How former communist countries of Europe may attract inward foreign direct investment? A matter of institutions

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the role of institutions to attract FDI in 11 former communist European Countries: eight new members of the European Union (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) and three candidates to a future enlargement (Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania). In a first step we proceed to an analytical framework to understand the link between transition, institutions and FDI. In a second step we test an empirical model based on pooled data. The results of our empirical test confirm our expectation that FDI is sensitive to specific and local institutional arrangements.     

Technical training,sponsored mobility,and functional differentiation: Elite formation in China in the reform era

Elite formation in state socialism is a key issue in both comparative mobility research and political sociology. Several perspectives have been proposed to explain the relative role of political loyalty and education in political mobility: a dual career path model, a party-sponsored mobility hypothesis, and a technocracy thesis. I propose an alternative approach, emphasizing the role of functional differentiation and its effect on elite recruitment in China. Using a data set on top Chinese leaders (n = 1588), I find that effects of political loyalty and technical training on elite recruitment are patterned by institutional arrangements. Data analysis supports my explanation of elite selection in China.     

Explaining trust in political institutions: Some illustrations from the Baltic states

An important precondition of successful democratic consolidation is voters' confidence that political institutions do not abuse their privileged position of power. Seeking to identify variables that explain trust in political institutions, the paper tests different theories of institutional trust with individual-level survey data from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Building on prior research, two competitive theories—the cultural and performance explanation—are identified and tested, while also controlling for the effects of party preference, ethnicity, and socio-demographic factors. The results show that both cultural and performance variables influence citizens' trust in political institutions. In other words, institutional trust depends on how much the individual trusts other people as well as on how well they believe the economic and the political system to function. Besides cultural and performance variables, most control variables also proved to be significantly associated with institutional trust, confirming the need to include correct control variables in models of institutional trust.     

Welfare reforms and socio-economic trends in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe

The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology?The findings of this paper indicate that despite some slight variation within, the new EU countries exhibit lower indicators compared to the EU-15 as it comes to the minimum wage and social protection expenditure. The degree of material deprivation and the shadow economy is on average also higher if compared to the EU-15 or the EU-27. However, then it comes to at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers or Gini index, some Eastern European outliers especially the Check Republic, but also Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary perform the same or even better than the old capitalist democracies. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, however, show many similarities in their social indicators and performances and this group of countries never perform better than the EU-15 or the EU-27 averages. Nevertheless, the literature reviews on welfare state development in the CEE region reveal a number of important institutional features in support of identifying the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime. Most resilient of it are: an insurance-based programs that played a major part in the social protection system; high take-up of social security; relatively low social security benefits; increasing signs of liberalization of social policy; and the experience of the Soviet/Communist type of welfare state, which implies still deeply embedded signs of solidarity and universalism.     

The Relationship Between Civil Servants and Politicians in a Post‐Communist Country: A Case of Slovenia

In modern democracies, civil servants have outgrown their classic role as implementors of the orders given by politicians as their masters. They now play an increasingly important role in the exercising of authority – a role which depends to a great degree on politicians themselves. Based on classical politico‐administrative divisions, the main hypothesis of this paper is to claim that, in the case of the post‐communist country of Slovenia, politicians are in charge of policy‐making and possess a dominant role over high‐ranking civil servants, who are mere implementors of policy. To verify this hypothesis, we use several mutually complementary methods and techniques, among them detailed empirical research. We find that the relationship between members of Slovenia's administrative and political elite does show competitive traits, but the conflict between the two groups is not such that would lead to a win‐lose situation. Both high‐ranking civil servants and politicians do in fact have a role as important and irreplaceable actors in the policy‐making process.     

