Suchergebnisse

The paper concentrates on attitudes to the enlargement and the future of EU held by relevant political parties in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia in 2002. With respect to the Czech Republic, three basic approaches to the issue of EU enlargement are identified, thus classifying the Czech political parties as "consistently" pro-European, pro-European "with reservations" and anti-European. It will be argued that in Slovakia the relevant political parties acted as "consistently" pro-European with the exception of the anti-European Slovak National Party (SNS) and the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). The dividing line was however rather between the parties whose representatives could be viewed by international partners as an obstacle to Slovakia's admission to EU and the parties that were "acceptable" for foreign countries, which played an important role in rallying voters to opt for "acceptable" political subjects. ; The paper concentrates on attitudes to the enlargement and the future of EU held by relevant political parties in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia in 2002. With respect to the Czech Republic, three basic approaches to the issue of EU enlargement are identified, thus classifying the Czech political parties as "consistently" pro-European, pro-European "with reservations" and anti-European. It will be argued that in Slovakia the relevant political parties acted as "consistently" pro-European with the exception of the anti-European Slovak National Party (SNS) and the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). The dividing line was however rather between the parties whose representatives could be viewed by international partners as an obstacle to Slovakia's admission to EU and the parties that were "acceptable" for foreign countries, which played an important role in rallying voters to opt for "acceptable" political subjects.

Příspěvek se zabývá problematikou vývoje finančního systému zemí Evropské unie (EU) se zvláštním zaměřením na řešení stávající krize. V první řadě posuzuje smysluplnost a dosavadní postup v naplňování projektu "Eurozóny", včetně procesu postupného zavádění jednotné evropské měny. V souvislosti s tím je provedena analýza dosavadního vývoje v Evropské unii se zvláštním zaměřením na specifikaci soudobých ekonomických problémů, jež se v současnosti řeší prosazováním tzv. "záchranných" opatření. Jelikož se jedná o nestandardní politická rozhodnutí s mimořádně významnými ekonomickými a společenskými dopady, je jejich obsah analyzován v systémových souvislostech, s cílem zhodnotit jejich přínosnost, resp. rizikovost nejen s ohledem na budoucí hospodářský vývoj Evropské unie, ale též z hlediska prospěšnosti s ohledem na evropské obyvatelstvo a lidskou společnost. ; This paper deals with the development of the financial system in the European Union (EU), with a special focus on solving the current crisis. First, assess the current and meaningful progress in the implementation of the "Eurozone", including the process of the gradual introduction of the single European currency. In this context, an analysis of current developments in the European Union with a special focus on the specification of contemporary economic problems that are currently being addressed by promoting the so-called. "Emergency" measures. Since it is an unusual political decisions extremely important economic and social impacts, the content is analyzed in system contexts, to assess their usefulness, respectively. risk not only with respect to future economic development of the European Union, but also in terms of usefulness with regard to the European population and human society.

Every country in the world is currently trying to reduce opportunities for corruption in the country. Fighting corruption is very challenging and difficult. The corruption occurs primarily in the public sector, where the object of interest is funding from public sources. Corruption has a negative impact primarily on the economy of the state in terms of their current, but also potential investors and strategic partners in the area of production. Second, it can not ignore the negative impact on the society, respectively citizens of the state affected by corruption. The paper aims to quantify the interdependence between the Corruption perception index and selected indicators of economic health in selected countries of the European Union. In terms of proven relationship between defined variables can then infer the interdependence of achieved Corruption perception index value in selected EU countries and to determine whether are these states in the problem unified or differentiated.

