Nikolai GENOV
Ulrike Becker Eds.

Social Sciences in Southeasten Europe

CISS-ISSC, Paris-Bonn, 2001

Social sciences are becoming increasingly international in the age of globalization. Major theoretical paradigms are no longer localized in national traditions, but attract followers from all over the world. Reasearh methods and techniques move easily from one country to another along with mobile scholars. There are no barriers to the dissemination of explanatory hypotheses and empirical findings. Thanks to the Internet, communication in the invisible international community of social scientists has become part of their everyday routine. The community is therefore both virtual and quite real at the same time. It unites scolars from various countries sharing the same knowledge, skills, moral values and human hopes. Its members have closer links wirth each other than with their countrymen specializing in other professions.

In the light of this marked trend towards the internationalization of social sciences, is it necessary to pay attention to their national or regional specifics? The answer is a categorical "yes". It is motivated by the nature of social sciences which move steadily between historical events and theoretical generalizations. This is the reason why their achievements can only be understood by taking account of the dual reference to their national and international environments.

Nikolai Genov: SOCIAL SCIENCES IN A REGION IN FLUX (Introductory Remarks); Teuta Starova and Artan Fuga: SOCIAL SCIENCES IN ALBANIA; Nikolai Genov: SOCIAL SCINCES IN BULGARIA TODAY: WHERE FROM, WHERE TO?; Silva Meznaric and Aleksandar Vukic: SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CROATIA, 1990-2000; Jane Lambiri-Dimaki: THE STATUS OF SOCIOLOGY IN GREECE: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE; Lidija Hristova: SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD IN MACEDONIA; Maria Larionescu and Dumitru Sandu: THE CHALLENGE OF THE TRANSITION IN ROMANIAN SOCIETY AND SOCIOLOGY; Frane Adam and Matej Makarovic: SOCIETY IN TRANSITION AS REFLECTED BY SOCIAL SCINECES: THE CASE OF SLOVENIA; Ljubisa Mitrovic: SOCIAL SCIENCES IN YUGOSLAVIA IN THE 1990`s.