Polish accession to the EU. The years of Poland’s membership in the European Union have been a period of gaining experience in submitting EU projects for the region, and in allocating financial resources properly. The total effect of this period is rather positive. However, we must not forget that many negative economic and social phenomena still occur (e.g., a high unemployment rate, emigration of young educated people, etc.). Politically, a new challenge for the Warmia and Mazury region is going to be a continuation and development of the cross-border cooperation with the Kaliningrad region. Poland’s accession to the EU has had no positive impact on improving the Polish-Russian relations at the central decision-making level. KEYWORDS: • European Union • regional development • new peripheral regions • Warmia and Mazury region

The disadvantages experienced by immigrants in education and labour markets have been of growing concern in many countries in recent years. However, little research has been undertaken on ethnic inequalities in labour markets in Eastern Europe, and especially in post-Soviet societies. This article considers the integration of the immigrant population into the labour market in post-Soviet Estonia, where the context and peculiarities of the arrived population are quite different from the assumptions of Western immigrant integration theories. The Russian-speaking population arrived in Estonia after World War II as internal migrants, because Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. A remarkably high proportion of them were well educated. After Estonia regained its independence in 1991, the context of integration changed radically, and the legal status of internal Soviet Union migrants was redefined. To account for these societal and political changes, we suggest making an analytical distinction between generations of immigrants in a demographic sense (being born in Estonia) and an integrational sense (becoming an integral part of the host society, in the labour market - having more similar patterns to those of the native population in the context of labour market outcomes). This distinction impacts differently on different age cohorts and we analysed outcomes of labour market integration alongside both nativity generations and age cohorts. Our analysis based on the 2011-2013 Labour Force Surveys shows that, while in most Western countries there are tendencies of convergence between natives and second-generation immigrants regarding structural integration, in Estonia the dynamics are different. The net disadvantage of young second-generation immigrants relative to their Estonian counterparts is either more pronounced compared to the disadvantage of their ‘parents’ age cohort relative to their Estonian peers (with regard to the risks of unemployment or chances of obtaining a high occupational position) or becoming less pronounced, but only for the highly educated portion of second generations (in terms of self-assessed over-education).

Integration of immigrants is a major political and societal topic in societies such as Germany, although there are different ideas about when integration is achieved. For analyzing integration from the immigrants’ points of view, data triangulation of talking (episodic interviews addressing migration histories) and walking (mobile methods—go-alongs) reveals several levels of integration experiences. After outlining space and belonging as relevant theoretical concepts and the methods triangulated in a study, four case studies of immigrants from Turkey and the former Soviet Union in Berlin are presented. The immigrants’ perceptions and aspirations toward belonging, participation, and integration are explored and compared from an intersectional perspective. We find differing ways of positioning toward the German majority society, of getting connected to it and coping with unemployment. Relations of work and social integration or marginalization are discussed based on the case studies and the relevance of using various kinds of data is demonstrated.

Uncovering the importance of Islam in Chechen national identity is not necessarily difficult. Alexei Malashenko has noted that Chechen identity today cannot be considered outside the context of Islamic tradition. Chechnya today is not an independent Muslim state. Its embracing of Islam came about during a time of colonization, when Chechens were struggling to halt Russian encroachment on their lands. Many works pertaining to Islam in Chechnya suggest that, at the time of Russian advancement in the eighteenth century, most Chechens were “nominally” Muslim. This has been attributed to the geographic isolation of the Caucasus. While the rugged mountainous landscape and thick forests which cover the region provided protection from invaders, it also hindered interaction among the various mountain peoples as well as the strength of outside religious influence. Soon after their defeat to the tsarist Russians, the Bolshevik Revolution occurred and Chechens spent the following 80 years under Soviet rule. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Chechnya declared independence alongside the full-fledged Soviet Socialist Republics, though their independence was not recognized by the UN. The Chechen victory over the Russian Federation in the first war in 1994–1996 has been considered a remarkable military defeat. However, a weak economy, high unemployment, and criminality caused the young nation to fall into a state of lawlessness and radicalism, eventually causing it to suffer a defeat to the Russians in the second war, which began in 1999. The present day is characterized by exhaustion and a desire for peace, a desire that ultimately has meant deference to Russian rule.

The Subject of the Study is the models of interaction and intersection of ideologies in media discourse. In contrast to the homogeneous ideological discourse of the Soviet press, the Western Ukrainian of the interwar period was ideologically diverse, in particular, “leftist” ideas were propagated in magazines. There is a noticeable trend in modern media studies: researchers to some extent ignore the “communist segment” of the Western Ukrainian press of the interwar period, this is due to the relevance of our study. Realizing that the communist movement was not widespread in Western Ukraine during the interwar period, let us consider the press of communist organizations both for the sake of objectivity and the need to explore models of the intersection of communist ideology and feminism and this is the novelty of the research. The aim of the article is to investigate the specifics of the interaction of feminism and communism in the Western Ukrainian media discourse of the 1920s and 1930s on the material of communist magazines. The weekly Nasha Zemlya and Sel-Rob, which represented the communist ideological discourse of Western Ukraine, were selected for analysis. The research methodology is a combination of critical discourse analysis with feminist critique. The Results of the Study. Communist magazines were concerned about how to attract Ukrainian women to the party ranks. The key issues covered in Western Ukrainian communist magazines were: women’s unemployment, low-skilled workers, difficult conditions, and low wages. At the same time, only women journalists paid attention to the gender aspect of such problems, for example, the gender disparity in the remuneration of men and women. The political and ideological orientation of Western Ukrainian communist newspapers toward the Soviet Union and Moscow Bolshevism was obvious. Propaganda materials about the Soviet Union’s success in resolving the “women’s issue” regularly appeared in the newspapers of Western Ukrainian communists. Publications on women’s issues were feminist in terms of authorial Intentions, ideological accents, and interpretation of facts. However, discrimination against women was primarily due to an unjust socio-economic system. Despite feminist intentions in the materials of communist magazines, activists of the Ukrainian Women’s Union were criticized as the main ideological competitors in the struggle for the Ukrainian woman.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in the fi rst democratic national elections of 1993, voter turnout in Latvia was 89.9 per cent. However, by the late 90s, participation levels had signifi cantly decreased. Scholars have pointed out that this decrease was a result of people gradually learning the limits of democratic governance while tackling the feeling of political powerlessness and decreasing trust in politicians and political institutions – all of which have had negative effects on civil society and democratic ideals. Youths in particular were affected by the sum of all this, seeing, first-hand, income inequality, economic stagnation, corruption, and personal unemployment (or that of their parents). All this, combined with a lack of democratic traditions, has resulted in scepticism and political apathy. This paper shows that, since 2009, Latvia has seen a decrease in all forms of political participation, including a share of its youths who run as MP candidates in elections. The paper aims to clarify what would help bring Latvian youths back into politics.

The aim of the article is to assess the factors of economic growth of the CEE countries over the 30-year history, the productivity of capital and human resources, the resilience of these countries to the negative impact of the global financial crisis. Methodology. The Solow growth model was used to estimate the growth rates of capital, labor and total factor productivity (TFP). The impact of macroeconomic indicators on GDP and TFP growth is assessed. The group of Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union was chosen for the analysis: Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, as well as post-Soviet European countries: Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova and Albania in the period from 1991 to 2019. Results. TFP makes a significant contribution to the economic growth of CEE countries. During the period of market reforms, TFP significantly decreased, and during the boom of 2000-2008 it fully ensured the growth of the CEE economies, after the crisis of 2008, the contribution of TFP decreased by 2 times. In the conditions of recovery, TFP growth is positively influenced by inflation, negative CA balance, and unemployment reduction. In the post-crisis period, a decrease in inflation, a positive CA balance, and an increase in unemployment had a positive impact on TFP growth. During a depression, the influence of capital becomes dominant. Restrictive monetary policy contributes to the efficiency of CEE economies. In the short run, unemployment increases, but in the long run it decreases significantly due to the growth of investment and exports. Practical implications. The analysis makes it possible to identify effective macroeconomic policies to stimulate the productivity of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe during the period of economic recovery and depression. Value/originality. A long-term study of the economic performance of CEE countries using the Solow methodology has revealed the behavior of total factor productivity in different periods of modern economic history and its contribution to economic growth.

