'Given the highly specialised subject matter, which so easily degenerates into rather tedious calculations, this book is really amazingly interesting and competently executed.' - The late Mark Blaug, formerly of the University of London and University of Buckingham, UK
This collection of papers focuses on the recent pension reform experiences in Central-Eastern Europe, while starting from a broader theoretical and empirical context. It provides evidence for the political feasibility of radical pension reform, considered unlikely in the West. The approach is both multi-disciplinary and cross-regional: The book contains papers by economists, political scientists and sociologists. The authors come from Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the US. The volume consists of four parts: First, general questions of transformation and social security in post-1989 Central Eastern Europe are addressed, followed by an introduction into issues and role models in the international pension reform debate. Then, three Central European country cases are presented, analysing institutional legacies, recent reform measures and relevant political actors. A comparative section on Central-Eastern European pension reforms concludes this book.
In the course of the tremendous political and economic upheaval starting in 1989/1990 many industrial cities and regions in Central and Eastern Europe have been confronted with profound problems. This book presents eleven detailed national reports which describe the situation in such cities and regions as well as the strategies which have been employed to cope with structural change. The country reports are complemented by short case studies of selected cities and regions. An introduction gives background to such topics as structural change and the ramifications of EU enlargement. Finally some conclusions are drawn and recommendations offered for future policy.
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.
First published in 1995, the aim of this book is to review various aspects of the process of democratic transition in Hungary over the period of its first post-communist, freely elected parliament between 1990 and 1994. The studies collected in this book attempt to put them in the context of longer-term trends in Hungarian politics. Hungary offers an example of the problems of political change common to Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc but also demonstrates a relatively stable and successful transformation built on a unique experience under communist rule that helped prepare it for a market-orientated economy transition and political pluralism.
Following the end of the Cold War and European Union enlargement, in what sense does Eastern Europe continue to exist as a meaningful geo-political concept? In addressing this question, contributors to this volume—Alex Cistelecan, Robert Bideleux, Katalin Miklóssy and Dieter Segert—tease out the implications for an ‘Area Studies’ approach to the region. They examine its contradictory situation within discourses of ‘orientalisation’: on one hand, posited as the ‘underdeveloped’ pendant to its western neighbours; on the other, largely Christian by religion and an integral part of a continent that dominated the world. They uncover the roots of area studies in the ‘colonial paradigm’ by which great powers promote the creation of predictive, ‘problem-solving’ knowledge that is immediately apprehendable for decision makers, helping them to take advantage of a region’s resources and strategic position, but which tends to homogenise the region’s geography and history. For critical inquiry, they argue, the challenge is to delineate transparently the reasons underlying Eastern Europe’s construction as an area of study, to identify the epistemological interests of motivated organisations such as funding agencies and political bodies, and to counter the ongoing orientalism of Western perspectives toward the East. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe.
Focusing upon the emerging patterns of unity and diversity in the enlarged European Union, this study explores enlargement from the East and the impact this will have on the future identity of Europe.
This book,one of the very first monographs on the Hungarian Constitutional Court available in English, is a unique study of the birth of a new legal system after the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. It shows that the genesis of the new legal order was determined by massive Western involvement and an unprecedented movement of export/import of law. Anchored in a detailed comparative study of German and Hungarian constitutional case law on human dignity, this book argues that law importation was a deliberate strategy carried out by the Hungarian Court in the early years of its operation. It explains how the circumstances of the transition and the background of the importers determined the choice of German case law as a model and how the Court used it to construct its own version of the right to human dignity. It highlights the Hungarian Court's instrumentalisation of imported law in order to lay the foundations of a new conception of fundamental rights. While focusing on the Hungarian experience, this book engages with international debates and provides an original theoretical framework for approaching the movement of law from the importers' perspective.
East-Central Europe is about to bring its welfare reforms to the European Union. Nevertheless, in the course of the Accession, one could hardly fix the European standards of social policy or examine to what degree the newcomers may have approached them. Evidently, there has always been a variety of welfare regimes in the EU. Moreover, today's experts in post-communist countries do not find stable policies and institutional arrangements in the West but rather another reform process, the "domestication" of the classical welfare states. True, the general trends are not dissimilar: partial retrenchment, decentralization, marketisation and privatisation of public welfare services, as well as an upsurge of the voluntary sector, are the main characteristic features of regulating welfare on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. These issues are addressed by the contributors of this volume, leading representatives of their professions, in an unprecedented way. In avoiding the convenient cliche
The Regional Handbooks of Economic Development series provides accessible overviews of countries within their larger domestic and international contexts, focusing on the relations among regions as they meet the challenges of the twenty first century. The series allows the non-specialist student to explore a wide range of complex factors-social and political as well as economic-that affect the growth of developing regions in Asia, Europe, and South America. Each Handbook provides an overview chapter discussing the region's economic conditions within an historical and political context, as well as 20 or more chapter-length essays written by recognized experts, which analyze the key issues affecting a region's economy: its population, natural resources, foreign trade, labor problems, and economic inequalities, and other vital factors. In addition, the volumes offer useful support materials, including a series of appendices that include a detailed chronology of events in the region, a glossary of terms, biographical entries on key personalities, an annotated bibliography of further reading, and a comprehensive analytical index.