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Dispute Patterns in Post-Communist Central-Eastern Europe
Paper presents results of 4-years project on Patterns of Disputes and Disputes Treatment in Popular Legal Culture started in 2013. It includes survey of representative national sample in Poland (2014) and local samples in Daugavpils (Latvia, 2014/15), Drohobych (Ukraine, 2014) and Cluj-Napoca (Romania, 2014) as well as several Polish urban municipalities. The Polish local data are under longitudinal analysis (1977/8; 2002/3; 2013/15) checking the influence of politico-legal regime's change. The international comparison is supplemented by interethnic comparison of Latvians, Poles and Russians within Latvia, Romanians and Hungarians within Romania and Poles and Ukrainians within Poland checking the national context factor versus ethnic differences. As shown in previous publication by authors (Fuszara & Kurczewski in Maclean, Eekelaar & Bastard Managing Family Justice in Diverse Societies, Hart 2015) Eurobarometer's data show CEE patterns are close to SE on some aspects but different on the other. NWE, whether traditionally Protestant or Catholic shows more trust more in the administration of justice and institutionalised mediation. In former Communist Europe, informal direct agreements are more often trusted and institutions less often. In Southern Europe, the general distrust both in reference to the institutions and to the people prevails. The regression analysis will explore the significance of individual characteristics from among gender, age, economic affluence, education and personal trust as predictors of preference for institutionalised settlement (court), dyadic negotiations and exit in the basic types of disputes. Declared frequency of disputesin last 3 years and action patterns advocated for types of disputes as described in the vignettes are basic indicators of popular dispute culture in CEEurope.