According to the EU Eurostat data, for a long period of time, the Baltic countries have been leading the list of countries with high unemployment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these indicators have become critical in their scale, so the national governments of these countries, with the help of the EU, are trying to change the situation for the better with the help of various measures of state support in the field of employment, stabilize these indicators and bring them to the level of pre-crisis 2019. The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of state support measures of the Governments of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia aimed at providing employment and combating unemployment as one of the factors affecting their socio-economic development. The methodology of the study includes a method of statistical analysis, with the help of which statistical data on the number of unemployed citizens in these countries (for the period 2014-2021) are compared, the dynamics of the population in the period under review is considered. Along with the statistical method, a SWOT analysis was used, on the basis of which the strengths and weaknesses of state support measures of the governments of the Baltic countries in order to support employment, potential threats from their application and new opportunities for supporting unemployed persons were identified. The authors of the study made proposals on the need for structural reforms aimed at improving the labor market in the Baltic states, such as: retraining citizens who lost their jobs during the pandemic, for state account, the introduction of stricter quotas for the entry of citizens from the territory of the former Soviet Union and obtaining a work visa, the provision of additional subsidies to small and medium-sized businesses, the release of their from paying taxes for the period of emerging pandemics.

After the end of the Latvian War of Liberation (1918–1920) and the liberation of Latgale from the Bolsheviks, everyday life started to improve gradually, however, due to various objective circumstances (the geographical position – the border with the Soviet Russia, the presence of various criminal elements, relocation of refugees and several socio-economic factors such as unemployment, poverty, etc.), the region was still highly criminal. Processes and events including criminal offenses occurring in the territory of Latvia were reflected in various state and regional newspapers. The largest regional newspaper was “Latgolas Wòrds”, published by the Latgalian Christian Farmers’ Union, which eventually became an independent source of information for a large part of the population of Latgale. The aim of the study is to identify the main trends of criminality in the territory of Latgale as reflected in the newspaper “Latgolas Wòrds” (1921–1921). The content of publications under analysis indicates that there were various crimes committed (including murder, robbery, theft, etc.); the selected publications also reveal the overall socio-economic situation in the region during this period. The rapid spread of crime in the rural areas testifies to the socio-economic problems experienced by the population of Latgale (unemployment, devastated farms, the overall food deficit, etc.). Similarly, the publications outline the social portrait of criminals: among them there were socially disadvantaged people (rural population, etc.) and servicemen of different armies. Active or passive participation of certain social groups (soldiers, police officers, etc.) in committing crimes indicates not only certain problems in the activities of the Latgalian security institutions, but also in the general trends typical of the Latvian state on the whole. It should be noted that the news displayed in the newspaper can hardly be perceived as an opinion of the general public, but rather as an interpretation of events by a certain group or its representatives.

AbstractThe delegation of the European Union to Moldova takes upon itself the task of making the case for the Association Agenda between the country and the EU. The European foreign policy in the borderlands of the Union is carried out against the background of the war in Eastern Ukraine. A war of words is being fought in Moldovan media as well. Mostly on Romanian-speaking TV, Pirkka Tapiola, the EU ambassador, is among those who lead the way. At a time of renewed Western concern about Eastern Europe, the media presence of the EU in Moldova reveals anxieties about the future: once again, the former Soviet republic seems to be teetering on the brink of Russian control. The breakaway region of Trans-Dniester and the prospect of default are the two main concerns that the EU mission has to address while speaking the language of European politics in a country battered by corruption, high inflation, and unemployment. The discourse of Pirkka Tapiola, Head of the EU delegation, is an exercise in spokesmanship, which seems to underplay the seriousness of the situation. According to opinion polls conducted recently, the avowedly pro-Russian parties would win the next election. In hindsight, it is possible to surmise that the pro-EU parties pulled off a political coup by deferring the costs incurred during the mandates of the previous government coalitions. Parties whose constituencies are declining stayed in power, while better alternatives have developed: the new names that can be found on the right wing of the Moldovan political spectrum show that their electorate is ready to embrace the goal of European accession once again.

The right to the freedom of movement for all Germans is one of the nineteen so-called Grundrechte (Fundamental Rights) and is enshrined in Article 11(1) of the German Grundgesetz (Basic Law): “All Germans enjoy freedom of movement throughout the Federal territory.” On 17 March 2004, however, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) handed down a decision in which it concluded that the restriction of freedom of movement for one clearly defined group of German citizens is constitutional. Pursuant to the Wohnortzuweisungsgesetz, or Residence Assignment Act, as amended in 1996, Spätaussiedler (ethnic German migrants from the former Soviet Union who are eligible for full citizenship status), may have their freedom of movement restricted during the first three years of their residency in Germany. The restriction on their freedom of movement is triggered if they seek to avail themselves of any of a range of social benefits, including: welfare, some forms of unemployment assistance (Arbeitslosenhilfe), or integration assistance directed at Spätaussiedler, such as a six-month language course. Confronted with the loss of these social benefits, Spätaussiedler who nonetheless choose to exercise their freedom of movement are eligible to receive only a subsistence level of support. This restriction applies, nearly without exception, to all Spätaussiedler for the first three years of their residence in Germany due to the high rate of reliance among Spätaussiedler in their initial years in Germany upon these forms of public assistance.

The year-2019, marked the 40 years of instability and chaos in Afghanistan, ever since it was invaded by former Soviet Union in December 1979. In the last forty years, the Afghan instability and conflict has been so transmissible that any peace plan, initiated even with sincerity got entombed into viscid domestic ambiguities, undesired regional rivalries and geopolitical interests of great powers. Owing to internal instability and frequent foreign invasions, there could not develop a cohesive national character within Afghanistan. Besides, there has been no institutional build-up and development which could have provided a strong base for the establishment of good governance system. In the absence of domestic peace and a unanimously acceptable leadership, the invaders and regional players have been exploiting Afghan geopolitics and its diverse societal makeup. Above all, the poor economic system, lack of needed resource base and massive unemployment constrained the flexibility, the Kabul regimes could have utilized for the minimum economic management at the domestic level. Furthermore, the post 2014 drawdown of US and NATO forces did not provide conducive environment where Afghans could have taken independent decisions to determine their future course of action for the larger national interest of the state and masses. The paper takes a critical analysis of the above-mentioned factors, which impeded peace process from taking firm roots in Afghanistan. The paper also puts into debate the US strategic interests in and around Afghanistan and diverging interests of regional countries which further impede peace process in Afghanistan.

The wave of Colour Revolutions, which started in Serbia in the year 2000, and spread to Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, has changed the existing concepts on how transformation would take form in countries exiting from “really existing socialism.” In the early years following the collapse of the Soviet state, the dominant concepts were that of “transition” or slow, top-down reforms that would transform the existing political systems from ruling-party dictatorships to parliamentary democracies, and planned economies to market-based ones. Yet in the late 1990s there was a growing fatigue and pessimism towards the basic thesis of transition: the transition paradigm was formulated as a reaction to the perceived causes of the Soviet failure: a totalitarian state which monopolized the political space proved itself unable to provide either economic well-being or political legitimacy. The task in the early 1990s was to shrink the state apparatus, to make space for a multi-party political pluralism. Even though some argued that the main objective of transition was to achieve democracy,1 for transition theories and even more so for its translation into actual political choices the economic aspect of transition was perceived to be more immediate than the political one. Democracy needed a certain material context, and here too decreasing the role of the state was thought to liberate the market and provide material stability to the new democracies. It was necessary to create a new middle class by way of mass privatization of the former state properties to create a social demand for democracy. Those ideas reflected not only an ideological victory of the one side of the Cold War over the Eastern camp, but also very practical needs: the huge Soviet state sector was neither sustainable nor necessary after the fall of one-party rule, and it had to be radically transformed. At the time, this transition was thought to be an easy task: to take off the oppressing lid of the party-state and let democracy and market economies emerge naturally. Yet in the conception of transition there was a certain tension between the economic and political sides of the imagined reforms, between mass privatization with its dire social consequences of unemployment and fall in the standard of living, and the political goals of democratization where people who were being “restructured” were simultaneously promised to receive the right to change their rulers by casting their ballots. Would people who are threatened with job loss and lower living standards vote for the reformers? And in the event of a negative answer, how would the reforms proceed? Should economic reforms come before political ones; that is, first privatization and in a second stage freedom of political choice through parliamentary elections? These are some of the dilemma that the new republics of the Soviet Union and the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe were facing in the early 1990s. At the time, the answer was clear: the economy came first; it was more important to reform the economic sector, to privatize massively, and stabilize the economy as soon as possible. The economy came before politics, in the sense that restructuring of the property structure through mass privatization was supposed to create the material means for the creation of democracy. It was believed that once the middle class was created as a result of mass privatization, the democratic institutions, such as free elections, multi-party system, independent media, an active civil society, in a word, all the attributes of democracy, would evolve naturally.

