Who is Plamen Akaliyski？

Plamen Akaliyski is a PhD research fellow at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Norway, and an associate researcher at the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, Higher School of Economics, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. He is a graduate from the Free University Berlin and a former research fellow at WZB Berlin Social Science Center in Germany. His dissertation focuses on explaining cultural value differences and change in Europe; parts of it have been published in the European Journal of Political Research and Comparative Sociology. Plamen is currently a visiting researcher at the Department of Management and Marketing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

What will his lecture be about?

Major geopolitical restructuring of Europe began in the early 90s following the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. Did these processes coincide with a cultural transformation of Europe? Using survey data from the European Values Survey and the World Values Study from 1990 to 2014, Akaliyski will assess in what direction European nations have changed their cultural values, in terms of Welzel’s (2013) emancipative and secular value indices.

The former Iron Curtain has faded away as a cultural boundary in Europe as the former communist states that joined the European Union have converged culturally with the West. A new, and steeply growing, cultural gap has emerged between the EU and its eastern neighbors. In particular, the two competing geopolitical formations at the west and east of Europe—the European and the Eurasian Unions respectively—have polarized in their fundamental values in recent decades. This may be explained by clashing supranational identities and distinctive roles of political actors and mass media as their tools for influencing public opinion.

Interesting! Can you give me the topic, time and location again?

Topic:Cultural and geopolitical transformations of Europe after the fall of Berlin Wall

When:December 5, 11:30-13:00

Where:Hongkou campus, Library 606

See you all then!