Chan Wai Shun. ; Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. ; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 193-216). ; Abstracts in English and Chinese. ; ABSTRACT --- p.III ; 緒論 --- p.IV ; ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.V ; TABLE OF CONTENT --- p.VII ; ABBREVIATIONS / LIST OF TABLES / LISTS OF FIGURES --- p.XII ; Chapter CHAPTER 1: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 ; Chapter 1.1 --- Policy Background --- p.4 ; Chapter 1.2 --- Research Questions and Hypotheses --- p.6 ; Chapter 1.3 --- Conceptualization of Terms --- p.8 ; Chapter 1.4 --- Thematic Framework of the Whole Dissertation --- p.11 ; Chapter 1.5 --- Methodology and Research Limitations --- p.14 ; Chapter 1.5.1 --- The Selection of Case --- p.16 ; Chapter 1.5.2 --- The Articulation of Narratives and Discourses --- p.17 ; Chapter 1.5.3 --- The Source of Narratives and Discourses --- p.18 ; Chapter 1.5.4 --- The Methodological Limitations --- p.20 ; Chapter 1.6 --- Potential Contributions --- p.21 ; Chapter 1.6.1 --- Contributions to Academic Community --- p.21 ; Chapter 1.6.2 --- Contributions to the Diplomatic Community --- p.23 ; Chapter 1.7 --- Chapter Summary and the Preview of the Dissertation --- p.24 ; Chapter CHAPTER 2: --- A THEORETICAL REVIEW ON EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY --- p.25 ; Chapter 2.1 --- IR Theories and their Application in European Neighbourhood Policy --- p.25 ; Chapter 2.1.1 --- Realism and its Variation --- p.26 ; Chapter 2.1.2 --- Liberal Institutionalism and Liberal Intergovernmentalism --- p.28 ; Chapter 2.1.3 --- Constructivism and its Application --- p.30 ; Chapter 2.2 --- Problems of the Traditional IR Theories --- p.34 ; Chapter 2.2.1 --- The Maltreatment of Bargaining Game within EU --- p.35 ; Chapter 2.2.2 --- The Maltreatment of EU Polity --- p.37 ; Chapter 2.2.3 --- The Maltreatment of EU Foreign Policy --- p.38 ; Chapter 2.3 --- From IR ThEories to Policy-oriented Analysis --- p.40 ; Chapter 2.3.1 --- The Enlargement Experience of the Usual Reference --- p.41 ; Chapter 2.3.2 --- The Cross-pillar Characteristics of ENP ...

Both in the Czech and European contexts, the Council of the EU is a relatively frequent subject of interest in political science research. A substantial amount of work (both in the tradition of qualitative and quantitative research) focuses especially on the process of coalition building and the impact and functioning of the different levels of the Council. This theoretical discussion analyzes the possibilities which both the qualitative and quantitative approaches offer concerning research dealing with the coalition behavior of one concrete EU member state. In doing so, it takes into account various specifics which characterize the Council of the EU and which substantially influence the behavior of its member states. The paper concludes that the qualitative approach (while being to a substantial degree complementary to the quantitative tradition) offers better tools for an analysis focusing on the coalition behavior of one member state than its quantitative counterpart. One of the reasons lies in the nature of our research which deals with the process of promoting the interests of the Czech Republic in the EU Council, with a special emphasis on coalition building and searching for compromises. ; Both in the Czech and European contexts, the Council of the EU is a relatively frequent subject of interest in political science research. A substantial amount of work (both in the tradition of qualitative and quantitative research) focuses especially on the process of coalition building and the impact and functioning of the different levels of the Council. This theoretical discussion analyzes the possibilities which both the qualitative and quantitative approaches offer concerning research dealing with the coalition behavior of one concrete EU member state. In doing so, it takes into account various specifics which characterize the Council of the EU and which substantially influence the behavior of its member states. The paper concludes that the qualitative approach (while being to a substantial degree complementary to ...

This paper deals with the issue of building Wales as a unique region in the context of the European Union and its resources. The author focuses on the period after 1999, i.e. the time when devolution took place and when official Welsh representatives emerged via the National Assembly for Wales (NAW). Since then, Wales has entered into cooperation with the EU, in order to gain access to resources provided by the Union. The cooperation is however of a specific kind, since officially, Welsh representatives have to communicate with the EU through the political representation of Great Britain. Nevertheless, by acting informally, Welsh representatives manage to avoid the British government in relevant contexts and communicate with the EU directly. In this way, they are able to exploit the formal and informal rules for their advantage (i.e. for building Wales as a unique region). The main purpose of this text is to show that the case of Wales can be replicated by any region that has official political representation, even if it has only weak representative institutions and has to deal with limitations posed by the existence of a central government.

This article is divided into two parts. The first part describes the cartel party presented by R. Katz and P. Mair and the discussion about the new party type between the two and R. Koole. The second part compares the theoretical descriptions with practical features of Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) and Slovak political system. While the system author finds cartel supporting and not yet cartelized, SDKÚ is not a cartel party but rather one of the new alike types. Author agrees with the demand of R. Koole on search for a scheme of similar party types rather than one perfect type. ; This article is divided into two parts. The first part describes the cartel party presented by R. Katz and P. Mair and the discussion about the new party type between the two and R. Koole. The second part compares the theoretical descriptions with practical features of Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) and Slovak political system. While the system author finds cartel supporting and not yet cartelized, SDKÚ is not a cartel party but rather one of the new alike types. Author agrees with the demand of R. Koole on search for a scheme of similar party types rather than one perfect type.