<p>Urbanization is an important demo-geographical process and a complex social phenomenon under impact of which changes are made not only to the global, regional or national settlement systems, but all socio-economic processes are also substantially transformed. Changes caused by urbanization have an impact on traditional way of life, cultural particularity, community and individual psychology and other aspects of spiritual life, therefore expressions and regularities of this process might be of interest not only for demographers, geographers and economists, but also for representatives of the field of humanities.</p><p>Paper presents the progress of urbanization processes in Latgale, by covering the period from establishment of the first urban-type settlements in the Eastern Latvia until today, when under impact of the depopulation processes number of inhabitants in all cities of the region decreases dramatically. Particular attention is paid to the course of formation and evolution of the Latgale urban network, successively looking at characteristics of the course of urbanization process during all major stages of the historical process.</p><p>Towns and cities constitute the basis for the Latvian population system, characterized by historically formed relatively dense urban network. Like elsewhere in the country, also in modern Latgale towns and cities are distributed evenly throughout the region area, but historically it has not always been so. Urban spatial and landscape model in Latgale has been developed within the long historical process of gradual accumulation of changes in the landscape space; however the balance of this process is destroyed by sudden transformations of political, economic and socio-cultural conditions the region and its people have had to survive in more than one occasion.</p><p>The article particularly deals with characteristics of the urbanization processes during post-Soviet period, outlines the present urban development trends in Latgale, and highlights major urban demo-geographical problems, among which the emphasis has to be placed on the rapid depopulation, an ageing population and the deepening of territorial inequalities, also intra-regionally.</p><p>Structural economical changes and increasing mobility of population during the post- Soviet period have changed the urban development perspective. Activities based on new knowledge are concentrated in large agglomerations, while individual regions, including Latgale, with less competitive urban centers are noticeably lagging behind in their development.</p><p>Therefore, exactly in these areas and localities it is necessary to strengthen the urban functions to impede also interregional migration of population, since it substantially restricts the functionality of the most remote and underdeveloped areas and hinders provision of services to population at an appropriate level. This is even more important since implementation of the cohesion principles has been proclaimed to be one of the cornerstones of the European Union regional policy.</p><p>Unfortunately, at least for the time being situation in urban areas of Latgale is far from encouraging - negative net migration and negative natural growth factor, persistently high level of unemployment is observed there, social exclusion and apathy prevailing. Admittedly, in recent years urban development in Latgale represents also several positive trends. Urban environmental quality has improved significantly, which is generally associated with transition to environmentally more friendly fuels and implementation of various environmental projects, based on funding from the EU budget, such as municipal waste management, improving of water supply and sewerage systems.</p><p>Encouragingly, facilities of regional higher education institutions improve, and the capacity of scientific work increases, important interdisciplinary research has been launched. In the nearest future significant educational and scientific infrastructure improvement projects at the University of Daugavpils and Rezekne Higher Education Institution are planned to be made, which will certainly increase competitiveness of the Latgale region in the science and technology area.</p><p>Article is based on review of comprehensive scientific literature and analysis of available statistical information. The author does not claim to provide all-inclusive and in-depth analysis of the urbanization processes in Latgale, since this task would be performed in course of further studies, but summarizes the results obtained at an early stage of research of urban areas and population demo-geographical development, as well as of the quality of urban environment.</p>

The presented study analyzes the proposal of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation D. A. Medvedev to switch to a four-day working week. In the context of the topic, the experience of dealing with this issue is examined, including international practices. A similar proposal was discussed by I.V. Stalin as far back as Soviet times, although in the context of switching to five- or six-hour working days, but only in 2019 did this issue become the subject of debate. In light of the pension reform, which has led to an increase in the retirement age in Russia, a number of experts believe that such proposals may entail potential changes that could have a negative effect on the situation of workers. This study examines the mechanisms of public administration in coordination with enterprises relating to changes in the working hours.Aim. The authors aim to analyze potential directions for the improvement of public administration in the field of labor legislation, which has a significant impact on the development of the economy, business, and the situation of workers.Tasks. This study determines the historical background of Russia’s switch to a four-day working week; examines the legal mechanisms and specific features of labor legislation in Russia in the context of the planned switch to a four-day working week; explores international practices in the field of regulation of working hours; analyzes the benefits and drawbacks of switching to a four-day working week in Russia; develops proposals associated with Russia’s switch to a four-day working week.Methods. The methodological basis for the consideration of the problems includes general scientific methods, systems, structural, functional, and institutional analysis.Results. The ongoing processes in the field of improvement of labor legislation and its impact on the economy, business, and the situation of workers are comprehensively analyzed. The historical background of Russia’s switch to a four-day working week is determined; fundamentals of Russian labor legislation are examined; benefits and drawbacks of the potential innovations in the field of regulation of working hours are identified with allowance for international practices. The authors formulate proposals, the implementation of which will bring Russia closer to the switch to a four-day working week.Conclusions. The proposals of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation to switch to a four-day working week has raised a lot of questions. For instance, it is unclear whether the current wages will be maintained. It is also questionable whether it is a step towards artificially reducing unemployment, in which fields this idea is likely to manifest itself first, and so on. These questions need to be thoroughly discussed by the representatives of the Government of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, trade unions, and the scientific community. It is necessary to conduct a sociological survey to determine and prevent concerns among citizens about the upcoming changes. That said, the authors believe that the idea itself is conceptually correct, but it still valid to doubt whether it can be successfully implemented at the time of capitalism, when entrepreneurs focus on profit and are not interested in reducing the working time of their employees. According to the authors, the plans of I.V. Stalin to reduce working time could faster come into fruition with the socialist economic model, which facilitated innovations in the machine tool industry that would boost GDP growth and significantly reduce production costs. Assessing the prospects of development of this idea at the present stage is difficult.

Many countries of the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, are facing the challenge of building a strong economy that will lead to long-term economic stability. Like other former Soviet States, Moldova has had to undertake a total transition from a planned economy to a market economy. Economic reform in Moldova has been a slow, painful process with high unemployment rates. During the past 10 years, Moldova has made significant economic reforms, but much is yet to be accomplished. The purpose of this paper is to examine the accounting reforms that have taken place in the Republic of Moldova since 1991, when they declared their independence from the former Soviet Union. This paper will present background information on the Republic of Moldova, and examine the objectives of accounting reform, accounting practice reforms, and accounting education reforms.

Abstract This paper reconciles quantitative macroeconomic theory of the Finnish Great Depression and the empirical evidence. The main controversy is that the existing theoretical work assigns a larger role for the collapse of the trade with the Soviet Union than the empirical evidence would suggest. This paper argues that explaining the Finnish crisis warrants a model with involuntary unemployment, and that the collapse resulted mainly from increased financial constraints, not the Soviet trade collapse. While it has been argued and that a large Soviet-trade contribution would result from costly reallocation of resources away from the Soviet sector, and trade-induced income effects that hit the consumption in the domestic sector, this paper finds it hard to reconcile them with the actual evidence. The economic collapse was wide-spread, and the domestic sector collapse reflects decline in investment rather than consumption.

A sharp rise in registered HIV infections has been detected in Lithuania after investigation of an outbreak affecting prisoners in a particular prison. Between January and May 2002, a total of 230 infections were registered (figure 1). After the first diagnosis of HIV infection in the country in 1988, the number of registered HIV infections increased gradually until the end of 2001. In contrast in the neighboring countries of Latvia and Estonia, totals of 2006 infections and 2396 infections respectively had been registered by 15 May 2002. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, many common factors have been influencing HIV transmission in the former Soviet republics, among them a dramatic increase in drug misuse, a worsening economic situation, and increased unemployment.

This article looks at recipiency rates for social security benefits and active labormarket measuresamong working-ageforeign residentsof Finland, and compares themto the corresponding rates among Finnish citizens. Data for the study was obtainedby collating individual-level datafrom the Finnishpopulation register,various socialsecurity registers, the studentfinancial aid register and thejobseeker register maintainedby the employment authorities. The analysis focuses on unemployment benefits,maternity and parental allowances, child home-care allowances, income supportandfinancial aid benefitsfor students. The study rejlects the situation as of November2000.The results show substantial variation among the ethnic groups in terms of socialsecurity recipiency. The highest recipiency rates were seen among refugees,followedby persons having entered Finland on a passport issued in Russia or theformer SovietUnion.As for participation in active labor market measures, Russians and citizensof the former Soviet Union, refugees and Estonians had signifzcantly higherrecipiency rates than the general Finnish population. Another finding suggesting ahigh level of motivation towards labor market participation in the abovementionedgroups is that young persons in these groups were nearly as likely as young Finnishcitizens to receivefinancial assistancefor studies, either in theform offinancial aidbenefits or labor market training.

