Suchergebnisse

Distribution of parties along the left-right continuum historically has been the issue of coalition stability, governmental accountability and even stability of political system. Left-right spectrum is widely used in comparative research as a guide between voters and politicians making easier to understand political preferences. The focus of this study is to test 1) whether the left-right continuum is evident and meaningful in Latvia and Estonia 2) whether voters have fairly accurate perceptions of parties' left-right positions in Latvia and Estonia and whether they vote according to their self-placement on left-right scale, 3) whether voter's self-placement can be explained by individual socioeconomic (income, education, position in work place) status or ethnolinguistic belonging (ethnic group, conversation language at home, conversation language in childhood, ethnic belonging of mother and father). Data on basis of voter analysis was obtained from EU Commission Funded FP6 EUREQUAL project (PI Professor Stephen Whitefield, University of Oxford), "Social Inequality and Why it Matters for the Economic and Democratic Development of Europe and its Citizens: Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe in Comparative Perspective" Data on party each placement is gathered by the authors.Results show that voters have fairly accurate perceptions of the left-right position of parties or at least the position where party representatives place each party, supposing that voters chose the closest party to one's self orientation at the ballot box. Nevertheless the determinants of self-placement are not very clear as only in Latvia education, personal income and position at work influence the self-placement of the respondents while no coherence of social economic status was observed in Estonia. Also influence of ethnolingustic factors was observed neither in Latvia, nor Estonia, though both nations are considered as one of the ethnically most divided societies in Europe.

The article reveals several most important preconditions for integration of disabled intothe labour market – specifics of the legal system of professional rehabilitation of the disabled,the role of state institutions in organization of professional rehabilitation services for thedisabled, the rules for delivery of such services, and the importance of criteria's to determinethe need for professional rehabilitation. The authors emphasize that positive results can beachieved by higher individualization and that the state assistance is necessary during theemployment. The article discusses the latest changes in the national legislation, the statisticaldata of the Lithuanian Labour Exchange and suggests several areas where the legislation on theprofessional rehabilitation of the disabled people can be improved.

The new ideas of innovation and networking oriented economic development in the European Union are described. Prospects of economic development are getting more heavily dependent on the ability to initiate, disseminate and implement innovations in all spheres of life. This factor is of particular importance for the development and enlargement of the European Union, because activation of innovations is considered to be a significant problem associated with social and economic development and the advance of science and technology in the European Union. Further activation of innovations is a major precondition for ensuring the competitiveness of the European economy under the conditions of globalization. To activate the innovations in the European Union, the potential of innovations should be purposefully developed and effectively used. The problems of purposeful development and effective use of the innovation potential are considered now to be particularly important both from theoretical and practical perspectives. Vast possibilities of activating innovations are created by favourable conditions existing in the European Union for producing and effective use of various synergetic effects required for creating and developing international networks: these international networks may become the dominant formations in modern international economy. Spreading of international networks implies the inevitability of transformation of international economy into an economic system of international networks.The major goal of the paper is to demonstrate new approaches to innovation activation and purposeful development of the innovation potential in the European Union, taking into account the trends of globalization observed and the challenges of the knowledge – based society being created.

This paper deals with features of the Swedish model of economic and socialdevelopment from the perspective of Belarus. The paper deals with issues concerningthe evolution of the Swedish social-economic model, with emphasis on the latestchanges and corrections to the Swedish model. The paper also examines tendenciesin the public sector and challenges in local government, as well as issues of foreigntrade, migration of the national and foreign capital, Swedish course of Europeanintegration and cooperation in relation to post-Soviet countries.

The 2009 SIGMA assessment of the civil services in the new EU member states, which joined the EU in2004, revealed that only the Lithuanian civil service achieved a high degree of fit with the European principlesof public administration. The article seeks to determine main reasons behind this favourable assessment ofLithuania. Compared to other countries of Eastern and Central Europe, the development of the Lithuanian civilservice was marked by relative continuity and consistency. In addition, the article presents two main alternativesfor further developing the Lithuanian civil service: a stabilisation and consolidation of the Lithuanian civilservice as well as its moderate managerial reform. To implement these alternatives, the article outlines a numberof short-term and medium-term recommendations for Lithuanian decision-makers.

