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In collaboration with
Institute for Human Sciences
The Institute for Human Sciences / Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences. Since its foundation in 1982, it has hosted more than 1500 scholars, journalists and translators from all over the world. Many of the Institute’s Permanent and Visiting Fellows are regular contributors to Eurozine or its focal points Eurasia in Global Dialogue and Ukraine in European Dialogue (see below).
Website: www.iwm.at
Twitter: @IWM_Vienna
Youtube: IWMVienna
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Articles
![Cover for: Utopian dreams beyond the border](https://www.eurozine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/8b546dfb53452e01de49d8048234b506.jpg)
If the financial crisis divided the EU between creditors and debtors, opening a gap between North and South, the refugee crisis re-opened the gap between East and West. What we witness today, writes Ivan Krastev, is not what Brussels describes as a lack of solidarity, but a clash of solidarities: national, ethnic and religious solidarity chafing against our obligations as human beings.
The Firtash octopus
Agents of influence in the West
Dirty money from the East has become a resource for dozens of European structures and politicians. Sergii Leshchenko reports on some of those that are only too happy to open their doors to a Ukrainian oligarch willing to invest millions in cleaning up his image.
![Flooded church in Venezuela](https://www.eurozine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/b9cecf9f1eac340c760c5046a7bbfd4e.jpg)
It is no longer possible to contrast a “secular” West with a “religious” East, writes Olivier Roy. Secularization and the de-culturation of religion are taking place in both East and West. The difference is the political forms that the de-culturated religions take.
![Cover for: How women survived post-communism (and didn't laugh)](https://www.eurozine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/c7b79c56083be0441bfab57cc6169166.jpg)
The situation for women in societies caught up in the post-’89 transition is complicated, writes Slavenka Drakulic. On the one hand, they now stand to lose rights that were, at least formally, established during the communist regime. On the other, women’s position in society has been undermined everywhere in Europe – in East and West alike. The financial crisis has struck hard, and women have been struck harder.
Focal points
![Cover for: The world in pieces](https://www.eurozine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/b9f62ba475237af15c00b71b190008f4.jpg)
Inspired by a lecture that Clifford Geertz delivered in 1995 at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, this focal point engages with ‘deep diversity’, ‘a sense of dispersion, of particularity, of complexity and of uncenteredness’ rather than unified world order. It follows the launch of a research programme of the same name at the institute in January 2023.
![Cover for: Ukraine in European dialogue](https://www.eurozine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/18ada76abf0aaf86d36c97a701e76f65.jpg)
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
Projects and publications
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