As the history of Israel's economic development shows, the small area, the small population and the lack of rich natural resources are not an obstacle to economic growth, the development of science and technology and the improvement of living standards. It was facilitated by the entrepreneurial inclinations and qualities of the people, the support of foreign countries and the Diaspora, as well as a relatively stable and healthy political system. Despite the difficult conditions, the economy resisted the absorption of many immigrants, ensuring the security of the state, creating a modern economic infrastructure. In particular, in the early 1990s, the number of repatriates arriving in Israel increased sharply, mainly from the former Soviet Union (see Greater Alia). In total, more than 600,000 people arrived between 1990 and 1996. In the short run, the wave of immigration led to a sharp increase in the budget expenditures for their adoption, housing and maintenance at the initial stage, an increase in unemployment, which exceeded 10% of the able-bodied population. However, in the mid-1990s, it became clear that factors such as the emergence of a large number of skilled workers in the labor market and the sharp increase in domestic demand had a positive effect that transcended temporary difficulties.

The fall of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 generated fundamental political and socio-economic transformations. The introduction of the free-market economy in the region led to the closure or privatization of state corporations and, consequently, to an increase of the unemployment rate, while reductions of state funding for social services resulted in the erosion of former securities. Simultaneously, Western and international agencies and organisations have transferred billions of US dollars of financial aid into the region. Among the receivers of Western funding were Eastern European non-governmental organisations (NGOs) aiming to support local women through the transformations and to advocate their rights. Several authors, however, have pointed out that many of them pursue what they and/or their Western donors think is best for women rather than focusing on what women themselves consider their needs and wishes. This paper critically reviews two Bulgarian women’s NGOs, including a discussion of their representations of women, the influence of Western donors, and the issue of who benefits from the NGOs’ work. I argue that both NGOs, although they claim to advocate equal opportunities for women and men, pursue a ‘women-only’ approach by ignoring gender relations – an issue that is also largely overlooked by the critics presented in this paper. I conclude that NGOs, if they want to assist and support local women, ought to implement a ‘women-and-men-together’ approach, consider what women themselves view as their needs, and challenge neoliberalism.

Abstract Introduction Georgia, like other Eastern European countries, showed a dramatic increase of international labour emigration after becoming independent in 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union caused economic instability, unemployment and poverty resulting in labour migration. Since then, thousands of children have been left behind in the care of extended family members while their parents work abroad. The aim of this study is to explore schoolteachers’ perceptions on parental migration and left-behind children (LBC) in Georgia as schoolteachers are the main contact persons for LBC and their caregivers. Methods We conducted six focus-group discussions with public school teachers, namely class-tutors and six in-depth interviews with school principals from two migrant sending regions. We applied reflexive thematic analysis to systematically analyse the data and identify main and sub-themes. The contextual model of family stress underpins this study. Results We identified the following themes expressed by both, teachers, and school principals: social and economic impact of migrant labour and relationships between schools and migrant families. School teachers and principals acknowledged some positive aspects of migrant labour, but primarily perceived parental migration as a negative experience for children leading to problems in mental health, well-being, and academic performance. Structural factors, lack of support and lack of community involvement were expressed to further worsen the situation. Teachers saw themselves as one of the main supporters for LBC while they described the role of caregivers ranging from caring to unhelpful or even destructive. School principals stated mitigating the situation by regular meetings with class tutors, extra-tutoring for LBC, psychological counselling, and developing/enacting internal guidelines. Conclusions Our findings suggest that LBCs and transnational families could benefit from the provision of psychological services at schools.

The theme of the work is relevant and painful for many young countries – it is overcoming the crisis and stable life and development. The article highlights the global financial crises and their impact on Ukraine’s economy since the withdrawal from the Soviet Union and the current situation. Many experienced specialists all over the world are struggling with the problem of crisis phenomena, which speaks of its importance. The concept of economic crisis is revealed and research of this term from the point of view of various scientists is carried out. It should be added that the worsening economic situation was also caused by the political crisis. Due to the pandemic, Ukraine’s economic crisis has worsened, which has had a particular impact on macroeconomic indicators such as GDP, prices, unemployment, and the balance of payments. Now our state is in an adaptive period, adapting to quarantine measures and resuming business activity. Therefore, the state of the economy was analyzed by comparing the volume of GDP in different periods of the country’s development and a forecast was given for its further potential retrospective in the future. The main internal and external factors that negatively affect the stability of Ukraine’s economy in the macroeconomic space are identified. A set of measures is proposed to overcome the consequences of the crisis, including those caused by acute respiratory disease Covid-19, and its further avoidance. Public authorities must take a more detailed approach to solving internal problems, develop an algorithm for overcoming the critical situation in the country, involve additional financial flows, and develop their own competitive production. Also stabilize commodity prices, contain inflation and depreciate money. It is necessary to adopt positive foreign experience to overcome internal difficulties, to reorganize the existing economic structure within. Finally, it should be noted that many different reasons, including external ones, have a great impact on the economic levers and success of the country. We hope that all the guidelines set out in the work will be taken into account, and the country will be able to overcome all difficulties through public efforts.

