Making Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe,and the Impact of Europe

The end of communism in Central and Eastern Europe offered the region a unique opportunity for institutional redesign. Thanks to the variety of historical experiences, inherited structures, transition paths and deal sweeteners during the round-table talks, post-communist Europe initially witnessed much institutional diversity. Throughout the course of the past decade, however, there has been a notable convergence of institutional designs across the region. The process of convergence has been, in part, a response to domestic political concerns, but the demands of the European Union have also played a role. This article plots the course of institutional development in the region, outlining some of the major cases of institutional redesign and highlighting both the positive and negative impact of 'Europe' on the process.     

The Financial Crisis and Varieties of Pension Privatization Reversals in Eastern Europe

Since the global financial crisis, those East European countries that had partly privatized their pension systems in the 1990s or early 2000s increasingly scaled back their mandatory private retirement accounts and restored the role of public provision. What explains this wave of reversals in pension privatization and variation in its outcomes? Proponents of pension privatization had argued that it would boost domestic capital markets and economic growth. By revealing how pension privatization helped increase sovereign debt and how large a part of pension funds' assets was invested in government bonds, the crisis strengthened the position of domestic opponents of mandatory private accounts. But these actors' capacity and determination to reverse pension privatization depended on the level of their country's public debt and on pension funds' portfolio structure. Empirically, the argument is supported with case studies of Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak pension reform.     

Institutions and the stabilization of party systems in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe

Most explanations of party system stability focus on the strength of mass-elite linkages. We highlight the role of institutions, focusing on how electoral rules and elected institutions, especially the presidency, impact elites' incentives to coordinate on a stable set of parties or to form new parties, thus affecting electoral volatility. Using Central and Eastern European elections data, we find that directly elected presidents increase volatility and that presidential power magnifies this effect. Absent a directly elected president, high district magnitude is associated with increased volatility, but district magnitude dampens the impact of an elected president on volatility; hence, our findings underscore the interactive impact of institutions on party systems. We also find evidence that bicameralism and concurrence of presidential and parliamentary elections decrease electoral volatility. Our model not only explains persistently high electoral volatility in Eastern Europe, but the extreme stability of Western European party systems.     

Hyperaccountability: Economic voting in Central and Eastern Europe

Are citizens in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe able to hold politicians accountable at elections? The inheritance of communism—disengaged citizens, economic flux, and inchoate party systems—might be expected to weaken accountability. Looking at the results of 34 elections in 10 Central and Eastern European countries, this paper finds instead a phenomenon that it calls hyperaccountability. Incumbents are held accountable for economic performance—particularly for unemployment—but this accountability distinguishes not between vote losses and gains, but between large and small losses. This result is significant in several respects. The evidence for economic voting restores some faith in the ability of voters to control their representatives in new democracies. The consistency of punishment in the region, however, may mitigate some of the benefits of economic voting. If incumbents know they will lose, then they may decide to enrich themselves when in power rather than produce good policies.     

The Solitary Center: the Core Executive in Central and Eastern Europe

This article discusses the coordinative capacity of Centers of Government (COGs) in several Central and Eastern Europe countries. In formal terms, COGs are at the heart of the executive process; but their contribution to coherence in executive policymaking has remained limited. This observation applies both to coordination within the executive, and between the executive and other key participants in the political process. In important respects, the "solitary centers" operate in isolation from their political and institutional environment. In part, this weakness of linkage reflects the particular features of the post-Communist political systems; in part, it can be explained by a lack of nodality, authority and policy expertise at the COG. There are good reasons to assume that, as policy systems mature, problems of linkage will decline in significance. But this outcome cannot be taken for granted. Instead, we might be witnessing the emergence of a "new administrative type" in some Central and Eastern European countries.     

Communist successor parties and government survival in Central Eastern Europe

This article analyses coalition survival in eleven post‐Communist, Central and Eastern European democracies. Survival analysis demonstrates that Communist Successor Parties (CSPs) are central to understanding government dissolution processes in post‐communism. Coalitions spanning the ‘regime divide’ between CSPs and parties not affiliated with the ancien regime last longer than governments that do not. Regime divide governments also are more likely to fall during periods of positive economic performance, while other governments fall during periods of negative economic performance. The reason lies in parties’ incentives to prolong their regime divide coalition with the CSP, especially in the face of adverse conditions.     

The Durability of EU Civil Service Policy in Central and Eastern Europe after Accession

This article examines the post‐accession durability of EU civil service policy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs). Civil service professionalization was a condition for EU membership but the European Commission has no particular sanctions available if CEECs reverse pre‐accession reforms after gaining membership. Comparing eight CEECs that joined the EU in 2004, the article finds that post‐accession civil service developments are characterized by great diversity. The three Baltic States continued civil service reforms, while Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia are classified as cases of post‐accession reform reversal. The post‐accession pathway of Hungary is identified as a case of reform reorientation. The diversity in post‐accession pathways was almost exclusively the result of domestic political constellations, in particular, patterns of government alternation after accession. There were hardly any factors that could have locked in the level of professionalization that had been reached at the time of accession.     

Party System Polarisation and Government Duration in Central and Eastern Europe

Since the transition to democracy in the early 1990s, more than 60 per cent of governments in Central and Eastern Europe have terminated prematurely. This article argues that the character of party system development in the region has facilitated the emergence of a polarised pattern of party competition and that competition for government now takes place in distinct ideological blocs. Parties seek to form governments within these blocs but not across them and therefore there is little incentive to defect from a governing coalition due to the lack of viable alternatives. As a result, more polarised party systems produce more durable governments. The empirical evidence shows that polarisation and ideological diversity of the government are significant indicators of government duration in Central and Eastern Europe. Ideologically compact governments formed within narrow blocs in the party system survive longer than ideologically diverse coalitions that emerge from less polarised party systems.     

