Download or read book Public Finance and Post Communist Party Development written by Janis Ikstens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This key volume explores how party and campaign finance in post-communist countries have influenced the development of the party system. Based on an analysis of nine case studies, the work examines how the implementation of public finance affects the pattern of party competition and the role of money in elections. One of the lessons from the post-communist experience is that, no matter how well-designed, public finance systems are subject to constant revision as parties, politicians and business elites exploit loopholes which can undermine the integrity of the entire system. Party and campaign finance systems must therefore be considered in a larger discussion involving party regulation and electoral rules.

Download or read book Money Rules Parties Oligarchs and Funding Regulation in Post Soviet Countries written by Fernando Casal Bértoa and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-04-10 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of the regulation of party finance in post-Soviet countries by leading academics and practitioners in the field. Through a series of cutting-edge chapters, using both original quantitative and qualitative data, it systematically sheds theoretical and empirical light on the way party funding regulation has evolved since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as on the manner in which the legal regulation of party finances has had an impact (or not) on the evolution of party politics and democratic consolidation in the region. The book examines regulation in post-Soviet countries like Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia and Ukraine. In analysing the various dimensions of party funding regulation and their impact on political parties, party systems and democracy, it looks at the past and future, and makes recommendations on how legislation could be improved in order to further party development, party system stabilisation and democratic consolidation for all the countries in the region. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students, practitioners and journalists interested in political party finance and anti-corruption, and more broadly to political parties, democracy and democratic governance, and post-Soviet/Russian and East European politics.

Download or read book Similar Challenges Different Outcomes written by Sergiu Lipcean and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis analyses the evolution of political financing regimes (PFR) across post-communist polities from the outset of transition through the lenses of their restrictiveness. Unlike existing comparative research, that defines restrictiveness of party and campaign funding almost exclusively in terms of regulatory scope, this dissertation argues that restrictiveness emerges from the interplay between regulatory scope and intensity. While scope pertains to the gamut of financing regulations, intensity relates to their stringency. This analytical framework is then employed to assess the variation in restrictiveness along the key dimensions of PFR such as private financing, public funding, spending, transparency and enforcement. More specifically, I show that restrictiveness of regulatory provisions on each dimension does not emanate from the mere availability of various restrictions, liabilities or entitlements such as donation and spending limits, reporting and disclosure obligations, oversight and sanctioning rules or the provision of public funding. Instead, it stems from different levels of regulatory intensity, typified by how much: (i) a donor can contribute, (ii) a party or candidate can spend, (iii) public funding is provided, (iv) information is reported and disclosed, (v) autonomy and powers supervisory body holds and (vi) punishment is foreseen for financial wrongdoings. Based on this approach, I construct an original dataset of restrictiveness for 27 post-communist regimes for each regulatory dimension containing indicators that capture the nature of regulatory regimes considerably better than aggregate composite indexes. The analysis of regulatory developments reveals that despite a global shift from laissez-faire towards quite elaborate financing rules, post-communist regimes have varied significantly regarding the pace and magnitude of regulatory reform for both party statutory and election financing. Furthermore, the convergence of PFR in terms of regulatory scope was not followed by a similar process in terms of regulatory stringency. Quite the contrary, the variation in donation limits decreased neither cross-nationally nor over time, although the incentive structure of fundraising was favourable to parties and candidates, who could rely on a narrow donor base to cover their financial needs. Likewise, the gap between countries providing the most lavish and the scarcest state support to parties and candidates substantially increased once the pool of countries that introduced public funding has expanded over time. Spending caps, on the other hand, turned out to be excessively restrictive in most cases, which have clearly undermined the fairness of electoral competition and actors’ compliance by the rules. Transparency and enforcement represent the two dimensions where, regardless of the diversity of institutional configurations, post-communist regimes have resembled each other mostly. The blurry nature of reporting and disclosure provisions and the preservation of many regulatory loopholes into legal framework have allowed political parties to keep significant portions of their finances out of public scrutiny. Similarly, the control mechanism was hindered by several factors, including politicization and/or limited powers of the supervisory body accompanied by a toothless system of sanctions. Besides, by exploring the relationship between public funding with other regulatory dimensions, I found that the level of state support is unevenly correlated with their restrictiveness. While a high level of state support is not accompanied by more restrictive contribution limits, it is associated by stricter transparency and enforcement rules. Finally, the analysis shows that a more generous public funding mechanism is negatively associated with the level of political corruption and positively correlated with the proportionality of electoral system and democratisation, though in the latter case the strength of the correlation is weaker.