There is a wide range of academic effort put into the questions of food. It is obvious that eating is necessary for everybody, but it is equally acknowledged that there are lots of cultural meanings in the area of food as well. However, it is rarely answered why preparing food is important to some people. My aim is to address this question in the context of unemployment, where food has social, recreational and spiritual meanings for the whole life. My analysis is based on the writings of the unemployed written during the unexpected recession in Finland in the 1990s. It occurred, perhaps surprisingly, that many participants wrote about food in their entries to the writing contest called 'The Story of the Unemployed'. It is worth mentioning that to be unemployed in Finland means that it is possible to get along because of the -- still on-going but shifting -- welfare state. Usually the study of food is based on specific problematics within different disciplines. Examples of these include the symbolic connection between food and culture à la Mary Douglas in anthropology, meanings and connotations of food in Barthesian semiotics, and taste as a distinctive feature or the connection between taste and class position in the sociology of taste. In addition, phenomena such as anorexia nervosa and vegetarianism has been explained within a social context by cultural sociologists. Personally I want to introduce a slightly different route. It goes from actual articulation of food and unemployment in the writings of the unemployed to the context of media and consumer culture. There are certainly some basic explanations why food is included in the stories. When you write a story in the form of a diary, it is easy to tell about eating or cooking. The time of eating is the glue of human relations, the moment of the day which connects partners together. It is not surprising, then, that human relations are of great importance when there is no work and workplace to offer social relations and position in social hierarchy. In spite of this I want to offer more interpretative and provocative insights. In the societies based on 'primitive technology', hunger was shared (see, for instance, Sahlins). On the contrary, hunger is privatised in modern and postmodern societies. The uneven sharing of food is a result of a hierarchy based on having or not having money. As a result, to keep hunger away means to have at least some money (or favourable friends). In this context, writing about food is a part of the conceptual battle against hunger. It is a conceptual proof of having survived thus far. For those who have a job, their work ensures an economic ability to stay far from the poverty. In addition to this, they have a privileged access to the space of 'normality' of being a good citizen. This is because the Protestant work ethic says so. In the case of the unemployed the relations are more complex. One's social position is marginalised since the beginning of one's period of unemployment but I suggest that food and things related to it take the place of work. Food becomes a space for continuity when work does not offer it. As long as you have food you do not have to be a criminal to go on. This should be understood in the context of Zygmunt Bauman's provocative statement that, according to the logic of consumer society, differences between its Others (poor, unemployed, criminals, madmen, drug addicts) are fading. To be poor is to be an enemy of the society. Society wants nothing from its others. It would be best if they just burnt their tents and left (Bauman 72-7). In this context food functions as an element in constructing self-definition of the unemployed. Food prevents them from sliding into a criminal position and keeps up the cultural boundaries between different forms of otherness. The actual point is not whether Bauman's claim is correct or not but its power to illuminate both the worries of the poor and the unemployed and the role food plays in it. Anything that produces empowerment for the unemployed is important in the situation which normally narrows one's possibilities to act. The situation of the unemployed is usually devoid of social dignity and material resources. That is why it is especially important for them to experience success, to learn something new and to measure it in some ways. Normally these kinds of acts are reserved for the area of work but the unemployed person transfers them into the area of cooking. Making good, perhaps healthy and affordable food allows one to experience feelings of success. This raises one's self-esteem and ability to act. It is perhaps no surprise that most writers emphasise the meaning of cooking in their lives only after they have been left without work. Food is connected to empowerment in two senses. It is important in itself but it has an instrumental function as well. It produces pleasure and it becomes a part of identity-building (for example when people put effort into making healthy or affordable food). It can also be an instrument in building different life projects when it offers feelings of success and leads to an ability to act on some different level. Thematically, food is a good example of the many activities that allow the unemployed to empower themselves. When all this is articulated in the context of media, the point and battleground become clear. The image of the unemployed presented in the media is unfortunately one-dimensional at least in Finland and perhaps in other countries as well. Outside the 'human interest' type of magazines, media describe them as unskilled job-seekers or as 'lazy bums'. This picture is part of the neoliberal machinery which blames individuals for their inability to get a job even though the reasons for high unemployment rates are mostly based on changes in the economic structure (such as the breakdown of the Soviet Union, which the Finnish economy previously leaned on, and the low state of technology except for a few leading enterprises). So the notions of food in the writings of the unemployed pointed at the media are an attempt to disarticulate and rearticulate the image of the unemployed. There is one hegemonic discourse on the topic of identity in consumer culture. Identity is not something you are born with. It is something that everybody constructs, it is changeable and what is more, it is something you can buy in postmodern consumer society. Buy it, be it! Buy caviar -- be high class! Pleasure follows purchase as well as identity. I am not saying that talk about changing identities is just capitalist mishmash. In fact, it is relevant for the unemployed as well. If identity was understood as petrifying, not possible to change, it would be sad to live as an unemployed, carrying the burdens of Protestant work ethic and seeing getting a job as the only way for constructing a reasonable life. That is why talk about contextually changing postmodern identities is not out of picture here. What is the other side of postmodern consumer identity discourse is that the unemployed have no resources to buy their identity. Thus, food comes again into the picture. For the unemployed, buying food does not lead to identity or to pleasure. It depends on who cooks (unemployed him/herself, partner, friend) and what the food tastes like. Food is not an equivalent to commodities that are ready to use. Raw materials should be handled with skill or with care before food can produce pleasure or empowerment. Accumulation of cultural capital is not based on buying as such, because it is a race where unemployed are definitely determined to resignation compared to economically privileged people. A commodity does not guarantee happiness. It must be made to mean something by using it in a specific way. You can consume cars, clothes and television without the requirement of any special skills. Food and especially cooking resonate with other rhythms. It requires skills. (This point is emphasised in Warde, especially pages 200-1.) As we have seen, food as a hobby is a part of the life projects of the unemployed. It is an important way to acquire feelings of success. As such, it produces empowerment on an individual level. At the same time, it extends its tentacles to struggle for articulations in the contexts of media and consumer culture. Its aim is to rearticulate the term unemployed as different from the passive media creations. Moreover, it is directed towards consumeristic identity discourse in the sense that food and especially cooking represent an area where identity and pleasure do not follow directly from buying and consuming. Thus, writing about food is a part of a wider spiritual quest -- a way of constructing meanings for life outside the world of work. On a more general level, this text shows clearly that the questions posed on the problematics of food are complex. Food is never only about material food for biological needs. Its discourses always point to some other spaces depending on the context. Furthermore, when food is articulated together with the unemployed, it should be seen as different from many other forms of building identity by consuming. References Bauman, Zygmunt. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: Open UP, 1998. Warde, Alan. Consumption, Food and Taste: Culinary Antinomies and Commodity Culture. London: Sage, 1997. Sahlins, Marshall. Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine, 1972. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Teemu Taira. "Material Food, Spiritual Quest: When Pleasure Does Not Follow Purchase." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.7 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/pleasure.php>. Chicago style: Teemu Taira, "Material Food, Spiritual Quest: When Pleasure Does Not Follow Purchase," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 7 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/pleasure.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Teemu Taira. (1999) Material food, spiritual quest: when pleasure does not follow purchase. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(7). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/pleasure.php> ([your date of access]).

Spurred by global institutions and treaties such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its’ bantling the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the past three decades have seen many nations of the world develop an economic interconnectedness that parallels the great free trade movement of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Free trade and the resultant economic ‘globalisation’ have had mixed results for many countries and groups within countries and has incited a complex, inarticulate, and sometimes contradictory debate across all segments of our society. Some groups and geographical locales have benefited handsomely from the structural changes that we generally understand as globalisation, whilst other groups and geographical regions have become economically marginalised through disconnectedness from global flows of money and goods and services. Rural and regional Australia, for instance, has experienced a steady decline in recent years and in fact in rural Victoria, a gloomy report from the Bureau of Statistics, suggests that not one new full-time job has been created in more than thirteen years (Colbatch). In other parts of the country, particularly Sydney and Melbourne, things could not seem better; property values have doubled, unemployment is at record lows, and the new middle classes cram the cafés of the gentrified inner-cities. Wages have risen by up to fifty percent in many of Australia’s inner cities during the late 1990s (Birnbauer and Gurrera). By the end of the 1990s, in response to some of the inequalities of globalisation—particularly between developed and developing countries—a large globally-linked protest movement arose out of Seattle in the United States. The movement formed as a protest against the policies of the WTO and was an eclectic arrangement of political groups who believed that free trade was not the answer to a more equitable world. The problem was that some of the leading thinkers of the movement—in a movement that claimed to have no leaders—were far too short-sighted to see beyond the popular zeitgeist of the time. The turn of the century zeitgeist was based on a well-meaning utopian-libertarian vision of a frictionless and equitable world. The problem was that this vision had no place for nations and thus citizen-based democratically elected national governments. There had apparently been a coup and governments were now captured by shoe manufacturers. One of the best-known authors of the turn of the century globalisation protest movement was the inner-city Canadian journalist Naomi Klein with her popularly acclaimed book No Logo (Klein). Although shrewdly timed, there was nothing particularly ground-breaking about Klein’s work; anxieties about corporate power, exploited workers, and the power of the ideologically potent media industries have for most of the Twentieth Century been the focus of relations between governments and the private sphere everywhere. The book relied heavily on the popular journalistic branding of the time, the ‘new economy’, which was believed to be represented by the industries of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, advertising, and shoe manufacturers. The new economy never existed; it was merely a popularly accepted business-journalism term that perhaps described parts of the more complex corpus of work on ‘post-industrialism’. Many thinkers have been attempting to understand issues of equity and post-industrialism for more than three decades; perhaps one the best-known authors in Australia is the ex-Labor minister Barry Jones with his celebrated 1982 book Sleeper Wake; Technology and the Future of Work (Jones). The turn of the century globalisation protest movement was in essence a utopian-libertarian movement and even at times claimed to be ‘natural’ and ‘leaderless’. Pithily, the WTO could also be described as ‘utopian-libertarian’ as much of its post-war ideological base stems from the belief that national borders are a hindrance (and the world would be better without them), and national governments should not interfere with its ‘natural’ globalisation schema. The ‘global’ just like the ‘nation’ is an unwieldy meta-structure and can be interpreted in many ways and for many ends. The minimal working definitions of globalisation, or dare I say ‘globalism’, circulate around the processes in which complex interconnections are said to be rapidly developing between societies, institutions, cultures, collectives, and individuals worldwide. These connections are believed to be between cultural, political, and economic practices that are local, national, technological, and corporate. And if there really is such a thing as globalisation, then it is far from a ‘natural’ process, but has developed as the direct result of strategic choices by governments and corporations in the past thirty years. In Australia, our engagement with the dominant form of globalisation was exacerbated by the Hawke/Keating Labor governments (1984-1996) that deregulated large portions of the economy, floated our currency, and embraced the all-trade-is-good mantra of global economic policy. Not surprisingly, the rich countries define the dominant ideologies of globalisation and corporations are the main catalyst (Everend). Many corporations are involved in cultural production thus creating their own world culture and value system. This value system is based on consumerism (like buying sports shoes) and the triumph of individual consumer agency over collective economic practices (like free education). The end of the east-west logic of the Cold War ended the eighty-year ideological wrestle between centralised state economic planning and market driven models. Eric Hobsbawn, in his masterful empirical history, The Age of Extremes, claims that what we understand as the Twentieth Century ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union (Hobsbawn). What we are left with is a world with only one major superpower, one major economic model, and one major Liberal ideology that is increasing the wealth gap between and within societies everywhere (Landes). We do need to urgently understand the forces beyond the nation state, but this should not be at the expense of a political engagement with the democratic processes that make up the nation state. The utopian-libertarian critique of the turn of the century globalisation protest movement was far too simplistic. The Twentieth Century often disastrously taught us that ideas of the nation can be interpreted in many ways, and likewise, ideas of ‘the global’ are contested meta-structures that can be multifariously interpreted. There are no effortless solutions to understanding globalisation processes and those that tell us what the ‘global’ is largely control what it is. This is similar to the history of Australia. Historically Australia has had different ways to see ourselves based on what group has been in power and the particular requirements of this group. The requirements of an elite group of Australians at the moment is perhaps no government at all so that ‘the people’ can consume in peace and not have bothersome local governments do nasty ‘state-authoritarian’ things like build kindergartens or repair street lights. If ‘the people’ loose faith in citizen based democracy then we undermine the only real power that we have as individuals. The simple act of many activists to communicate between various countries and exchange ideas and strategies is not end in itself; it is merely one component of a significant beginning. If we don’t have a major war, or an economic catastrophe, globalisation will probably further arrive over the next few decades. And we need to have representative, fair, collective and geographically specific processes to deal with this. Most of the collective institutional solutions we already have, and it is up to a new generation to take control of their democratic inheritance (like every other generation before us) rather than conjure one-dimensional utopian-libertarian visions that are oppressively close to those of the WTO. Works Cited www.milkbar.com.au Birnbauer, William and Guerrera, Orietta “Rich Shun Easter Suburbs for Inner City” in The Age, Melbourne, June 18. 2002, <http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/17/1023864403482.php> (Accessed 11 May, 2003) Colbatch, Tim “Part-time work spawns rural underclass” in The Age, 26 April 2003, <http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2003/04/25/1050777401... ...309.htm> (Accessed 27 April, 2003) Everand, Jerry Virtual States: The Internet and the Boundaries of the Nation State,Routledge, London, 2000. Hobsbawn, Eric Age of Extremes: The short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Abacus, London, 1994. Jones, Barry Sleepers Wake: Technology and the Future of Work, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982. Klein, Naomi No Logo, Flamingo, London, 2000. Landes, Richard S The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, WW Norton, New York, 1999. Links http://www.milkbar.com.au http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/17/1023864403482.html http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2003/04/25/1050777401309.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Bellamy, Craig. "Post-Logo " M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/13-postlogo.php>. APA Style Bellamy, C. (2003, Jun 19). Post-Logo . M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/13-postlogo.php>