Assessing the diversity of anti-establishment and populist politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The more populism enters public debates, the more it needs close scrutiny. Central and Eastern Europe offers a useful context for exploring the diversity of parties identified as populist. Anti-establishment rhetoric provides a suitable conceptual starting point because of its pervasive role in the region’s political discourse. Using a new expert survey, this article details the relationship between anti-establishment salience and political positions, showing that anti-establishment parties occupy a full range across both economic and cultural dimensions and many occupy more centrist positions. Narrowing the focus to content analysis of anti-establishment parties’ thin ideology in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, it is concurrently found that for many actors (including those usually labelled as populist) anti-establishment rhetoric is indeed predominant, yet not always extensively combined with other elements of populism: people-centrism and invocation of general will. The findings are important for understanding multiple varieties of anti-establishment politics also beyond the region.     

The Politics of Social Learning: Finance,Institutions, and Pension Reform in the United States and Canada

Because the traditional concept of social learning has faced significant criticism in recent years, more analytical work is required to back the claim that the lessons drawn from existing institutional legacies can truly impact policy outcomes. Grounded in the historical institutionalist literature, this article formulates an amended concept of social learning through the analysis of the relationship between finance, social learning, and institutional legacies in the 1990s debate over the reform of earnings‐related pension schemes in the United States and Canada. The article shows how social learning related to specific ideological assumptions and policy legacies in the public and the private sectors has affected policymaking processes. At the theoretical level, this contribution stresses the political construction of learning processes, which is distinct from the technocratic model featured in the traditional literature on social learning. This article also distinguishes between high‐ and low‐profile social learning while emphasizing the impact of private policy legacies on learning processes.     

Social security reform in Central and Eastern Europe: variations on a Latin American theme

After Chile reformed its social security system in 1981, several other Latin American countries and certain Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries implemented the Chilean model, with some variations: either a single- or multitier system, or with a period of transition to take care of those in the labor force at the time of the change. The single-tier version consists of individual accounts in pension fund management companies. Multi-tier systems retain some form of public program and add mandatory individual accounts. Most of the CEE countries did not want to incur the high transition costs associated with the Chilean model. The switch to a market economy had already strained their economies. Also, the countries' desire to adopt the European Union's Euro as their currency--a move that required a specific debt ceiling--limited the amount of additional debt they could incur. This article describes the CEE reforms and makes some comparisons with the Latin American experience. Most of the CEE countries have chosen a mixed system and have restructured the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) tier, while the Latin American countries have both single- and multi-tier systems. Some CEE countries have set up notional defined contribution (NDC) schemes for the PAYGO tier in which each insured person has a hypothetical account made up of all contributions during his or her working life. Survivors and disability programs in CEE have remained in the public tier, but in most of the Latin American programs the insured must purchase a separate insurance policy. Issues common to both regions include: Administrative costs are high and competition is keen, which has led to consolidation and mergers among the companies and a large market share controlled by a few companies. Benefits are proportionately lower for women than for men. A large, informal sector is not covered by social security. This sector is apparently much larger in Latin America than in the CEE countries. Issues that are unique to some of the CEE countries include: Individual accounts in Hungary and Poland have proved more attractive than originally anticipated. As a result, contributions to the public PAYGO system in Hungary and Poland fell short of expectations. In several countries, laws setting up the programs were enacted without all the details of providing benefits. For example, in some countries laws must now be drawn up for establishment of annuities because they do not yet exist. Setting up a coherent pension policy has been difficult in some countries because of frequent and significant changes in government. This situation has affected the progress of reform in various stages of development. In general, a definitive assessment of individual accounts in these countries will not be possible until a cohort of retirees has spent most of its career under the new system.     

Ideals and Reality in the Evolution of Fiscal Reform in Central and Eastern Europe

Jesse Burkhead believed in the importance of institutions in policy making. This article describes the evolution of fiscal reform in central and eastern Europe within the Burkhead tradition. After reviewing the changes in budgetary and intergovernmental fiscal institutions in the region, the article will illustrate the gap between ideals and reality with a case study of some of the changes currently taking place in the financing of culture in the Czech Republic.     

The Political Consequences of Self-Insurance: Evidence from Central-Eastern Europe,the Caucasus and Central Asia

Political Behavior - Does self-insurance, such as access to savings or assets, affect support for government? While existing research recognizes that households’ ability to privately manage...     

Review Essay International Organizations and Institutional Change in Central and Eastern Europe

Books reviewed: Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier, eds. The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe.
Wade Jacoby. The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO: Ordering from the Menu in Central Europe.
James Hughes, Gwendolyn Sasse, and Claire Gordon. Europeanization and Regionalization in the EU's Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe: The Myth of Conditionality.
Reviewed by JOHN A. SCHERPEREEL     

Perspectives,practices and prospects of public affairs in Central and Eastern Europe: a lobbying future anchored in an institutional context

‘Public Affairs’ is not a term most people in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will recognise and associate with interest representation and lobbying as ways of linking business, society and government. The term may be seen as a euphemism for corruption-inspired ‘lobbying’, an artificial and confusing umbrella term or a public relations creation. It is a term in transition for a subject in transition in a part of Europe in transition. Even as part of the European Union, CEE is still different, in transition, finding its own feet like a phoenix arising from the ashes of 50 years of communism, but slowly, in bursts, réculer pour mieux sauter and very different from country to country. Which are the features and values of the 50 years of communism that will disappear, fast more slowly, which ones will linger on? What are the institutions in CEE countries that public affairs will have to deal with, and what is the view on transparency and transparency regulation in CEE? To add understanding, values, cultural differences, institutional context and other factors affecting the public affairs environment are examined. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.