Political Field Dynamics and the Elite’s Interest in Democracy: Insights from the Political Elite’s Role in Consolidating Indian Democracy

In this article, I argue that democracy scholars cannot explain the political elite’s interest in democracy consolidation processes because they have yet to conceptualize the relation between the political elite and structure. This shortcoming can be rectified by using Bourdieu’s field theory insight that subjectivity and structure are constructed, reproduced, or altered due to contests among field actors over the symbolic capital of their field. I illustrate the significance of this solution by using it to explain the stability of Indian democracy during the early postcolonial period. Using data on the Indian political elite’s trajectories in institutional politics and observations on their everyday politics, I show that their differing interest in democracy during the early transition period was shaped by their unique political habitus, which was structured by their conflicts since the late colonial period to establish their respective political capital as the symbolic capital of the Indian political field. The general lesson to be learned from this study is that in order to comprehend democracy consolidation processes, it is important to shift attention from static, disjointed models of the political elite’s subjectivity and structure to the history of contests among the political elite over the symbolic capital of the political field, which couples the political elite’s subjectivity and structure.     

INSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP DIMENSIONS OF CASCADING ECOLOGICAL CRISES

While some of the future impacts of global environmental change such as some aspects of climate change can be projected and prepared for in advance, other effects are likely to surface as surprises – that is situations in which the behaviour in a system, or across systems, differs qualitatively from expectations. Here we analyse a set of institutional and political leadership challenges posed by ‘cascading’ ecological crises: abrupt ecological changes that propagate into societal crises that move through systems and spatial scales. We illustrate their underlying social and ecological drivers, and a range of institutional and political leadership challenges, which have been insufficiently elaborated by either crisis management researchers or institutional scholars. We conclude that even though these sorts of crises have parallels to other contingencies, there are a number of major differences resulting from the combination of a lack of early warnings, abrupt ecological change, and the mismatch between decision‐making capabilities and the cross‐scale dynamics of social‐ecological change.     

State formation,development, and the politics of self-help in Kenya

Issues of rural development, state formation, and political effectiveness are of paramount importance in Africa today. Analysis of Kenya's Harambee self-help approach to development contributes to our understanding of these issues by clarifying not only the ways in which political and economic concerns are linked in one African nation in a hierarchy based on a patrimonial model of political behavior but also some facets of elite behavior and peasant-state relationships. This paper argues that self-help is central to Kenyan politics and hence to the operation of this model of political behavior, serving the interests and needs of both Kenyan elites and rural communities. Through their self-help projects rural Kenyans neither reject the state retreating into the economy of affection nor permit elites exclusive access to the benefits of both public and private resources. Rather, using elite networks to gain support for self-help projects, residents of rural communities improve their access to highly valued collective goods. These processes are currently being modified in some important ways by the Moi government.     

Perilous presidentialism in Southeast Asia?

ABSTRACT

Regional patterns have long been crucial to debates about presidentialism starting with the Latin American cases in which presidential systems were seen to have contributed to political instability. This special issue examines four cases of presidentialism in Southeast Asia. Both the ‘first’ wave of the presidentialism literature which focuses on ‘pure’ cases of presidentialism, and the ‘second’ wave, which concentrates on a complex mixture of presidentialism and other institutions, are relevant to Southeast Asia. Among ‘pure’ presidential systems, the Philippines appears to provide support to ‘the perils of presidentialism’ thesis given the collapse of democracy there several decades ago and periodic instability since then. But Indonesia, despite ostensibly having the additional institutional perils of multipartism, has proved stable. Among the hybrid cases of presidentialism, both Myanmar and Timor Leste have forged elite accommodation through creating presidential-style institutions, including one considered particularly unpromising for achieving political stability in the literature. Because presidentialism has been associated both with elite accommodation and stability as well as political conflict and instability, the Southeast Asia cases do not clearly demonstrate the dangers of presidentialism. They point instead to the relative lack of explanatory power of this institutional arrangement in understanding political stability.     

