Parties, rules and government legislative control in Central Europe: The case of Poland

A distinguishing feature of Central European polities is a strong policy-shaping role of parliaments. This article demonstrates how party political and procedural factors set the scene for the executive's loss of legislative control in Poland. Parties undermine the governmental grip because of their limited internal cohesion and competitive coalitional strategies. Parliamentary rules reinforce such party effects. The executive can shield its bills from amendments by relying mainly on partisan controls, not formal privileges. But, as an analysis of over 300 bills shows, when party discipline and coalition cooperation are in short supply, partisan controls are ineffective as instruments of legislative control.     

East Central Europe on the eve of the changeover: the case of Poland

In contrast to the voluminous literature dealing with the post-communist transformation, much less attention has been paid to the circumstances that led to the communist collapse. The purpose of this paper is to redress the imbalance by trying to examine the socio-political and economic situation on the eve of the changeover and to determine which factors, taken collectively, produced a trigger which ignited the implosion of 1989. The focus will be on Poland, the country which—it is generally agreed—was the first one to launch the process of change and to initiate the “domino effect” which ultimately affected the entire region.     

Reassessing Democratic Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe and the Role of the EU

Over the past two decades, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have completed a long transition from authoritarian rule, and joining the EU has been considered to be an indication of the end of the consolidation process. However, this path was anything but linear and in many cases it was marked by concentration and abuse of executive power, a systematic political patronage and a plebiscitary interpretation of democracy. In order to shed light on the meaning of these phenomena, this paper provides for an analysis of democratic consolidation in these countries by way of comparing the cases of Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia.     

How EU Integration and Legacies Mattered for Foreign Direct Investment into Central and Eastern Europe

This essay uses the case of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Central and Eastern Europe to stipulate how European Union (EU) integration affected the economic globalisation of the post-socialist region. Existing studies argue that expectations of impending EU membership had a direct effect on raising FDI inflows because they reduced perceived investment risks for potential investors. In contrast, I show that the EU accession process worked through an indirect effect on FDI: it influenced post-socialist states' efforts to promote FDI as a desirable strategy of economic development and the behaviour of firms. These state efforts, in turn, increased FDI inflows, net of conventional risk and return factors. Further analyses indicate that decisions about state FDI-promotion have been influenced not only by EU conditionality but also, and importantly, by particular legacies, namely the countries' initial choice of privatisation strategies, extent of reform during socialism and history of state sovereignty. Overall, the results suggest that EU integration and legacies of the past shape both the structural and the ideational context for domestic decision-making elites in Central and Eastern Europe, and may act not only as constraints but also as enabling conditions facilitating the global economic integration of the region.     

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.     

Legacies of State Socialism: A Comparative Study of Elite Attitudes towards EU Economic Competitiveness in Western and Central Eastern Europe

Abstract

The elites of Western Europe prefer social security for all citizens as the major aim of the EU, while the preference of Central and Eastern European elites is for a more globally competitive European economy. This disparity between elite preferences may be accounted for by the distinct electorates and elites’ responsive strategic calculations, or by the process of socialisation Central and Eastern European elites undergo during exposure to the EU. This article argues that the predominant reason for the difference in elite attitudes towards economic competition is the lasting effect of state socialism in Central and Eastern European countries.     

EU Integration under Highly Fractionalised Party Systems: The Cases of Poland and the Czech Republic

It is widely argued that the pre-accession process of the Eastern enlargement affected political competition in Central and Eastern Europe. While such claims have been substantiated in general theoretical propositions, there is a lack of theoretically informed research attempting to explain how political competition was affected throughout the region. This article utilises Lijphart’s institutional typology to better understand how pre-accession processes shaped political competition under consensus democracies. The article shows that the consensually designed democracies of Poland and the Czech Republic were able to mitigate the negative impact of the pre-accession process through the rise of Eurosceptic parties.     

Who Are the Neoliberals in Central and Eastern Europe? Assessing Public Support for Neoliberalism in 11 New EU Member States

Abstract

Which groups in Central and Eastern Europe are more likely to support neoliberal ideas? This article uses quantitative evidence from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Life in Transition surveys (2010 and 2016) in order to sketch the contours of public support for neoliberalism in the 11 new member states of the European Union. First, cross-country differences in economic attitudes are not very large. Second, consistent differences can be located within a single country. Neoliberal attitudes are more likely among business owners and people with a university education. The potential foundations for resistance to neoliberalism can also be located: churchgoers, for instance, are much more likely to be sceptical of neoliberalism.     

Nation-state, nationalism, and the prospects for democratization in East Central Europe

Recent political developments in East Central Europe have resulted in contradictory and ambivalent tendencies towards the nation-state in post-communist democracies. The liberation from Soviet influence and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire have created political space for the reconstruction of sovereignty in former Soviet-dominated states. This liberation and the institutionalization of new constitutional structures has become a “national” issue. The reaffirmation and resurrection of national unity, national traditions, national culture, and national interest are current themes in post-communist politics.     

Knowledge-Sharing Subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper investigates reverse knowledge transfer of foreign multinational subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) in the light of the current political and economic transformations of these former communist countries. The study examines whether foreign subsidiaries in the region share their knowledge base with their sister-subsidiaries and parent company, and the role of various factors in this knowledge sharing. These factors include subsidiary initiative, subsidiary autonomy, local dynamism and corporate embeddedness. A proprietary dataset is used for statistical analysis.