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"Israel faces economic and social challenges. The government has not routinely developed and successfully implemented strategic responses to socioeconomic problems that demand longer-term, coordinated policy action. Effective means to respond to such longer-term challenges may require a more systematic government approach to policymaking. Researchers developed detailed recommendations related to institutions, processes, supporting information, outputs, and implementation for the Israeli government to apply a strategic perspective toward socioeconomic issues and develop a formal socioeconomic strategy for Israel should the government desire to do so. They mapped the institutions and processes in the formation of socioeconomic strategy in the state of Israel as they existed at the time of the project in 2011; described the information used to support strategy formation; analyzed the evaluation and monitoring processes in current strategy formation; identified the gaps in current strategy formation institutions, processes, information, and evaluation and monitoring; conducted international case studies of strategy formation; and compared Israeli practices with international practices"--Publisher's description

This paper introduces an alternative concept of corruption. The cornerstone of the analysis is the model of secret transactions for profit, in which the actors give priority to informal particular norms over universal norms of democracy. Further, a model of corruption as a process is constructed. This model is applied to the social conditions as they have developed in the Czech Republic after 1989. Corruption seems to be a stable part of the social organization of the Czech society. It closely relates to the influence of pre-1989 networks, clientelism & nepotism. The combination of a weak official system (that should assert universal norms) & strong unofficial systems of community interests (that encourage corruption) builds a strong corruptogenic setting in the macrostructure. On the micro-level this outcome is fostered by the weak loyalty of nationals to the state & their tendency to distrust & resist the authorities. 5 Figures, 27 References. Adapted from the source document.

The essay takes a look at twinning, a phenomenon left largely unexplored by European studies & international relations scholars. The author deals with twinning through the institutional prism, focusing on institutional change as a result of non-instrumental change of institutional actors' preferences. Twinning is a secondment of experts from EU member states administratives to the candidate countries. Its aim is to help the applicant countries with institution building for successful & effective implementation of the acquis communautaire. The author seeks to identify processes & mechanisms of institutional changes in the public administration of a given candidate country within the context of twinning projects, aiming to formulate framework conditions for unconditioned institutional change & test these hypotheses on the data collected during research. The essay focuses on institutional change caused by a change of administrative identity through deliberation (of alternatives), argumentative persuasion & social learning as alternatives to instrumental change mechanisms. References. Adapted from the source document.

Using the case of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, the article deals with the phenomenon of the governance of non-state armed groups in failing states and the conditions for its emergence. It argues that one of the key requirements for the emergence and long-term preservation of a non-state armed group's authority is its fulfillment of functions usually associated with the state (such as the provision of security, public goods and services and the legitimation of its authority) that the failing state is not able to provide. The study specifically shows how Hezbollah is able to substitute for or complement the Lebanese state in each of its functions and consecutively use the wide network of its governance institutions for strengthening its political authority. As a result of Hezbollah's practices and strategies of governance, the forms of political control of the territory are being gradually changed and hybridized. Adapted from the source document.

This paper provides an institutional analysis concerning the current problems of the health care systems based on obligatory health insurance. In the beginning there are correctly defined & further described some particular principles creating the essence of the continental health care systems. Consequently, there are described two major consequences of asymmetric information: the principal-agency problem & the problem of adverse selection. Further to the definitions there are drawn conclusions for appropriate system reforms. Graphs. Adapted from the source document.

מבוא -- על המיתוס, על תפקידיו ועל מקורותיו -- על היצירה וההתפתחות של מיתוסים ארגוניים -- מיתוס הבריאה בארגונים -- גבורה ארגונית, שינוי ארגוני -- הארגון כמשפחה -- רוחות רפאים ארגוניות -- סירנות, סכמות ופיתוי בארגונים -- היועץ המיתולוגי -- רשימת מקורות.

This article summarizes the main contemporary theoretical approaches to international institutions as well as significant theories of institutions, which build upon those approaches. In line with the existing overviews, I focus on realism, neoliberalism & constructivism. All three approaches differ in regard to both the origin & impact of institutions. Whereas, the basic realist perspective regards state interests & power to be the main source of the institution's origin; the basic perspective of neoliberalism emphasizes the structure of state interests & collective action problems, which result from it. Many constructivists presume that so-called general institutions determine the origin of specific institutions. According to realists, the impact of institutions is dependent on state interests & power; institutions only regulate state behavior in a limited way. The neoliberal conception of institutions infers that: institutions significantly regulate state behavior since they help states resolve collective action problems. According to constructivists: institutions even constitute state identities & interests. Adapted from the source document.

Badly defined institutional framework caused many problems of the Czech transition. Designers of the economic reform did not respect the importance of precisely functioning market institutions. No doubts that building institutions supports the functioning of markets. The article analyses why Czech economists & politicians did not understand the problem in the beginning & how they attempted to correct this initial mistake. The Czech (Slovak) economy was in a worse situation if compared with other central European countries because any private sector did not exist there before 1990. Both formal & informal institutions were built here in the green field. After politically sensitive problems with financial crime the building of institutions was accelerated in late 1990s. The process of re-building Czech market institutions continues within EU now. References. Adapted from the source document.

The aim of the article is to describe the relations between institutions in the public, private and non-profit sectors that are considered the most important actors of negotiation and decision-making in local development. These institutions and the relations between them are defined as a social network. A study was carried out in the small Czech towns of Blatná, Český Krumlov and Velké Meziříčí, and data were collected in 2007 and 2008. The first part of the article describes the institutional actors, the collection of the relational data, and the context of the three towns that were studied. The analytical part consists of social network analysis. Basic quantitative characteristics are used to describe and compare the social networks of the institutional actors in the local development of the three towns. The conclusions indicate the unconditional significance of local public administration institutions and the significance of other local institutions; relations to extra-local institutions are rather weak. A section on methodology at the end of the article contains methodological notes on Hellinger divergence and SNA.

This paper aims to develop a simple, rigorous, and generally applicable analytical framework for investigation of the ability of international institutions to shape the political contestation among actors in international politics. To achieve this end, it discusses the key conceptual problems of the existing notions of the functioning of international institutions and offers steps to address these problems. It partially reformulates and formalizes the currently used concepts of effectiveness and robustness of institutions and builds upon them the concept of institutional capacity, which captures the quality of the institutions' work in a more complex and analytically rigorous manner. Subsequently, the paper discusses how the concept of institutional capacity can be applied to the study of the political systems of international organizations and presents a list of 24 criteria that are suitable for assessments of their functioning. Adapted from the source document.

The publication called "The Three Archetypes of European Social Policy" focuses on three institutions of benevolence, which have been continuously developed from antiquity to the present day and which have created the basis of today's complex systems of social policies. Such institution are the gift (or alms), the work (or range of livelihood), and the loan. Text describes and explains their historical transformations with particular attention to their reflection in economic theory. The publication connects older and newer institutions of social policy and shows them as a part of single long-term development of European economy and society