Collectives bring people and their concerns together. In the twenty-first century, this assembly happens across different material and virtual spaces that, together, establish connective layers of society. A kind of politics has emerged that seeks new forms of communication and expression and proposes new modes of (co)existence. Riots in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, the repair of a public village centre, railway workers’ strikes, green activists’ protests, songs in support of tsunami victims… These are some examples of collective actions that unite people and places. But very often these kinds of events and social practices take place and fade away too quickly without visible traces of becoming collectives. This article focuses on the contingent spaces that enable collective action and provide possibilities for “peripheral” concerns and communities to become public. The concept of “diasporas” is widened to permit discussion of how emerging (international) communities make their voices heard through political events. Some theoretical concepts will be illustrated, using two examples of collective action on 1 May 2009 that demonstrate different initiatives concerning the global (economic) crisis. Assembling Collectives and Affective Events Building a house/centre and singing for something: these are examples of practices that bring people and their ideals together in a collective action or event. This article discusses the different communities that evolve within spaces that enable collective action. These communities are formed not only on the basis of nationality, occupation, or race; elements of (temporal) membership are created out of a wide spectrum of affiliations and a sense of solidarity. Hinchliffe (13) argues that collective action can be seen as a collection of affects that link together disparate places and times, and thus the collective is a matter of considerable political interest. The emergent spaces of collective action publicise particular concerns that may connect already existing but (spatially) dispersed communities and diasporas. However, there is a need to discuss the affects, places, and temporalities that make the assemblage of new collectivities possible. The political potential of collective spaces needs careful elaboration in order that such initiatives may continue to grow without extending the influence of existing (capitalist) powers. Various communities connected “glocally” (locally and globally) can call new publics into existence, posing questions to politics which are not yet “of politics” (Thrift 3). Thus collective action can invent new connecting concerns and practices that catalyse (political) change in society. To understand the complex spatiality of collective action and community formations, it is crucial to look at processes of “affect”. Affects occur in society as “in-becoming” atmospheres and “imitation-suggestions” (Brennan 1-10) that stimulate concerns and motivate practices. The “imitation” can also be an invention that creatively binds existing know-how and experiences into a local-social context. Thinking about affects within the spaces of collective action provides a challenge to rethink what is referred to simply as the “social”. Massumi (228) argues that such affects are virtual expressions of the actually existing things that embody them; however, affects such as emotions and feelings are also autonomous to the degree that they exceed the particular body within which they are presently confined. The emerging bodies, or spaces, of collective action thus carry the potential to transform coexistence across both intellectual and physical boundaries, and communication technology has been instrumental in linking the affective spaces of collective action across both time and space. According to Thrift, the collision of different space-times very often provokes a “stutter” in social relations: the jolt which arises from new encounters, new connections, new ways of proceeding. But how can these turbulent spheres and trajectories of collective action be described and discussed? Here the mechanisms of “events” themselves need to be addressed. The “event” represents, abstractly, a spatio-temporal locus where different concerns and practices are encountered and negotiated. “Event” refers to an incoming, or emerging, object (agent) triggering, through various affective responses, new ideas and initiatives (Clark 33). In addition to revolutions or tsunamis, there are also smaller-scale events that change how people live and come together. In this sense, events can be understood to combine individual and social “bodies” within collective action and imaginations. As Appadurai has argued, the imagination is central to all forms of agency, is itself a social practice, and is the key component of our new global order (Appadurai 29-30). Flusty (7) argues that the production of the global is as present in our day-to-day thoughts and actions as it is in the mass movement of capital, information, and populations which means that there should be the potential to include more people in the democratic process (Whatmore). This process can be seen to be a defining characteristic of the term cosmopolitics which Thrift describes as: “one of the best hopes for changing our engagement with the political by simply acknowledging that there is more there” (Thrift 189). For many, these hopes are based on a new kind of telematic connectedness, in which tele- and digital communications represent the beginning of a global networked consciousness based on the continuous exchange of ideas, both cognitive and affective. Examples of Events and Collectives Taking Place on 1 May 2009 The first day in May is traditionally dedicated to working people, and there are many public gatherings to express solidarity with workers and left-wing (“red”) policy. Issues concerning work and various productions are complex, and recently the global economic crisis exposed some weaknesses in neoliberal capitalism. Different participatory/collective actions and spaces are formed to make some common concerns public at the same time in various locations. The two following examples are part of wider “ideoscapes” (official state ideologies and counter-ideologies) (see Appadurai) in action that help to illustrate both the workings of twenty-first century global capitalism and the translocal character of the public concern. EuroMayDay One alternative form of collective action is EuroMayDay, which has taken place on May 1 every year since 2001 in several cities across (mainly Western) Europe. For example, in 2006 a total of about 300,000 young demonstrators took part in EuroMayDay parades in 20 EU cities (Wikipedia). The purpose of this political action is “to fight against the widespread precarisation of youth and the discrimination of migrants in Europe and beyond: no borders, no workfare, no precarity!” (EuroMayDay). This manifesto indicates that the aim of the collective action is to direct public attention to the insecure conditions of immigrants and young people across Europe. These groups may be seen to constitute a kind of European “diasporic collective” in which the whole of Europe is figured as a “problem area” in which unemployment, displacement, and (possibly) destitution threaten millions of lives. In this emerging “glocality”, there is a common, and urgent, need to overcome the boundaries of exclusion. Here, the proposed collective body (EuroMayDay) is described as a process for action, thus inviting translocal public participation. The body has active nodes in (Western) Europe (Bremen, Dortmund, Geneva, Hamburg, Hanau, Lisbon, Lausanne, Malaga, Milan, Palermo, Tübingen, Zürich) and beyond (Tokyo, Toronto, Tsukuba). The collective process marks these cities on the map through a webpage offering contacts with each of the “nodes” in the network. On 1 May 2009, May Day events, or parades, took place in all the cities listed above. The “nodes” of the EuroMayDay process prepared posters and activities following some common lines, although collective action had to be performed locally in every city. By way of example, let’s look at how this collective action realised its potential in Berlin, Germany. The posters (EuroMayDay Berlin, "Call") articulate the oppressive and competitive power of capitalism which affects everyone, everyday, like a machine: it constitutes “the permanent crisis”. One’s actual or potential unemployment and/or immigrant status may cause insecurity about the future. There is also a focus on liminal or transitional time, and a call for a new collectivity to overcome oppressive forces from above that protect the interests of the State and the banks. EuroMayDay thus calls for the weaving together of different forms of resistance against a deeply embedded capitalist system and the bringing together of common concerns for the attention of the general public through the May Day parade. Another poster (EuroMayDay Berlin, "May"), depicting the May Day parade, centres around the word “KRISE?” (“crisis”). The poster ends with an optimistic call to action, expressing a desire to free capitalism from institutional oppression and recreate it in a more humanistic way. Together, these two posters represent fragments of the “ideoscope” informing the wider, collective process. In Berlin in 2009, thousands of people (mostly young) participated in the May Day parade (which started from the public square Bebelplatz), backed by a musical soundtrack (see Rudi). Some people also had posters in their hands, displaying slogans like: “For Human Rights”; “Class Struggle”; “Social Change Not Climate Change”; and “Make Capitalism a Thing of the Past”. Simultaneously, dozens of other similar parades were taking place across the cities of Europe, all bearing “accelerated affective hope” (Rosa) for political change and demanding justice in society. Unfortunately, the May Day parade in Berlin took a violent turn at night, when some demonstrators attacked police and set cars on fire. There were also clashes during demonstrations in Hamburg (Kirschbaum). The media blamed the clashes also on the economic recession and recently dashed hopes for change. The Berlin May Day parade event was covered on the EuroMayDay webpage and on television news. This collective action connected many people; some participated in the parade, and many more saw the clashes and burning cars on their screens. The destructive and critical force of the collective action brought attention to some of the problems associated with youth employment and immigration though, sadly, without offering any concrete proposals for a solution to the problem. The emotional character of the street marches, and later the street fighting, were arguably an important aspect of the collective action inasmuch as they demonstrated the potential for citizens to unite, translocally, around affective as well as material grief (a process that has been given dramatic expression in more recent times with events in Egypt, Libya, and Syria). Further, although the recent May Day events have achieved very little in terms of material results, the network remains active, and further initiatives are likely in the future. “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” On 1 May 2009, about 11,000 people participated in a public “thought-bee” in Estonia (located in north-eastern Europe in the region of the Baltic Sea) and (through the Estonian diaspora) abroad. The “thought-bee” can be understood as a civil society initiative designed to bring people together for discussion and problem-solving with regards to everyday social issues. The concept of the “bee” combines work with pleasure. The bee tradition was practised in old Estonian farming communities, when