Merging county administrations – cross-national evidence of fiscal and political effects

ABSTRACT

While many central governments amalgamate municipalities, mergers of larger county administrations are rare and hardly explored. In this article, we assess both fiscal and political effects of county mergers in two different institutional settings: counties act autonomously as upper-level local governments (Germany), or counties being decentralised branches of the state government (Austria). We apply difference-in-differences estimations to county merger reforms in each country. In both cases, some counties were amalgamated while others remain untouched. Austrian counties (Bezirke) and German counties (Landkreise) widely differ in terms of autonomy and institutions, but our results are strikingly similar. In both cases, we neither find evidence for cost savings nor for staff reductions. Instead, voter turnout consistently decreases in merged counties, and right-wing populists seem to gain additional support. We conclude that political costs clearly outweigh fiscal null benefits of county merger reforms – independent of the underlying institutional setting.     

Ethnic peace,ethnic conflict: Complexity theory on why the Baltic is not the Balkans

As Communist rule weakened across East Central Europe and new governments emerged, the Baltic region differed from the Balkans in two ways that need to be explained. The first difference was the near absence of ethnic violence in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – compared to civil and cross-border war in most of the former Yugoslavia. The second contrast was the rapid consolidation of democracy and market economics in the Baltic countries compared to halting movements toward political and economic freedom in most Balkan polities.     

Modes of transition and the timing of separatist war onset: a comparative analysis of South Ossetia and Kosovo

This paper compares the escalation of civil war in South Ossetia and Kosovo and shows how different modes of transition deeply influenced the timing and type of conflict in these two cases. It argues that regimes resulting from a transition from above – when the elite in power leads the process of regime change and imposes its political agenda on other social actors – are more likely to ensure political stability in the short term, since governments are more cohesive internally, enjoy the support of the military, and can rely on a loyal bureaucracy. In contrast, regimes that emerge from transitions from below are more likely to experience civil war with an ethnic minority in the short term because of an intrinsic weakness of the elite in power. Under these circumstances, the newcomers need to win the loyalty of the military and of the bureaucracy, and separatist groups can take advantage of the incumbents’ weaknesses and try to build resources to militarily challenge the state.     

LOCAL POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: THE IMPACT OF RULES‐IN‐USE

This article argues that political participation is shaped by locally distinctive ‘rules‐in‐use’, notwithstanding the socio‐economic status or level of social capital in an area. It recognizes that the resources available to people, as well as the presence of social capital within communities, are potential key determinants of the different levels of local participation in localities. However, the article focuses on a third factor – the institutional rules that frame participation. Levels of participation are found to be related to the openness of the political system, the presence of a ‘public value’ orientation among local government managers, and the effectiveness of umbrella civic organizations. Whereas resources and social capital are not factors that can be changed with any great ease, the institutional determinants of participation are more malleable. Through case study analysis, the article shows how actors have shaped the environment within which citizens make their decisions about engagement, resulting in demonstrable effects upon levels of participation.     

The significance of ethnicity in the Estonian return migration policy of the early 1920s

In this article the Estonian return migration policy is analyzed from the perspective of the return migrants' ethnicity. The time period of this study covers the most intensive phase of the state-organized return of emigrants to the newly established Republic of Estonia. The survey of attitudes of the Estonian authorities towards the return of emigrants with different ethnic backgrounds leads to the conclusions that the return of ethnic Estonians was preferred to the return of non-Estonians during the first years of Estonia's independence on both economic and political grounds. The political loyalty of non-Estonians was doubted in the administrative circles of Estonia which was especially the case with regard to the emigrants that had formerly belonged to the ruling power elites. The negative attitudes towards the return of non-Estonians were further aggravated by the crisis the Estonian economy was facing at that time. As a result, a parallel with the return migration policies of other new nation-states that emerged from the ruins of the Russian empire can be drawn.     

