Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States

Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States

Author: Mieczysław P. Boduszyński

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2010-04-26

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 0801899192

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In the 1990s, amid political upheaval and civil war, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved into five successor states. The subsequent independence of Montenegro and Kosovo brought the total number to seven. Balkan scholar and diplomat to the region Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski examines four of those states—Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—and traces their divergent paths toward democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration over the past two decades. Boduszynski argues that regime change in the Yugoslav successor states was powerfully shaped by both internal and external forces: the economic conditions on the eve of independence and transition and the incentives offered by the European Union and other Western actors to encourage economic and political liberalization. He shows how these factors contributed to differing formulations of democracy in each state. The author engages with the vexing problems of creating and sustaining democracy when circumstances are not entirely supportive of the effort. He employs innovative concepts to measure the quality of and prospects for democracy in the Balkan region, arguing that procedural indicators of democratization do not adequately describe the stability of liberalism in post-communist states. This unique perspective on developments in the region provides relevant lessons for regime change in the larger post-communist world. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers will find the book to be a compelling contribution to the study of comparative politics, democratization, and European integration.


Government and Markets

Government and Markets

Author: Edward J. Balleisen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 579

ISBN-13: 0521118484

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After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market failure models nor public choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs, and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences.


Toward a New Social Contract

Toward a New Social Contract

Author: Maurizio Bussolo

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 146481354X

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The growing economic fissures in the societies of Europe and Central Asia between generations, between insiders and outsiders in the labor market, between rural and urban communities, and between the super-rich and everyone else, are threatening the sustainability of the social contract. The institutions that helped achieving a remarkable degree of equity and prosperity over the course of several decades now face considerable difficulties in coping with the challenges presented by these emerging forms of inequality. Public surveys reveal rising concerns over inequality of opportunity, while electoral results show a marked shift to populist parties that offer radical solutions to voters dissatisfied with the status quo. There is no single solution to relieve these tensions, and attempts to address them will vary considerably across the region. However, this publication proposes three broad policy principles: (1) promote labor market flexibility while maintaining protection for all types of labor contracts; (2) seek universality in the provision of social assistance, social insurance, and basic quality services; and (3) expand the tax base by complementing progressive labor-income taxation with taxation of capital. These principles could guide the rethinking of the social contract and fulfil European citizens’ aspirations for growth and equity.


Paths Toward Democracy

Paths Toward Democracy

Author: Ruth Berins Collier

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1999-09-13

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9780521643825

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Examining the experiences of Western Europe and South America, Professor Collier delineates a complex and varied set of patterns of democratization.


Immigration and Politics in the New Europe

Immigration and Politics in the New Europe

Author: Gallya Lahav

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-04-22

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1107320461

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With almost a quarter of the world's migrants, Europe has been attempting to regulate migration and harmonize immigration policy at the European level. The central dilemma exposed is how liberal democracies can reconcile the need to control the movement of people with the desire to promote open borders, free markets and liberal standards. Gallya Lahav's book traces ten years of public opinion and elite attitudes toward immigration cross-nationally to show how and why increasing EU integration may not necessarily lead to more open immigration outcomes. Empirical evidence reveals that support from both elite and public opinion has led to the adoption of restrictive immigration policies despite the requirements of open borders. Unique in bringing together original data on European legislators and national elites, longitudinal data on public opinion and institutional and policy analyses, this 2004 study provides an important insight into the processes of European integration, and globalization more broadly.


Eastern Europe Unmapped

Eastern Europe Unmapped

Author: Irene Kacandes

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2017-10-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 178533686X

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Arguably more than any other region, the area known as Eastern Europe has been defined by its location on the map. Yet its inhabitants, from statesmen to literati and from cultural-economic elites to the poorest emigrants, have consistently forged or fathomed links to distant lands, populations, and intellectual traditions. Through a series of inventive cultural and historical explorations, Eastern Europe Unmapped dispenses with scholars’ long-time preoccupation with national and regional borders, instead raising provocative questions about the area’s non-contiguous—and frequently global or extraterritorial—entanglements.


Toward a New Euro-Atlantic "hard" Security Agenda

Toward a New Euro-Atlantic

Author: Dmitriĭ Trenin

Publisher: CSIS

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13: 9780892065462

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The "hard" security issues, which are the subject of this report, are embedded within the political layer, but are widely discussed at the "chattering" level and virtually ignored down below. Immediately after the end of the East-West confrontation, they were almost consigned to history books, along with the very notion of "European security," only to be rediscovered several years later. Actually, there are two classes of security issues. One represents problems between Russia and its nominal partners in North America and Europe, and the other, common challenges to both the West and Russia. Thus, the Euro-Atlantic security agenda can only be complex and, in some parts, controversial.


The Hour of Europe

The Hour of Europe

Author: Josip Glaurdic

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2011-01-01

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 0300166451

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By looking through the prism of the West's involvement in the breakup of Yugoslavia, this book presents a new examination of the end of the Cold War in Europe. Incorporating declassified documents from the CIA, the administration of George H.W. Bush, and the British Foreign Office; evidence generated by The Hague Tribunal; and more than forty personal interviews with former diplomats and policy makers, Glaurdić exposes how the realist policies of the Western powers failed to prop up Yugoslavia's continuing existence as intended, and instead encouraged the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosević to pursue violent means.The book also sheds light on the dramatic clash of opinions within the Western alliance regarding how to respond to the crisis. Glaurdić traces the origins of this clash in the Western powers' different preferences regarding the roles of Germany, Eastern Europe, and foreign and security policy in the future of European integration. With subtlety and acute insight, "The Hour of Europe" provides a fresh understanding of events that continue to influence the shape of the post-Cold War Balkans and the whole of Europe.


Toward Democracy

Toward Democracy

Author: James T. Kloppenberg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 909

ISBN-13: 019505461X

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James T. Kloppenberg presents the history of democracy from the perspective of those who established its principles, offering a fresh look at how ideas about representative government, suffrage, and the principles of self-rule and ideals have shifted over time and place.