The paper comments on issues of conceptualisation and typology of regional parties in Europe. Regional parties could be defined briefly as independent formations with regional identity, region–based legitimacy and region–based electoral resources. The territorial aspect of their identity and of their modus operandi is the crucial one in this respect. It should be reminded that a number of heterogeneous party phenomena could be subsumed under the label of regional parties. The existence of a genuine regional party family, which could be, eventually, included into the classic familles spirituelles scheme, is not obvious. It seems that recent attempts to conceptualise the regional (and/or ethno–regional) party family have only small chance to success. Moreover, it should not be taken for granted that invention of such party family would enhance the capacity for comparative research into the European regional party phenomena. It could be a counter–productive move. There is an implicit danger to be avoided: that of conceiving of the differences between regional parties and non–regional parties as the differences between party families. However, these differences are not of the same kind. The paper proposes to distinguish several types of regional parties according to their origins (genuine regional autonomist parties, regionalized branches of state–wide parties etc.) which could allow for a sophisticated explanation of their heterogeneity and of various combinations of the systemic properties of regional parties. It is also suitable to pay more attention to the differing opportunity structures and to the compounded nature of territorial–political operational space of regional parties. ; The paper comments on issues of conceptualisation and typology of regional parties in Europe. Regional parties could be defined briefly as independent formations with regional identity, region–based legitimacy and region–based electoral resources. The territorial aspect of their identity and of their modus operandi is the crucial one ...

The paper analyses the development of the EU energy policy since the beginning of the European integration and argues that the eastern enlargement and two gas crises in 2006 and 2009 have crucially impacted its evolution. Originally, the ES/EU dealt primarily with the formation and liberalisation of internal energy market, however after 2004 the focus has shifted towards issues of energy security and external energy relations in general. The paper uses the spillover concept to analyse the development of the EU energy policy. It argues that the development of internal energy market was caused by a spillover from internal market as such, while the progress in the area of energy policy after the eastern enlargement was an outcome of efforts to achieve energy security; efforts that resulted in further spillover effects in areas such as diversification, external energy relations or efficiency. The paper thus claims that common European energy policy in its internal and external dimensions started to evolve gradually after the Eastern enlargement.

"Bringing space back" into comparative politics is a difficult task, perhaps inevitably accompanied by various substantive and methodological problems. This paper introduces the concepts of "territorial homogeneity" (of D. Caramani) and "party nationalization" (of M. Jones and S. Mainwaring), both of them dealing with political parties as actors and territorial space as an environment in which they operate. Our aim is to identify some of the typical issues/ matters (selection of cases, elaboration of relationships among variables) any researcher who would try to conceptualize the relationships between political parties and territorial units has to cope with. In respect of issues in question the solutions offered by Caramani and Jones&Mainwaring often seem neither intercompatible nor fully satisfactory. This may raise the question about inevitably ethnocentristic nature of the "homogeneity concepts". We further extend our methodological note, limiting -rather than delineating- the areas of possible use of the homogeneity concept for the post-communist countries, arguing that sensible comparisons would require much better control for intervening institutional variables- a task which is almost impossible to achieve with such a heterogeneous sample. ; "Bringing space back" into comparative politics is a difficult task, perhaps inevitably accompanied by various substantive and methodological problems. This paper introduces the concepts of "territorial homogeneity" (of D. Caramani) and "party nationalization" (of M. Jones and S. Mainwaring), both of them dealing with political parties as actors and territorial space as an environment in which they operate. Our aim is to identify some of the typical issues/ matters (selection of cases, elaboration of relationships among variables) any researcher who would try to conceptualize the relationships between political parties and territorial units has to cope with. In respect of issues in question the solutions offered by Caramani and Jones&Mainwaring often seem ...

The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of political instability on inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) in transition economies (CEE, Balkan and Post-Soviet countries). Regarding standard indexes of political instability, there is a shortage of data within the selected sample of countries. Therefore, we propose alternative proxies for political instability. Furthermore, we distinguish between two types of political instability being omitted in thematic literature: elite (minority or weak governments) and non-elite (violent protests, civil wars, coups). The paper provides two-step empirical analysis: correlation analysis and regression models using standard OLS. Both analyses compare the effect of selected proxies for political instability on inflow of FDI and FDI per capita. In summary, it is not possible to prove the effect of political instability on inflow of FDI in transition countries in unambiguous way. Despite it, a few statistically significant variables seem to be perspective for future research; subindex Political Stability within Governance Matters by the Word Bank and Group Grievance within Failed State Index by the Fund for Peace (non-elite); Herfindahl Index Government and a dummy for (non)presence of parliament election (elite).