families in adjacent villages helped one another. Bees were often organised for autumn harvesting, and the intense, communal work was celebrated by offering participants food and drink. Similarly, during the Soviet era, on certain Saturdays there were organised days (obligatory) for collective working (e.g. to reconstruct sites or to pick up litter). Now the “bee” concept has become associated with brainstorming in small groups across the country as well as abroad. The number of participants in the May 1st thought-bee was relatively large, given that Estonia’s total population is only 1.4 million. The funding of the initiative combined public and private sources, e.g. Estonian Civil Society Foundation, the European Commission, and some companies. The information sheet, presented to participants of the May 1st thought-bee, explains the event’s purpose in this way: The main purpose of today’s thought-bee is to initiate as many actions as possible that can change life in Estonia for the better. My Estonia, our more enjoyable and more efficient society, will appear through smaller and bigger thoughts. In the thought-bee we think how to make life better for our own home-place... Let’s think together and do it! (Teeme Ära, "Teeme", translated from Estonian) The civil society event grew out of a collective action on 3 May 2008 to pick up and dispose of litter throughout Estonia. The thought-bee initiative was coordinated by volunteers. The emotional appeal to participate in the thought-bee event on May 1st was presented and circulated in newspapers, radio, television, Internet portals, and e-mails. Famous people called on residents to take part in the public discussion events. Some examples of arguments for the collective activity included the economic crisis, the need for new jobs, self-responsibility, environmental pressures, and the general need to learn and find communal solutions. The thought-bee initiative took place simultaneously in about 500 “thought-halls” all over Estonia and abroad. Small groups of people registered, chose main discussion topics (with many suggestions from organisers of the bee) and made their groups visible as nodes on the “initiative” webpage. Other people had the opportunity of reading several proposals from the various thought-halls and of joining as members of the public brainstorming event on 1 May. The virtual and living map of the halls presented them as (green) nodes with location, topics, members, and discussion leaders. Various sites such as schools, clubs, cultural centres, municipality buildings, and theatres became part of the multiple and synchronous “space-times” within the half-day thought-bee event. Participants in the thought-bee were asked to bring their own food to share and, in some municipalities, open concerts were held to celebrate the day. These practices indicate some continuity with the national tradition of bees, where work has always been combined with pleasure. Most “thought-halls” were located in towns and smaller local centres as well as on several Estonian islands. Moreover, these thought-halls provided for both as face-to-face and online encounters. Further, one English-speaking discussion group was organised in Tallinn so that non-Estonian speakers could also participate. However, the involvement of Russian-speaking people in the initiative remained rather limited. It is important to note that these embodied spaces of participation were also to be found outside of Estonia—in Brussels, Amsterdam, Toronto, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Prague, Baltimore, New York, and San Diego—and, in this way, the Estonian diaspora was also given the opportunity to become involved in the collective action. Following the theories of Thrift and Clark cited at the beginning of this article, it is interesting to see an event in which simultaneously connected places, embodying multiple voices, becomes part of the communal present with a shared vision of the future. The conclusions of each thought-hall discussion group were recorded on video shortly after the event. These videos were made available on the “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” webpage. The most frequently addressed topics of the thought-bee (in order of importance) were: community activities and collaboration; entrepreneurship and new jobs; education, values; free time and sport; regional development; rural life; and the environment and nature conservation (PRAXIS). The participants of the collective action were aware of the importance of local as well as national initiatives as a catalyst for change. The initiative “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” continued after the events of May Day 2009; people discussed issues and suggested proposals through the “initiative” webpage and supported the continuation of the collective action (Teeme Ära, "Description"). Environmental concerns (e.g. planting trees, reducing noise, and packaging waste) appear as important elements in these imaginings along with associated other practices for the improvement of daily life. It is important to understand the thought-bee event as a part of an emerging collective action that started with a simple litter clean-up and grew, through various other successful local community initiatives, into shared visions for a better future predicated upon the principles of glocality and coexistence. The example indicates that (international) NGOs can apply, and also invent, radical information politics to change the terms of debate in a national context by providing a voice for groups and issues that would otherwise remain unheard and unseen (see also Atkinson and Scurrah 236-44). Conclusions The collective actions discussed above have created new publics and contingent spaces to bring additional questions and concerns into politics. In both cases, the potential of “the event” (as theorised in the introduction of this article) came to the foreground, creating an additional international layer of temporal connectivity between many existing social groups such as unemployed young people or members of a village union. These events were both an “outcome” of, and an attempt to change, the involuntary exclusion of certain “peripheral” groups within the melting pot that the European Union has become. As such, they may be thought of as extending the concept of “diasporas” to include emerging platforms of collective action that aim to make problematic issues visible and multiple voices heard across the wider public. This, in turn, illustrates the need to rethink diasporas in the context of the intensive de-territorialisation of human concerns, “space-times and movement-trajectories yet to (be)come” (Braziel and Mannur 18). Both the examples of collective action discussed here campaigned for “changing the world” through a one-day event and may thus be understood in terms of Rosa’s theory of “social acceleration” (Rosa). This theory shows how both to the “contraction of the present” and the general instability of contemporary life have given rise to a newly affective desire to improve life through an expression of the collective will. Such a tendency can clearly take on far more radical forms as has been recently demonstrated by the mass protests and revolts against autocratic ruling powers in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. In this article, however, cosmopolitics is better understood in terms of the particular skills (most evident in the Estonian case) and affective spheres that mobilised in suggestions to bring about local action and global change. Together, these examples of collective action are part of a wider “ideoscape” (Appadurai) trying to reduce the power of capitalism and of the state by encouraging alternative forms of collective action that are not bound up solely with earning money or serving the state as a “salient” citizen. However, it could be argued that “EuroMayDay” is ultimately a reactionary movement used to highlight the oppressive aspects of capitalism without offering clear alternatives. By contrast, “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” has facilitated interactive public discussion and the practice of local skills that have the power to improve everyday life and the environment in a material and quantifiable way. Such changes in collective action also illustrate the speed and “imitative capacity stimulating expressive interactions” that now characterise everyday life (Thrift). Crucially, both these collective events were achieved through rapid advances in communication technologies in recent times; this technology made it possible to spread know-how as well as feelings of solidarity and social contact across the world. Further research on these fascinating developments in g/local politics is clearly urgently needed to help us better understand the changes in collective action currently taking place. Acknowledgements This research was supported by Estonian Science Foundation grant SF0130008s07 and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence CECT). References Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 25-48. Atkinson, Jeffrey, and Martin Scurrah. Globalizing Social Justice: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Bringing about Social Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2009. Braziel, Jana Evans, and Anita Mannur. “Nation, Migration, Globalisation: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies.” Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Eds. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 1-18. Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. London: Continuum, 2004. Clark, Nigel. “The Play of the World.” Using Social Theory: Thinking Through Research. Eds. Michael Pryke, Gillian Rose, and Sarah Whatmore. London: Sage, 2003. 28-46. EuroMayDay. “What Is EuroMayDay?” 23 May 2009. ‹http://www.euromayday.org/about.php›. EuroMayDay Berlin. “Call of May Parade.” 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://maydayberlin.blogsport.de/aufruf/text-only/›. EuroMayDay Berlin. “May Parade Poster.” 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://maydayberlin.blogsport.de/propaganda/›. Flusty, Steven. De-Coca-Colonization. Making the Globe from the Inside Out. New York: Routledge, 2004. Hinchliffe, Steve. Geographies of Nature: Societies, Environments, Ecologies. London: Sage, 2007. Kirschbaum, Erik. “Police Hurt in May Day Clashes in Germany.” Reuters, 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5401UI20090501›. Massumi, Brian. “The Autonomy of Affect.” Deleuze: A Critical Reader. Ed. Paul Patton. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. 217-39. PRAXIS. “Minu Eesti mõttetalgute ideede tähtsamad analüüsitulemused” (Main analysing results about ideas of My Estonia thought-bee). 26 Oct. 2009. ‹http://www.minueesti.ee/index.php?leht=6&mID=949›. Rosa, Hartmut. “Social Acceleration: Ethical and Political Consequences of a Desynchronised High-Speed Society.” Constellations 10 (2003): 1-33. Rudi 5858. “Mayday-Parade-Demo in Berlin 2009.” 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://wn.com/Rudi5858›. Teeme Ära. “Teeme Ära! Minu Eesti” (Let’s Do It! My Estonia). Day Program of 1 May 2009. Printed information sheet, 2009. Teeme Ära. “Description of Preparation and Content of Thought-bee.” 20 Apr. 2009. ‹http://www.minueesti.ee/?leht=321›. Thrift, Nigel. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics and Affect. London: Routledge, 2008. Whatmore, Sarah. “Generating Materials.” Using Social Theory: Thinking Through Research. Eds. Michael Pryke, Gillian Rose and Sarah Whatmore. London: Sage, 2003. 89-104. Wikipedia. “EuroMayDay.” 23 May 2009. ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroMayDay›.