Following the historical perspectives of European integration it is clear that rising global changes and challenges infl uence European society's development for evermore. And as one of the aspects of the development the phenomena of Integration appears under the basis of values. As the response to society's development and the process of Integration the idea of the Unique Europe rises in early ages of Roman Empire, continued in the Middle Ages and passed several historical stages of various forms of Integration till nowadays.The paper analyses the theoretical approach on Integration as well as follows the main stages of European integration in the historical point of view highlighting main European values under which basis the Integration process lasts. The paper stresses the legal, political, economic and social aspects of Integration as the refl ection of European values rising in parallel with the historical movement of European integration.To strengthen the integration process the Europe Union implements a big variety of instruments. One of the instruments – Jean Monnet Action - was launched in 1990's by European Commission under the request of Universities. The most important feature of this instrument is that to this Action is directly oriented towards the European citizens and European integration studies as well as understanding through teaching, through refl ection and debate, and through the far reaching infl uence of the activities of the European Centres of Excellence and the Jean Monnet professors.The paper emphasises the expediency of the Action as it is focused towards the same social disciplines refl ecting the legal, political, economic and social aspects of European Integration. With reference to this the big correlation stands. After 2001 Jean Monnet Action is open through all over the world. Lithuania attends this Action through the activity of universities. The paper represents the genesis and types of the activities of Jean Monnet Action as well as the development of this Action in Lithuania. ...

The paper deals with the impact of European integration on civil societies of the Baltic states in 1988-2004. The research applies an analytical framework derived from theories of civil society, democratization,and Europeanization. Identified are 4 mechanisms of the impact of the integration into the EU on thedevelopment of civil society of the Baltic states: the Political Accession Criterion of Democracy and the Ruleof Law; the EU programmes for democracy promotion and the direct aid; reforms and adaptation of acquiscommunautaire; transnational networks and interest representation at the EU level. Along with these mechanisms,the impact of the integration into the EU on civil societies of the Baltic states is analyzed as theprocess of socialization and learning.

Under current conditions of knowledge economy intellectual property is one of the most important factor andresource for scientific, economic, and social development. Acquisition and management of this resource is crucialnot only for business undertakings or public entities, but also for states in a broader sense. Intellectual property orknowledge is source of innovation in all spheres of life and especially in electronic space. Electronic space embracessuch fields as e-democracy, e-government, e-business, e-health, e-learning and others. However, it is importantto analyse e-government and e-business, as these fields in many European states are among priorities of knowledgesociety development. Moreover, e-business and e-government are knowledge and innovation intensive spheres,which have possibilities to exploit possibilities of intellectual property and create knowledge-based economy.However intellectual property as a resource is very complex, time intensive and requires substantial financial andtechnical resources. Frequently creation, acquisition, and usage of intellectual property involve several socialgroups, for ex. Science and business communities or science and state institutions.The aim of this paper is to analyse main trends in intellectual property transfer between science, business, andstate institutions in e-government and e-business context and show the importance of intellectual property to thedevelopment of these fields. The paper analyses intellectual property transfer between science, business and stateinstitutions, potential of intellectual property usage for e-government and e-business development, principles offoreign knowledge transfer examples and possibilities to adapt these principles in Lithuanian context. There isanalysed prevailing concept of intellectual property and its transfer and initiatives of e-government and e-business.Conclusions underline importance of intellectual property transfer to e-government and e-business developmentin Lithuania and proposes model of intellectual ...

With reference to strategic documents of the European Union (EU) on forestry development and based onthe analysis of experience of some EU states, also results of recent researches conducted in Lithuania and materialsfrom expert discussions, this article analyses the forestry development trends in the EU and discusses possiblevariants for optimization of the Lithuanian forestry management system. The impact of Forestry Strategyfor the European Union and the EU Forest Action Plan adopted by the Council of the European Union on thedevelopment of further forerstry development of EU member states is discussed and it is emphasized thatwithin the EU until now there is no uniform forestry management model and therefore national models are developedaccording to the local conditions, existing traditions and general trends of EU forestry development. Itis shown that Lithuania is still in the search for ways to optimize its forestry management by looking for solutionsto the dilemma of public-private forests ratio and to expediency of structural reforms of existing forestrydistricts.

