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This book is intended as a helpful tool for students of political science and history who wish to comprehend national and international realities of the modern world.
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While the enforcement of anticorruption policies has been prioritised by international and national governments, the tools for evaluating this enforcement have not been developed. The main reason for this underdevelopment is that corruption is measured and policies evaluated only at the societal level, while the level of actual corrupt transactions - the public institution - is rarely analysed. This paper outlines the conceptual justification for rethinking the focus of anticorruption monitoring, maps the corruption measurement and monitoring landscape and sketches a new instrument designed to serve a better targeted policy evaluation - Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI).
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The current publication presents a study on child trafficking conducted in seven EU member states: Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Slovakia. The study looks at three specific forms of trafficking in persons: child trafficking for begging, for pickpocketing and for sexual exploitation of boys and the way they manifest themselves among Roma communities.The findings of the study are based on analysis of policy documents and existing statistical data, as well focus groups and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders. The fieldwork conducted in four of the countries, traditionally regarded as origin countries of trafficking victims, relied on participatory research methods. The active involvement of Roma organisations in the research aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the risk factors involved, bring knowledge back to the communities and support Roma experts’ involvement in counter-trafficking policy and mechanisms.The report examines the profiles of victims and discusses the vulnerability factors that make the Roma minority a particular group at risk. The study provides empirical knowledge on the mechanisms of recruitment and exploitation of victims in order to inform identification efforts and counter-trafficking responses. Particular attention is devoted to the policy and measures for assistance of victims. In this field, the report identifies specific gaps in assistance and the way they affect Roma victims in particular, and suggests how child victim assistance could be improved.
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The second book of the four book long life work compilation is about the newly formed social and national system's conceptual, organizational and cohabitational problems, which had taken shape after 1989-
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„In Bárányvakság I tried to find out why - at the end of the 80's – strong, self-assured, all in all westernized hungarian middle class – whose want to free from the dictature – gave up their autonomy between democratic atmosphere. Why did they fall into the state's arms, especially into that kind of bad efficency state's arms?”
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The judicial reform in Bulgaria still remains a priority in the process of EU accession. The reorganization of the investigation and the improvement of the efficiency and accountability of the prosecution continue to remain disputable issues. The book The Courts,Prosecution and Investigation in the EU Member States and Accession Countries reviews the organization and principles of activity of the courts, prosecution and investigation in the EU member states, including the new ones, and the accession countries. The edition is aimed at supporting the process of Bulgaria's EU accession and contributing to the strenghtening of the judiciary, especially regarding the organization and place of the prosecution and investigation in compliance with the good practices, applied in the EU member states and the other accession countries.
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The manual is dedicated to the most frequently asked questions about corruption and aims at supporting anticorruption education. Despite the fact that many of the definitions in the manual are debatable and subject to opposing opinions, the publication unites the predominant viewpoints of the experts, the Bulgarian legislature, the current European standards and the essence of the domestic and international publications on this topic. The hundred answers to those questions are classified in five sections: Definitions, Laws and corruption, Corruption in the public life, Corruption in Bulgaria, Counteracting corruption. The manual could be used as a resource material for trainings and lectures on anticorruption topics in the secondary schools and universities and will aide the teaching of elective courses on anticorruption introduced by the Ministry of Education and Science in the fall of 2004 in the Bulgarian secondary schools. The manual could be also useful for trainings and seminars for civil servants working at public institutions, which try to implement ethical codices of conduct and to improve transparency in public services provision to citizens.
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Judiciary and Corruption" titles the new edition of the Anti-Corruption Readers series. It is a joint publication of Coalition 2000 and the Association of Judges in Bulgaria (AJB) and is complied by Judge Ms. Kapka Kostova, AJB President and the Associate Prof. Mr. Lazar Gruev, Ph.D., Law Faculty of St. Kliment of Ochridski Sofia University. The collection Judiciary and Corruption provides analytical comparative legal studies on the curbing of corruption issues in the judiciary and the norms of judicial ethics. It targets the legal community in this country, the university students of law and those interested in public administration, application of law and anti-corruption combat. A profound analyses over the existing access mechanisms to the magistrates' profession, the judiciary status and the guaranties for their independence and the methods for implementing their responsibilities are provided. Mr. Vladisslav Slavov, Chair of the Supreme Administrative Court and Chair of the Union of Jurists in Bulgaria is author of the Introduction, while the collected materials of basic-theoretical, analytic-applied and with applied type, are grouped in three major chapters: - Judges - Powers and Responsibilities; - Problems of Corruption: Curbing and Judicial Control; - Code of Ethics of the Bulgarian Judges.