Problem setting. In the conditions of transition from command-administrative to market economy, decentralization reform of public administration, new priorities in connection with the European integration course of Ukraine, models of the state youth employment policy at the regional level have changed significantly. Trends of job cuts, increase in both open and hidden youth unemployment, as well as the level of young people’s outflow abroad call for development of new approaches and methods of relevant public policy. This necessitates the study of the processes of forming and implementing state youth employment policy at the regional level in Ukraine during its independence.Recent research and publications analysis. The greatest attention of scientists has been drawn to the issues of organizational and legal support of the state youth employment policy (A. Batiuk, Ye. Borodin, M. Dolishnii, I. Piron, I. Khokhriakova, I. Shkindiuk). The application of active methods of state policy/regulation of youth employment has become the subject of research by D. Krasivskyi, S. Bandur, O. Kovenska. Analysis of the dynamics of youth employment in regions and cities in the scientific works of economists (L. Golubovska, I. Zaiukov, E. Libanova, P. Rossokhatskyi, L. Semenova) allowed identifying the results of state youth employment policy at the regional level.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. At the same time, today there are no comprehensive works exploring the change of approaches to the formation and implementation of state youth employment policy at the regional level in Ukraine in 1991 – 2020.Paper main body. The main directions of the state youth employment policy at the regional level in Ukraine at the beginning of its independence were determined by the Soviet approaches laid down in the government resolution “On the Establishment of the State Employment Service in the Ukrainian SSR” and the law “On Employment of the Population” adopted in 1990 – 1991. At the regional level, public authorities created institutions: to promote youth employment – regional and district employment centers; social services for young people; to provide social protection and adaptation of the young generation under market conditions – regional branches of the Fund of social adaptation of youth of Ukraine. In order to promote youth employment, the authorities have been developing annual and long-term territorial employment programs since 1991.Since the 1992 Declaration on General Principles of State Youth Policy in Ukraine, the provision of youth employment has been proclaimed one of the main directions of state youth policy. The youth age in Ukraine, enshrined in law, was changed several times. In 1993 – 1998, it was 15 – 28 years of age (Law of Ukraine “On Promotion of Social Formation and Development of Youth in Ukraine”). In the period of December 1998 – March 2004, the Law of Ukraine “On Youth and Children’s Public Organizations” defined youth as the age group of the population from 14 to 28 years. Since March 2004 to present day, citizens aged 14 to 35 have been referred to as young people. Attempts made in 2013 to limit the age of young people to 28 were rejected in 2016.In the conditions of transition from administrative methods of the state youth employment policy at the regional level to market ones, in 1997 the model of youth employment due to cooperation of local executive bodies, associations of employers and trade unions was established. The application of active methods of social policy in the field of youth employment (2000) marked a shift from a paternalistic model of state youth employment policy at the regional level to a market model. Functioning of youth labor centers (2001), economic incentives for employers to create first jobs for young people; as well as educational institutions’ training young people in specialties and professions of high demand in the labor market, aimed at pursuing a marketing policy for their graduates (2004); the establishment of career centers and units to promote the employment of students and graduates of higher educational institutions on the basis of these institutions (2008) testified to the fact that the state policy of youth employment at the regional level was at the intersection of the domains of youth, education and regional social policies.After the so-called optimization of the system of central executive bodies in 2010, the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine was created by merging of the two ministries. However, the ministry did not have the function of youth employment among its powers. A gradual decline in the functioning of youth labor centers was observed. The mechanism of paying compensation to employers (50% of the amount of the accrued single contribution (since 2012)) for creation of additional jobs to employ the unemployed youth appeared to be an ineffective incentive for employers (the compensation was less than the subsidy established in 2004). The announced internship of students acquired the form of a formal procedure.The decentralization reform of public administration; the resumed functioning of youth labor centers in the regions (2016); creation of youth centers – new institutions (in communal and private ownership); promotion of youth employment part-time employment, and youth entrepreneurship (2017); involvement of young people to addressing employment issues have had a positive impact on the implementation of youth employment policy at the regional level. In 2018, for the first time since Ukraine gained its independence, the rate of youth employment exceeded by 1,3% the average employment rate of the country’s able-bodied population. Therefore, in the conditions of decentralization of public administration, the state youth employment policy at the regional level has proved effective.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. The study of the process of formation and implementation of state youth employment policy at the regional level in Ukraine during 1991 – 2020 allowed identifying 4 periods of change in approaches and methods. At the first stage (1991 – 2000), in Ukraine there existed a paternalistic model of state youth employment policy at the regional level, resulting from the Soviet approaches: the use of public procurement, administrative methods, the state allocation of young professionals. The application of active methods of social policy in the field of youth employment since 2001, the emergence of new institutions set to address the problem of youth employment in the regions, that is, youth labor centers testified to the start of using a market model of state youth employment policy at the regional level. The third period – 2010 – 2016 – was characterized by the removal of youth employment from the domain ofyouth and educational policies, the ruining of the network of youth labor centers, reduction in the effectiveness of state youth employment policy at the regional level in Ukraine. The period from 2016 to present day has been marked by a positive impact of decentralization reform on the effectiveness of state youth employment policy at the regional level; the focus of regional employment programs on supporting flexible forms of youth employment; formation of a model for the implementation of youth policy in the context of decentralization; effective involvement of young people in the formation and implementation of youth employment policy at the regional level.