This publication provides and analyses the European Union Structural Funds impact on the disparitythe Irelands and Greece, Spain and Portugal. As my assumption is that Structural Funds were not enoughacceptably put to use, thus this article provides the actual results observed in an attempt to prove thissupposition by explaining the major examples of Ireland's recent economic growth. The Irish experience andcomparative analysis of Greece, Spain and Portugal cases is used as a model of successful use of structuralfunding. Despite its limitations, Ireland economic convergence is compared with the other Cohesion countriesduring the 1988, 1993 and 1999 reforms.

The problems which emerge in Ukraine while forming relations between state governance authoritiesof different levels are considered. The factors which influence formation of their effective interaction basingon the principle of systemic approach and in the light of Polish, Hungarian and British experience inthe organization of public administration system are analyzed. General and specific tendencies of reformingsystems of public administration in European countries are determined, basic approaches to reformingadministrative systems are analyzed, the evolution of the system of values which make the bases for themanagerial process is researched.

Problems of public management and regional policy had been analyzed in the article. The authors stress theimportance of competence development for state, counties and municipalities employees seeking public administrationefficiency in the context of EU and transatlantic integration.Problem of state integrity and administrative efficiency is related with political, cultural and external factorsimplementing regional policy. The authors claim that without reforming statutory public sector institutions, usinginformational technologies especially on municipality level, Ukraine won't transform public sector which maycomplicate admission to EU and NATO. Important step in the reform processes is the use of national Ukrainianlanguage in central public administration institutions.While reformatting the civil statutory public sector institutions, their strategic trends must be sophisticatedbased on the best experience of NATO and EU.

The aim of this article is to review the changes in the public sector administrative reforms and to identifyits key elements by distinguishing the context, content (logic) and process of the reforms. It is shownthat public sector reform movement and reforms content is the result of conflicting and competing valuesof good public management, which roots are in the perception about world's operation and behaviour ofpeople. Good public management presents the quality of governance. The core values of public administrationare responsiveness to public needs and people satisfaction, integrity of government and peoples'trust in government, reliability and confidence of public administration system. The change in values laysin political economical, societal and institutional causes. The main reform concerns characterized by implementationof the 3E (economy, efficiency, effectiveness) conception are changing, by varying the elementsof 3E conception into ethics, equity, equalities. Reform processes seeming to be rationalistic stepsguiding the change, at practice are on the continuum between planned changes and emerging strategy. Additionally,the practice of reforms is usually associated with lack of results and undelivered promises.Comparing administrative reforms we may identify the main common reforms' factors (external pressure,political choice, reform logic, institutional constraints and administrative traditions) influencing the reformstrategy and process, however its' operation are different. There isn't one universal reform model whichcould solve even similar type public administration problems.

The main purpose of this article is to examine the effects on cohesion of European Union competition andcompetitiveness. More specifically attention will be paid to three sets of measures: the rules of competitionpolicy, industrial competitiveness policies and enterprise policies. What these measures share is a concern tocreate a competitive environment and increase the competitiveness and explore its relation to cohesion. It isstressed that the main impact to cohesion is made by the changes of competitiveness environment during theimplementation of EU structural funds policy.

Modern societies are characterised by different and constantly changing interests, views, attitudes and expectations,and this is directly connected to the shifting idea of governance and the role of public administrations. Inorder to increase the efficiency of governance, to get it closer to the people, to harmonize governmental decisionswith different interests, values and views, ideas of participatory democracy are gaining in popularity in differentcountries. Draft European Constitution includes principles of both representative and participatory democracy;issues and initiatives related to participatory democracy are set in the working documents of different Europeaninstitutions and various European countries.In the context of participatory democracy, information technologies play an important role. They give thepossibility to get and transfer information in convenient and instant way, and as such, they can be successfullyemployed in order to give possibility for citizens to learn about decisions that are taken by the authorities, as wellas to take part in the drafting of those decisions.The concept of electronic democracy is related to e-government. Electronic government traditionally isunderstood as providing of information and services of authorities via electronic channels; but as more comprehensiveterm, it comprises different aspects of implementing of information and telecommunication technologiesin the public sector, as provision of services is inseparable from broader context: channels of services and communication,competence of population and public servants, etc.The article reviews initiatives carried on by European Union and Lithuanian public administration institutions,such as development of electronic public services, channels and ways to provide the information and services,implementation of mechanisms for communication between citizens and public institutions, training of state andmunicipal servants. It examines the attempts to use the information technologies in promoting openness ...