Download or read book The Regulation of Post Communist Party Politics written by Fernando Casal Bértoa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of how political parties are, and ought to be, regulated has assumed an increased importance in recent years, both within the scholarly community and among policy-makers and politicians as the state assumes an increasingly active role in the management of, and control over, their behaviour and organisation This book concentrates on the regulation of political parties in the EU post-communist democracies, and on Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, in particular. In analysing the various dimensions of party regulation, it builds on the main premises derived from the neo-institutionalist literature in political science, concerning the ways in which the (formal and informal) rules and procedures may influence, constrain or determine the behaviour of political actors. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive overview of the regulation of Eastern European political parties provided by leading experts in the field and casts theoretical and empirical light on the manner in which the constitutional and legal regulation of party organizations and finances have had an impact (or not) on the consolidation of party politics in post-communist Europe since 1989. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Political Parties and Behaviour, East European and Post-Communist Politics and Comparative Politics.

Download or read book Political Parties in Post Communist Societies written by M. Spirova and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-06-14 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of party development in the post-communist world. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bulgaria and Hungary, as well as aggregate data from twelve post-communist states, this study provides an explanation of the behaviour of parties since 1990, and offer new insights into the party behaviour in the future.

Download or read book Handbook of Political Party Funding written by Jonathan Mendilow and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-26 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scrutinizing a relatively new field of study, the Handbook of Political Party Funding assesses the basic assumptions underlying the research, presenting an unequalled variety of case studies from diverse political finance systems.

Download or read book The System Made Me Do it written by Rasma Karklins and published by M.E. Sharpe. This book was released on 2005 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study of the origin, nature, and consequences of corruption - the misuse of public power for private gain - in post-communist societies. Suggesting innovative and practical institutional strategies for containing corruption, this book achieves a balance of disciplined analysis, practicality, and passion.

Download or read book Central and Eastern Europe After Transition written by Wojciech Sadurski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have national identities changed, developed and reacted in the wake of transition from communism to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe? Central and Eastern Europe After Transition defines and examines new autonomous differences adopted at the state and the supranational level in the post-transitional phase of the post-Communist area, and considers their impact on constitutions, democracy and legal culture. With representative contributions from older and newer EU members, the book provides a broad set of cultural points for reference. Its comparative and interdisciplinary approach includes a useful selection of bibliographical resources specifically devoted to the Central Eastern European countries' transitions.

Download or read book Russia s Authoritarian Elections written by Stephen White and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia is the world’s largest country, and its politics affect the entire international community. Formally, who exercises the power of government is decided, as in Western democracies, by competitive elections that are held at regular intervals. But there have increasingly been doubts about the extent to which Russian parliamentary and presidential elections can be considered ‘free and fair’, and it is the argument of this coauthored study that they are better defined as ‘authoritarian elections’, with a number of distinct characteristics. Using a wide range of sources, including surveys, election statistics, interviews, focus groups and the printed press, the contributors to this important collection analyse Russia’s authoritarian elections in a variety of ways: how they are conducted, what citizens think about them, and how the Russian experience relates to a wider international context. Elections are the central mechanism by which citizens can seek to hold their government to account; this collection shows the ways in which that mechanism can be manipulated from above such it becomes more of an extension of central authority than a means by which the public at large can impose their own priorities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

Download or read book Models of Democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe written by Nicholas Aylott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ways in which representative democracy works in two neighbouring collections of European states: the Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and the Baltic (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Starting from a Nordic vantage point, contributors explore the extent to which aspects of politics function similarly or dissimilarly across the two groups of democratic states, acknowledging the differences in models of democracy that occur within each group. Authors explore the possibility that some of the apparently successful institutional features of Nordic politics have somehow influenced politics in the Baltic states, despite the considerable contextual differences between the two groups. The Nordic-Baltic comparison is particularly worthy of study, given the comparative stability of the Nordic democracies and the half century of occupation by a totalitarian dictatorship that the Baltic states endured. The central, guiding questions are: how does political representation work in countries that have a lot in common, but also a few significant contextual dissimilarities; and what, if any, relationships between the respective styles of democracy can be identified? Using a variety of theories, perspectives and methods, the empirical studies that populate the book seek to offer reflections on these questions.

