Download or read book Decentralization and Transition in the Visegrad written by E. Kirchner and published by Springer. This book was released on 1999-05-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book assesses the democratization and marketization in the Visegrad states. It analyses the effectiveness of these emerging government structures at a regional and local level in terms of competencies and resources, makes comparisons with West European experiences at this level, and examines the role of external factors, especially the EU and international financial organisations, in the development of sub-national authorities in these countries.

Download or read book Corporate Governance in a Changing Economic and Political Environment written by M. Federowicz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-12-19 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides exceptional descriptive and analytical insights into changes in corporate governance settings in ten Eastern and Western European countries. It demonstrates that there exist different varieties of capitalisms and paths to transformation of economic institutions. In addition, it offers detailed discussions about national cases as well as the overall European Union effects. This book should be of great interest to scholars and students of comparative national systems, corporate governance and European studies.

Download or read book Banking and Monetary Policy in Eastern Europe written by Adalbert Winkler and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of the transition process, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe faced the task of creating a functioning financial system where none had existed before. A decade later, high-level practitioners and well-known experts take stock of banking and monetary policy in the region, centring on: the governance of banks; the spread of financial crisis; and, perspectives for monetary policy and banking sector development.

Download or read book EU Enlargement and its Macroeconomic Effects in Eastern Europe written by H. Gabrisch and published by Springer. This book was released on 1999-01-29 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What will joining the EU mean for the new Eastern member states and their economies? This book offers a detailed study of the macroeconomic and structural adjustment burden. It envisages a real currency appreciation stemming from price convergence, capital inflows and weak structural change. The widespread belief that an Eastern enlargement of the Union would be overwhelmingly to the detriment of the present EU (budgetary costs, locational decisions, trade deficits) is rejected. The authors discuss the lack of competitiveness of Eastern countries and their need for structural adjustments (in the financial sector, in agriculture, and in manufacturing) in order for them to survive and thrive in their new economic environment.

Download or read book Monetary Integration in Europe written by H. Tomann and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can the European Economic and Monetary Union survive as an institution providing the highest degree of monetary integration? Can it withstand crises in international markets and contribute to the stability of the global financial system? This book addresses these questions, emphasising the need for new forms of economic policy coordination.

Download or read book Crafting Democracy written by Jennifer A. Yoder and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of subnational regions to politics, governance, and economic development in Western Europe has long been recognized. However, far less is known about recent steps to introduce a regional level of politics in East Central Europe. Reforms there are part of the larger process of crafting democracy; that is, regional reforms are linked to the economic and political transition away from communism and toward “Europe,” specifically the European Union. Crafting Democracy offers an important comparative analysis of the process and outcomes of region-building in the four Visegrád countries. Jennifer A. Yoder investigates why some but not other post-communist countries chose to introduce a regional level of elected government. In the 1990s, for example, Poland boldly took the lead in regionalization, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia lagged behind. Hungary, meanwhile, declined to create regions. The author argues that these regional reform processes have potentially far-reaching implications for state-society relations, political participation, and policymaking at the domestic level. The emergence of new actors at the subnational level, moreover, creates opportunities for cross-border and European Union–level initiatives.

Download or read book Varieties of Capitalism in Post Communist Countries written by D. Lane and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-23 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets the experiences of former communist countries as they head towards capitalism against the 'varieties of capitalism' paradigm, and provides a framework for comparing transformation processes, demonstrating how differing heritages of communist and pre-communist pasts are leading to different kinds of capitalist economies.

Download or read book Local Democracy in Post Communist Europe written by Harald Baldersheim and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Der englischsprachige Band führt ein in die Lokal- und Regionalpolitik der mittel-osteuropäischen Reformländer. Der Band beleuchtet aktuelle Probleme der Kommunal- und Regionalpolitik in den Ländern Mittel-Osteuropas, einschließlich Russlands. Zentral sind Fragen der Beziehungen zwischen zentraler, regionaler und lokaler Politik- und Verwaltungsebene, der lokalen Demokratie und Partizipation sowie Fragen der Verwaltungsmodernisierung.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Czech State written by Rick Fawn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Czechoslovakia has been at the center of some of the most difficult--and tragic--episodes of modern European history: its sacrifice to Nazi Germany at Munich; the Communist Coup of 1948; and the military crushing of the Prague Spring. It has also enacted momentous change almost magically, as in the peaceful overthrow of communism in 1989, and then the negotiated end to the country in 1992. Czechoslovak history has consequently produced enduring political metaphors for our times, such as the Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Czech State has been thoroughly updated and greatly expanded. Featuring a chronology, introductory essay, appendix, bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries, this detailed, authoritative reference provides understandings of the Czechs as a people; the territory they inhabit; their social, cultural, political, and economic developments throughout history; and interactions with their neighbors and the wider world.

Download or read book The Transition written by David W. Lovell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2002. This useful collection brings together scholars from diverse standpoints to examine the transition from Communism a decade after it began. The result is a book that illuminates the changes, and particularly the problems, that have accompanied attempts to introduce representative democracy and a viable market economy into formerly Communist states. Specialist chapters on the Former Soviet Union, Russia, Poland, Azerbaijan and the former East Germany, institutional accounts of postcommunist states and conceptual chapters result in this volume being ideally suited to university courses, policy makers and NGOs that have an interest in transition countries.