EUROPEANIZATION IN MANAGING EU AFFAIRS: BETWEEN DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE,A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ESTONIA,HUNGARY AND SLOVENIA

Scholarly research into Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia has shown that the idiosyncrasies of the new EU countries (especially with respect to institutionalizing and centralizing the co‐ordination of core executives in managing EU affairs at home) persist. They are complemented by trends toward convergence (such as growing co‐ordination efforts and a common tendency: that of the prime minister to be the centre of co‐ordination). In this article external Europeanization pressures, national administrative traditions (the legacies of both pre‐communist and communist systems), and the patterns of party competition that cause variations in politico‐administrative relations, are tested as possible explanatory variables of differences seen in the three countries when managing EU affairs. While national administrative traditions play similar roles to those seen in old(er) member states by filtering the EU‘s impacts, the effect of patterns of party competition on politico‐administrative relations when managing EU affairs has been filtered by the accession states’ national priorities of integrating with the EU.     

Coping with Complex Leadership Roles: The Problematic Redefinition of Government-owned Enterprises

Inspired by New Public Management, many countries have changed their central public apparatus from an integrated to a more segregated structural model. A central element in this process is structural devolution and the establishment of new or reorganized state-owned companies with increased business autonomy and new formal control systems. This paper focuses on how this development, as exemplified by the case of Norway, is affecting the role of central executive political and administrative leaders. The study, based on elite interviews, shows that corporatization has made the role of central leaders more complex and ambiguous and undermined traditional political control. We interpret this development from a transformative perspective, underlining how structural devolution is filtered through the dynamic context of environmental pressure and internal structural and cultural factors; in addition, experiences from New Zealand are used to contrast the Norwegian case.     

INTERPRETING INTERPRETIVISM INTERPRETING INTERPRETATIONS: THE NEW HERMENEUTICS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

This article seeks to gauge the nature, distinctiveness and significance of the ‘interpretivist turn’ in public administration and political science more broadly. It considers the various interpretations and, indeed, misinterpretations to which this new hermeneutics of public administration has given rise, its relationship to (genuinely and seemingly) cognate perspectives (notably constructivism, the new institutionalism and critical realism) and its strengths and weaknesses – both as an analytical perspective and as a developing research programme. In the process it argues for a broadening of the interpretivist research agenda to accord a greater role to the institutional contexts in which the ideas and beliefs that actors hold acquire and retain resonance and for the value of exploring more thoroughly the synergies with constructivist variants of the new institutionalism.     

Crystallizing and Emancipating Identities in Post-Communist Estonia

This article concerns collective identities in the context of EU enlargement and the post-Soviet transition of Estonian society, particularly of the two main ethno-linguistic groups: ethnic Estonians and the Russian-speaking population in Estonia. The empirical basis of the study is formed by factor structures of self-identification. The data were obtained from nationally representative surveys carried out in 2002, before Estonia joined the EU, and in 2005. The thinking patterns behind the structures of self-categorization are discussed mainly on the basis of theoretical concepts of individualization and transition culture. For background information, comparative data collected in Latvia (2006) and in Sweden (2003) are used. The survey results reveal that in the post-communist transformation, EU integration and spread of global mass culture have homogenized the mental patterns of the Estonians and the Russians. It is characteristic of post-communist Estonia that both minority and majority groups have utilized trans-national and civic identity and individualistic patterns of self-identification in terms of (sub)culture and social and material achievement, extracted from social norms and existing structures. Surveys confirm that for political actors in both Estonia and Russia it is hardly possible any more to create a common umbrella identity for the Russians in Estonia—the self-designation patterns of the Estonian Russians have been emancipated during the transition period.     

Memory claims and memory constraints. (Re)negotiating statehood and identities in Serbia

Rather than focusing on often-explored mnemonic practices (memorials, national celebrations, commemorations etc.) the article addresses the role that remembering, as a part of a wider political culture, plays in situations where images of the past are not visible per se, but are implied or even openly invoked to explain and (de)legitimize choices political actors make. By analyzing the interactions of memories and new institutional arrangements related to minority rights in the case of the Bosniak minority in Serbia, the article shows how recollections in political claims and policy-making were used as a medium for negotiations and the contestation of both political interests and competing “group-making projects”.