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On October 23, 2000, Civil Link Foundation and the Union of Bulgarian Journalists co-organized a journalists seminar "Investigative Journalism Against Corruption: the New Bulgarian and European Legislature" in Plovdiv within the framework of Coalition 2000 anti-corruption projects. Mr. Georgi Boyadzhiev, attorney at law, presented the new publication of Civil Link Foundation/Coalition 2000 - "Corruption in a 100 Answers" Manual. This is the first guide dedicated to the most frequently asked questions on corruption and anti-corruption. The hundred answers to those questions are classified in five sections: • Definitions, • Temida against Corruption, • Corruption in a Larger Context, • Corruption in Bulgaria, and • Anti-corruption. What is the legal definition for corruption, can a bribe-giver avoid indictment, what is the price of global corruption in the world, who fights corruption world-wide, etc. are some of the questions answered for the readers. The guide is published by Civil Link Foundation, a Coalition 2000's partner, and is supported financially by USAID. Its authors are Georgi Boyadzhiev, head of department, Special Investigation Service, Dr. Emil Tsenkov, Senior Fellow, the Center for the Study of Democracy, and Krassimir Dobrev, journalist, Sega Daily.
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The Center for the Study of Democracy Law Program has prepared the edition “Ombudsman Institution – Concept Paper and Draft Law for Bulgaria. Foreign Legislation”. The publication, which is a part of the CSD Law Program project for introducing the People’s Defender and Civic Mediators institutions in Bulgaria, is published with the assistance of the Information and Documentation Center of the Council of Europe in Sofia. The collection contains a Concept Paper on the legal opportunities for establishing these institutions in Bulgaria, together with the draft Law on the People’s Defender and Civic Mediators, both worked out by the experts to the CSD Law Program. It offers an accessible set of rules by which citizens can observe and respond to the new challenges in society in a period of considerable changes in this country. Introducing the Ombudsman institution means that Bulgaria is becoming a more democratic and civil rights respecting state. The institution is a successful mechanism for human rights defense with a strong emphasis on the principles of good governance. The publication is aimed to acquaint the public with the characteristics and the significance of the institution by offering a short overview of its development in various countries together with a comprehensive analysis on the Bulgarian environment to be established in as well. The edition includes foreign Ombudsman Acts, which served as a basis for drafting the Law for Bulgaria. They are both from countries with strong traditions in this area (Sweden, Canada and Spain) and from transition countries, in which the institution has been recently established (Poland, Hungary, Macedonia and Romania). The complete set of legislative acts on the European Ombudsman is also included. Knowing more about this particular institution is of great importance for Bulgaria’s continuing efforts for European Union accession.
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In his introduction to the book, the director of the Center for Economic Development Georgi Prohazki writes: "Bulgarian society is now faced with the problem of discovering the mechanisms which will rally the energy of citizens, NGOs, business and the state administration in the fight against corruption." Clearly, Coalition 2000 is such a mechanism which has united representatives of the nongovernmental sector and state institutions. Besides analyses by Paolo Mauro, Robert Klitgaard, Daniel Kaufman, etc., the reader also contains analyses by Bulgarian authors. In his publication Prof. Georgi Petrov looks at state interference in the economy and the problem of "corruption".
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Tekstovi obuhvaćeni ovom knjigom, bilo da je reč o intervjuima ili drugim oblicima izražavanja ličnih stavova, koji su mi stajali na raspolaganju, bili su u doslovnom smislu iznuđeni. Iznudile su ih prilike u kojima smo živeli i ljudska potreba da se na njih reaguje. Ako je u njima bilo nekog dubljeg, svesnog razloga onda je on izvirao iz želje da se još neko podstakne da svoje neslaganje sa politikom koja se već četvrt veka vodi u naše imeizrazi kako zna i ume i gde god mu se za to ukaže prilika. A prilike najčešće sami stvaramo.