Download or read book Coalition Governance in Central Eastern Europe written by Torbjörn Bergman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-12 with total page 613 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coalition government among different political parties is the way most European democracies are governed. Traditionally, the study of coalition politics has been focused on Western Europe. Coalition governance in Central Eastern Europe brings the study of the full coalition life-cycle to a region that has undergone tremendous political transformation, but which has not been studied from this perspective. The volume covers Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. It provides information and analyses of the coalition life-cycle, from pre-electoral alliances to coalition formation and portfolio distribution, governing in coalitions, the stages that eventually lead to government termination, and the electoral performance of coalition parties. In Central Eastern Europe, few single-party cabinets form and there have been only a few early elections. The evidence provided shows that coalition partners in the region write formal agreements (coalition agreements) to an extent that is similar to the patterns that we find in Western Europe, but also that they adhere less closely to these contracts. While the research on Western Europe tends to stress that coalition partners emphasize coalition compromise and mutual supervision, there is more evidence of 'ministerial government' by individual ministers and their parties. There are also some systems where coalition governance is heavily dominated by the prime minister. No previous study has covered the full coalition life-cycle in all of the ten countries with as much detail. Systematic information is presented in 10 figures and in more than one hundred tables. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Université libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Political Science, University of Houston.

Download or read book Issues in Political Systems Research 2011 Edition written by and published by ScholarlyEditions. This book was released on 2012-01-09 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues in Political Systems Research / 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Political Systems Research. The editors have built Issues in Political Systems Research: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Political Systems Research in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Political Systems Research: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Download or read book Post Communist Mafia State written by B lint Magyar and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ

Download or read book Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns written by Ingrid van Biezen and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover & title page: Integrated project "Making democratic institutions work"

Download or read book Transforming Post Communist Political Economies written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-03-02 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking new volume focuses on the interaction between political, social, and economic change in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States. It includes a wide selection of analytic papers, thought-provoking essays by leading scholars in diverse fields, and an agenda for future research. It integrates work on the micro and macro levels of the economy and provides a broad overview of the transition process. This volume broadens the current intellectual and policy debate concerning the historic transition now taking place from a narrow concern with purely economic factors to the dynamics of political and social change. It questions the assumption that the post-communist economies are all following the same path and that they will inevitably develop into replicas of economies in the advanced industrial West. It challenges accepted thinking and promotes the utilization of new methods and perspectives.

Download or read book Public Administration in Post Communist Countries written by Saltanat Liebert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although it has been more than 20 years since Communism crumbled in Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, many scholars and politicians still wonder what the lifting of the Iron Curtain has really meant for these former Communist countries. And, because these countries were largely closed off to the world for so long, there has yet to be an all-inclusive study on their administrative systems—until now. In Public Administration in Post-Communist Countries: Former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe, and Mongolia, expert contributors supply a comprehensive overview and analysis of public administration in their respective post-Communist countries. They illustrate each country’s transformation from an authoritarian system of governance into a modern, market-based, and in some cases, democratic government. The book covers the countries that were officially part of the Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan); those that were theoretically independent but were subject to Soviet-dominated Communist rule (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Poland); as well as a satellite republic that was under significant Soviet influence (Mongolia). Each chapter includes a brief introduction to the specific country, an overview of politics and administration, and discussions on key aspects of public management and administration—including human resource management, public budgeting, financial management, corruption, accountability, political and economic reform, civil society, and prospects for future development in the region. The book concludes by identifying common themes and trends and pinpointing similarities and differences to supply you with a broad comparative perspective.

Download or read book Income Inequality and Poverty During the Transition from Planned to Market Economy written by Branko Milanovi? and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Bank Technical Paper No. 394. Joint Forest Management (JFM) has emerged as an important intervention in the management of Indias forest resources. This report sets out an analytical method for examining the costs and benefits of JFM arrangements. Two pilot case studies in which the method was used demonstrate interesting outcomes regarding incentives for various groups to participate. The main objective of this study is to develop a better understanding of the incentives for communities to participate in JFM.