The COVID-19 pandemic brought on the so-called "coronacrisis," a global crisis event enormous in size and force. The crisis questioned the ability of states and instruments of international governance to respond quickly and effectively to the global threats. It is noteworthy that there was no strong correlation between crisis management efficacy and the type of political system of a country. However, the countries with elaborated and well-financed health systems, were able to struggle with the devastating consequences of the coronacrisis better than those with systemic, structural and financial problems of their healthcare sectors. It is obvious that the ability to manage the coronacrisis is not related to the type of political governance or ideology, but to the state administrative resources and competence of the cabinet / leaders. That potentially gave an opportunity for countries with different ideological foundations to neglect their tensions and unite the efforts in the containment of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (e.g. create mutual programmes of vaccination and medicine distribution). The main forces are the Transatlantic alliance, Russia and China. Unfortunately, no visible COVID-19-related agreement between them ever happened so far. Instead, the coronacrisis situation was used by the political rivals to intensify their aggressive rhetoric against each other (e.g., USA and Russia, USA and China) or profit from it in deepening international collaboration not connected with the pandemic itself (e.g., Russia and China). We do not observe any real mutual efforts of liquidating the pandemic consequences even within an ideological block, to say nothing about different blocks. The US–EU relationships worsened during the pandemic, especially at the background of Trump's cool attitude towards international organisations and his decision to leave the World Health Organization in the midst of the pandemic and his threatening words that US may also abandon the NATO. Likewise, John Bolton spoke of the EU as an entity hostile ...

This paper aims to review the existing debate on the relations between national and European levels in the EU and identify existing gaps. It aims at showing the current compartelization of the academic debate and suggesting a possible remedy. It discusses the current trends in Europeanization studies and shows that one of the dimensions (bottom-up) remains understudied. Similarly, the concept has been applied in the area of foreign policy in a very limited way to the detriment of our understanding of reality. Following these findings, the article suggests, firstly, that the relationship between the adjustment to European integration and the ability to pursue one's interest should be studied, both in terms of form and results, and, secondly, that foreign policy should be included in this research framework. ; This paper aims to review the existing debate on the relations between national and European levels in the EU and identify existing gaps. It aims at showing the current compartelization of the academic debate and suggesting a possible remedy. It discusses the current trends in Europeanization studies and shows that one of the dimensions (bottom-up) remains understudied. Similarly, the concept has been applied in the area of foreign policy in a very limited way to the detriment of our understanding of reality. Following these findings, the article suggests, firstly, that the relationship between the adjustment to European integration and the ability to pursue one's interest should be studied, both in terms of form and results, and, secondly, that foreign policy should be included in this research framework.

The article examines the positions of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak social democratic political parties on the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism as a means of addressing the economic and debt crisis in the EU. Using the categories of frames used by political parties in relation to the EU (utilitarian and cultural) introduced by Helbling et al., the political parties' representatives' speeches and written statements are analyzed. The analysis showed that all three of the parties use similar arguments and they tend to frame their opinions in both utilitarian and cultural terms with the category of "political efficiency" being the most frequent. While the most extensive debate about the issue was in Slovakia as the only Eurozone member of all three given countries, the Hungarian MSzP was able to conceive the topic in a broader context. The similarity of the positions of all three examined parties may indicate an ability of national political parties to constitute one of the key pillars in developing a supranational political system in the EU. ; The article examines the positions of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak social democratic political parties on the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism as a means of addressing the economic and debt crisis in the EU. Using the categories of frames used by political parties in relation to the EU (utilitarian and cultural) introduced by Helbling et al., the political parties' representatives' speeches and written statements are analyzed. The analysis showed that all three of the parties use similar arguments and they tend to frame their opinions in both utilitarian and cultural terms with the category of "political efficiency" being the most frequent. While the most extensive debate about the issue was in Slovakia as the only Eurozone member of all three given countries, the Hungarian MSzP was able to conceive the topic in a broader context. The similarity of the positions of all three examined parties may indicate an ability of ...

The theme is crucial to the concrete question, whether moravian identity really exists. It´s about phenomena which is natural and important for some parts of population or on the other hand we can see this identity as the artificial problem. The main goal is connecting with results from the field work. I would like to explain something about moravian political elites according to the non-political activism. It´s also necessary to mark historical processes which are important for present time. The polemic should have done some reflexive view on regionalism, activation of moravian elites and civic movements. ; The theme is crucial to the concrete question, whether moravian identity really exists. It´s about phenomena which is natural and important for some parts of population or on the other hand we can see this identity as the artificial problem. The main goal is connecting with results from the field work. I would like to explain something about moravian political elites according to the non-political activism. It´s also necessary to mark historical processes which are important for present time. The polemic should have done some reflexive view on regionalism, activation of moravian elites and civic movements.