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The International Conference Globalization – Economic, Social and Moral Implications was held on 7-8 April 2017, Beltsville, Maryland, USA and was organized by Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, “Athenaeum” University of Bucharest, Institute for Economic Forecasting Romanian Academy, Scientia Moralitas Research Institute and The Institute for Peace Studies in Eastern Christianity. The conference proceedings are published with ISBN 978-1-945298-06-6.
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The title of the book refers to a slogan that emerged in the political debate at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. The slogan is provocative because, on the one hand, it paraphrases the American return to Asia (US pivot to Asia) and, on the other hand, it recalls not only Russia’s geographical but also political presence in Asia. For Russia, the region of Northeast Asia remains the most important for security reasons, but in the second decade of the 21st century, the region of Southeast Asia became increasingly active. The ASEAN countries developed rapidly and implemented a number of measures to promote closer integration. The growing importance of Southeast Asia has prompted Russia to develop a strategy for this sub-region. It is part of Russia’s broader geopolitical game and must be seen in terms of establishing a balance between the major regional powers of the US, China, Japan and India on the one hand, and seeking a place of its own on the “chessboard. ” The main areas of cooperation with ASEAN are security and arms trade, energy and energy raw materials. Despite all the declarations, economic and trade cooperation has been slow. An example of the latest initiative proposed by President Vladimir Putin is the Greater Eurasian Partnership. I consider the initiative to be unrealistic at this stage, particularly given Russia’s economic constraints, even though diplomatic efforts are under way. In this case, the Chinese factor remains uncertain, as Greater Eurasia refers geographically to the Chinese Belt and Road Project. Russia’s most important partner in the region remains Vietnam, while Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are among the major trading partners. The analysis was based on international developments up to the end of the second decade of the 21st century.
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The vast literature on European political parties is dominated by works focused on analyzingactivities of the highest branches of state governments. Yet, it is difficult to be surprised by thisstate of affairs — in Europe, central authorities remain as the main political decision-makers, bothin terms of internal affairs and foreign policies. However, it does not change the fact that politicalparties active in and submitting electoral candidates throughout any given country are not the onlyentities influencing the quality of political decisions made. It is particularly the case in federationcountries and the so-called regional states, where regional parties, as well as their particular variety— ethno-regional parties — gain increasing political significance.The intensification of research on the position of regional parties in political systems of individualEuropean states, especially on the subject of their presence in representative organs on fourlevels — European, state, regional, and local — is definitely justified. The first argument in favorof such research is the fact that in contemporary Europe, these groupings play a major role inestablishing regional imagined communities. As a consequence, scientists must attempt to redefinethe existing relations between the core and the periphery. The second argument is the fact that inWestern European countries, the relevance level of regional parties is rather high, which indicatesthat the field of operations for such parties is still widening. Thirdly, regional parties are indeed apolitical occurrence characteristic for “old Europe” states, but they can also be found in Centraland Eastern European countries. It means that conducting research on Western European regionalparties conducted in Poland can be particularly significant. Poland is a rather unitary state and achange in the constitutional order, adopted in 1997, which establishes such a form of regime, israther unlikely. It does not mean however, that the influence of Western European standards willnot have an impact on political events in Poland and the shaping of the local political scene. An indepthanalysis of solutions adopted in individual Western European states in terms of the capacityfor representational participation of regional collectives in electoral representative organs on European,national, regional, and local levels can allow for drawing appropriate conclusions and a substantiveevaluation of chances of and threats to democracy, which result from including politicalrepresentatives of regional collective into lawmaking and — in a wider context — the workings ofthe political system. Fourthly, an analysis of the functioning of regional parties in the framework ofEuropean political systems can significantly contribute to the understanding of some factors conditioningthe so-called “unfreezing process” of political systems. Finally, it should be noted thatdespite the existence of several classifications of political parties, the authors researching the mattertoday usually propose the adoption of a division into party “families”, since the main “rivalrypoles” are similar in most European states. The assumption of divisions based on doctrinal stereotypesis the reason many authors question the purposefulness of including regional and ethnic parties in classifications, which indicate the existence of ideological “families”. It does not, however,change the fact that they comment on the matter of the existence of such groupings in their works,which is why we can assume that this is a consequential research issue.Contemporary Spain is undoubtedly one of the most interesting examples of a European state,where the political rivalry between