Download or read book Europeanization and Regionalization in the EU s Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe written by J. Hughes and published by Springer. This book was released on 2004-10-12 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of EU conditionality and compliance during the enlargement to the Central and Eastern European candidate countries. EU conditionality for membership is widely understood as having been a driving force for Europeanization, providing incentives and sanctions for compliance or non-compliance with EU norms, such as the 'Copenhagen Criteria' and the adoption of the acquis communautaire . By taking regional policy and regionalization as a case study, this book provides a comparative analysis of the effects of conditionality on the Central and East European countries and explores the many paradoxes and weaknesses in the use of EU conditionality over time.

Download or read book Local Elites Political Capital and Democratic Development written by Stefan Szücs and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-08-17 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book helps to understand in which ways local governing elites are important for the success or failure of national democratic development. Although we know a great deal about the general importance of civil society and social capital for the development of sustainable democracy, we still know little about what specific local governing qualities or political capital that interact with democratic development. The collected data covers time series of surveys from between 15 to 30 political and administrative leaders in over a hundred middle-sized European and Eurasian cities. The study takes us across the 1980s and 1990s, going from cities in Sweden and the Netherlands - through the Baltic cities - to the cities of Belarus and Russia. The findings show the importance of local political capital based on commitments to core democratic values, informal governance networks, and the significance of initially connecting the community to global, non-economic relationships.

Download or read book Spreading Democracy and the Rule of Law written by Wojciech Sadurski and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-07-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The accession of eight post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (and also of Malta and Cyprus) to the European Union in 2004 has been heralded as perhaps the most important development in the history of European integration so far. While the impact of the enlargement on the constitutional structures and practices of the EU has already generated a rich scholarly literature, the influence of the accession on constitutionalism, democracy, human rights and the rule of law among the new member states has been largely ignored. This book fills this gap, and addresses the question of the consequences of the "external force" of European enlargement upon the understanding and practice of democracy and the rule of law and among both the main legal-political actors and the general public in the new member-states. A number of leading legal scholars, sociologists and political scientists, both from Central and Eastern Europe and from outside, address these issues in a systematic and critical way. Taken together, these essays help answer a fundamental question: does the European Union have the potential of promoting and consolidate democracy and human rights?

Download or read book Democratization in EU Foreign Policy written by Benedetta Berti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New democracies are uniquely positioned to promote democratic values and have a competitive advantage in the global democracy assistance industry. This book examines the attempts of one group of young democracies, from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), to channel this pro-democracy agenda into both national and European foreign policy and development support. It looks at how CEE is ‘upstream’ changing the EU on crucial policy issues as part of the common foreign and security policy. Furthermore, it tracks the process whereby imported ideas and norms are recycled for further export ‘downstream’, and how these concepts are received in countries outside of the EU including the post-Soviet space, the Western Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa region and Central Asia. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of democratisation studies, European Union studies, comparative politics, international relations, international development, European politics, as well as area/regional studies.

Download or read book Youth Policy in Hungary written by Andreas Walther and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This international review of Hungarian national youth policy is the fifteenth in the series started in 1997 by the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe. Like preceding reviews, it aims to fulfil three distinct objectives: - to advise on national youth policy; - to identify components which might combine to form a harmonised approach to youth policy across Europe; and - to contribute to a learning process in relation to the development and implementation of youth policy. Hungary, at its own request, embarked on an international review to benefit from ten years of reviewing experience and to contribute to the European exchange of information on youth policies. This report includes information gathered by the international review team as well as its analyses and recommendations concerning the development, perspectives and challenges for the future of youth policy in Hungary.

Download or read book Runaway State Building written by Conor O'Dwyer and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-09-14 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, Conor O'Dwyer introduces the phenomenon of runaway state-building as a consequence of patronage politics in underdeveloped, noncompetitive party systems. Analyzing the cases of three newly democratized nations in Eastern Europe—Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia—O’Dwyer argues that competition among political parties constrains patronage-led state expansion. O’Dwyer uses democratization as a starting point, examining its effects on other aspects of political development. Focusing on the link between electoral competition and state-building, he is able to draw parallels between the problems faced by these three nations and broader historical and contemporary problems of patronage politics—such as urban machines in nineteenth-century America and the Philippines after Marcos. This timely study provides political scientists and political reformers with insights into points in the democratization process where appropriate intervention can minimize runaway state-building and cultivate efficient bureaucracy within a robust and competitive democratic system.

Download or read book Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe Volume 1 Institutional Engineering written by Jan Zielonka and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume in a series of books on democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe. The series focuses on three major aspects of democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe: institutional engineering, transnational pressures and civil society. This first volume analyses constraints on and opportunities of institutional engineering in Eastern Europe: to what extent and how elites in Eastern Europe have been able to shape, if not manipulate, the politics of democraticconsolidation through institutional means.The aim is to contrast a set of democracy theories with empirical evidence accumulated in Eastern Europe over the last ten years. The volume tries to avoid complex debates about definitions, methods and the uses and misuses of comparative research. Instead it tries to establish what has really happened in the region, and which of the existing theories have proved helpful in explaining these developments.The volume starts with a presentation of conceptual and comparative frameworks, followed by in-depth empirical analyses of the thirteen individual countries undergoing democratic consolidation. The first conceptual and comparative part contains three chapters. The first chapter explains what institutional engineering is about and describes our experiences with institutional engineering in former transitions to democracy. It also focuses on the import and export of institutional designs. Thesecond chapter analyses the utility of constitutions in the process of democratic consolidation. The third chapter compares constitutional designs and problems of implementation in Southern and Eastern Europe. The empirical case studies deal with the following countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Poland. And the conclusions evaluate the enormous impact of institutions on politics in Eastern Europe and show how central constitutional designs are to the institutional engineering in the societies undergoing transitions to democracy.