the core and the periphery indicates the existence of a substantialsociopolitical division in this aspect. It is clear that any attempt to describe the functioningof its party system based solely on a classification formed using traditional doctrinal stereotypesmust lead to an incomplete, heavily distorted image. The political processes in this country duringthe last 150 years show that the socio-political division between the core and the periphery is notany less vital in Spain than the divisions based on the attitudes towards economic and ideologicalissues. It is clear there that at the turn of the second decade of the 21st century, in the midst of aserious economic crisis, the disappointment in elite politics on the political core level resulted inthe rise of popularity of regional parties. It should be noted here that the research on Spanish partiesfrom this party “family” must be coupled with devoting particular attention to a subtype ofgroupings, which advocate ethnic values. This is due to the specificity of periphery regions, differingfrom other state areas in language, customs or tradition of political institutions, but also inusing these differences in political play by ethno-regional parties.From the perspective of a highly centralized state such as Poland, it definitely merits to examinethe case of Spain. The first argument in favor of researching this field is the fact that despitegranting autonomic rights to all regions of Spain, the state still retains the form of a unitary state.This work is therefore an analysis of occurrences within the context of a similar form of state, asopposed to those happening in a federation — a form foreign to Polish tradition. Secondly, addingto Polish literature and therefore widening the knowledge of regional parties in Spain may be usefulin future in the context of gradual maturing of Polish democracy on local and regional levels.The state decentralization, which occurred in Poland after 1989 was probably one of the most difficultpolitical processes carried out in the country. It is suffice to note that in 1990, at the dawnof the Polish Third Republic, only one level of self-government — the municipal government —was established. Further solutions in the local government reform area were not implemented until1998, when the government of Jerzy Buzek decided to create county and province levels. However,those solutions are becoming a frequent subject of political and scientific discussion. These discussionsoften include the notion that the local government reform is a process, which has not beenfinalized in Poland yet. It is worth noting here that the requests related to directions of changesin the field of Polish decentralization often come from local and regional entities. It can be thereforepresumed that the process of development of sub-state political elites will result in subsequentrequests in the future. This can further exacerbate the sociopolitical core-periphery division.Consequently, the main goal of this work is to verify the research hypothesis, which assumesthat the significant sociopolitical core-periphery divisions in Spain must have prompted the politicalelites of the central level - which were active after the demise of general Franco and guidedthe democratic transformation process, setting the state’s territorial integrity as a main goal — toemploy solutions for the creation, activity and financing of political parties, as well as for electorallaws, which would allow for communities from individual historical regions to maintain a representationin representative organs on four levels — European, state, regional, and local — thereforeensuring their significant position in the political system of contemporary Spain.
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This book focuses on the war in Ukraine and how politicians commented on this issue in the first months after the invasion. The reactions of heads of state to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have varied, even in the democratic world. While an overwhelming rejectionist view was expressed in Western Europe, politicians in some Central and Eastern European have demonstrated a difficulty seeing the Kremlin as the culprit for the war.The main aims of the book are to examine how politicians in selected countries reacted to the war, to identify the main actors of the political discourse and how the political elites formed their positions, to analyze the content of the discourse and how the various supported or opposing positions on the war were formulated, and to examine the linguistic means and strategies employed by the political elite. The authors examined political discourse in Slovakia, Hungary, France, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Austria, and compared and contrasted the features of political discourse in countries with a long democratic tradition with those in Central and Eastern European countries which were under non-democratic regimes before 1989. There seems to be a tendency to push political discourse to a different plane in countries with a communist experience, as we found solid, pro-Russian sentiments in Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic that can attenuate attitudes towards Russian aggression.
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The local foundation is an independent legal entity, whose activities are aimed at development of the local community, through the provision of financial and other forms of support citizens' initiatives. Seven such organizations operate in Serbia today - three that have been established and four that are in the process of being created. The research project "Local Foundations in Serbia" was carried out in the period between June 1 and November 30. 2021 with the aim of analyzing and describing the action local foundations in Serbia, to understand their role in empowering citizens and female citizens to take an active part in shaping their immediate future environment, and to present the challenges they face in their work, problems of the communities in which they operate.
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