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People: The Strange Tale of the Russian Blogger Who Hot-Footed It Out of Moldova
Fugitive Eduard Bagirov says a political vendetta was behind his four-month detention.
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Fugitive Eduard Bagirov says a political vendetta was behind his four-month detention.
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Plus, Lithuania rejects new CIA prisons probe, and a reconstructed Bolshoi makes its debut. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Plus, Vladimir Meciar sets his sights on a return to parliament and Moscow police may find it harder to earn extra cash. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Plus, the Romanian king’s stutter-free speech and independence day gifts for happy Turkmen. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Plus, Azerbaijan-Turkey deal sparks hope for Nabucco and a well-respected Russian educator dies a lonely death in prison. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Legislation and protests marked the latest battle in the war for control of the country's universities.
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If you were a dictator looking to siphon off some oil money, you would do well to look west for some help.
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Plus, police investigate the gunman who opened fire at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo and Serbian liberals tell the Russian ambassador to butt out. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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The main question examined in this article is whether the vacillation of Ukraine’s political regime is not a regular, permanent condition. Having two main aims – (1) to construct a theory of Ukraine’s post-soviet political transformation, and (2) to disclose the possibilities of democracy consolidation in this country – the article starts with making some “corrections” to the transitologist approach to regime change. Then it proceeds with the proposal of model for analysing post-soviet regime transformations. The model consists of three main explanatory variables: (1) the structure of political elite, (2) the ‘rules of game’ prevalent in the system, and (3) the strategies of political elite aiming at gaining business and/or mass support. Various interrelations of these variables may produce four possible ideal-type outcomes of regime change – (1) democracy, (2) ‘democracy with adjectives’, (3) zero-sum game (a very unstable option when political regime may be temporarily democratic but is at a huge risk of downfall), (4) authoritarianism. The article predicts that due to the structural peculiarities of Ukraine the zero-sum game will remain very intensive in Ukraine in the future as well. Thus, the permanent instability of the state and both – democracy and authoritarianism – in Ukraine (a zero-sum game) may actually be considered to be its consolidated political regime form.
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The purpose of this article is to discuss the principle of responsible governance as a basic principle, upon which the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania has relied in explication of the peculiarities of constitutional status of Member of Parliament. On the basis of analysis of the decision of the Constitutional Court, made on 1 July 2004, this article seeks to reveal the specifics of argumentation of the decisions of Constitutional Court, as well as their impact on legislation. Institutions of constitutional supervision in two post-communist countries (Hungary and Lithuania) are compared with a focus on the causes and reasons of their activism and the legitimacy of such activism.
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The article analyzes the concept of national state and the meaning of national independence. Political independence has proven to be a much greater challenge to the nations of Eastern and Central Europe. The population of the region is not merely aware of the fact that political independence is difficult to gain; they believe that it is far more important to handle the tasks related to moral and cultural justification of independence. The said aspects do not vanish from the horizon of philosophical, moral and political reflections of the nations within the region. Links with the Western culture is one of the topical subjects in Eastern and Central Europe. However, from the vantage point of political independence the Western culture tends to undermine the spirit of the nations within the region rather than uplift it. The ailments of the Western culture, when brought to the region, are perceived as the factors destroying the meaning of independence.
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There are two important differences in the outcomes of postsocialist transformation of the Baltic countries: (1) Due to the inclusive citizenship laws the liberal democracy in Lithuania is more consolidated than in other Baltic countries. (2) However, in the economy Estonia has established reputation of “a shining star from the Baltics”, while Lithuania during first decade of market transition acquired the reputation of a pupil that although made the homework asked by the international institutions, but always a bit too late and never with excellent marks. While the explanation of the first difference is relatively uncontroversial, the opinions clash around the explanation of the differences in the economic performance. The article analyzes how can the reemergence of the difference between Baltic South and North be explained after the levels of socio-economic development between Baltic states had converged during the Soviet time? Did better initial economic conditions, peculiarities in the political process (e.g. exclusion of significant part of non-ethnical Estonian population that could be potential electorate for postcommunist party like the Lithuanian “Labourists”), Protestant cultural legacy, better public relation work – or what? – make Estonia “a shining star from the Baltics”? The paper closes with the discussion of the further difficulties of the culturalist explanation (including the Latvian riddle again) and possible solutions, and presents some proposals of further research relevant for the progress in the testing of conflicting explanations.
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Theoretical presumptions and historical processes of occurence and development of local self-governance as a legal and political institution are elaborated in this piece of work. In the context of contemplating on contemporary theoretical concept of local self-governance the very emergence and growth of local communities are particularly explained, which had occured as the primary forms of territorial and common interest- bounded grouping of people in the process of human civilisation. Spatial closeness of people and common needs conditioned by it determined creation of norms, behaviour codes, and rights and duties characteristic of shared living conditions of those people in the local communities. Territorialisation of the society was followed up by territorialisation of governance. Common activities with objective to meet the needs take on terrirorial frame. Accordingly, the need to regulate the relations inside a local community led to the emergence of the first institutions of political authority. In fact, mergance of smaller territorial unities created more complex territorial governance systems, such as a state. This fact has had such an impact that even upon forming of a state its internal division into local communities remained intact. The state then acknowledged the right to autonomy to the local communities by forming units of local self-governance. Withing the context in question hereby, a clear distinction is made between terms local self- governance as an institutionalised form of meeting needs and interests of citizens within local communities and the term local community as a social and natural basis of local self-governance. The primary unit of local self-governance in all democratic states is municipality. It has its territory, elected bodies and institutions as well as local competences to enable it to influence economical and social development of local community. Within such unit the citizens directly and through their elected representatives govern public affairs of interest to them, except for the matters in charge of higher levels of authority. This citizens’ right is guaranteed both by law and constitution in all democratic states. Modern theoretical concept of local self- governance in contemporary states is explained from the aspect of decentralisation of political power and strenghtening of democratic institutions and values.
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The saga of the Albanian exodus to Europe is long and sometimes tragic. Since the collapse of communism in 1990, many Albanians headed towards different European countries searching for a better life. After the first big wave of refugees had subsided, the EU countries set strong rules for Albanians to enter. It was not easy to get a visa. Many Albanians tried the illegal way, often using the “visa mafia”, and failed. The difficult years of Albanian transition until the beginning of the new century regularly caused streams of refugees. In the last years, the improvement of law and order brought the country to stability and a visa-liberalisation process with the EU was initiated. Albania had to fulfill the requirements of the European Commission concerning travel documents, security, migration and border controls, law and order, reintegration of victims of human trafficking and returning emigrants, foreign affairs and human rights. On 15 September 2010, a Report of the European Commission, based on experts’ evaluation, gave Albania good grades for fulfilling these criteria and green light for visa-liberalisation. The last word came from the Council of the EU Interior Ministers at their meeting in November 2010. They sanctioned visa-liberalisation with Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina by majority decision, opening the way for their people to travelling visa-free for 90 days in the Schengen zone by the end of 2010.
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Whereas Turkey’s foreign policy was traditionally considered to be a domain of the state, it has today – after eight years of AKP rule – become a subject for the public domain and an extension of domestic politics. Indeed, Turkey as a fast growing economy needs new markets and investment opportunities, a fact that necessitates an opening up to countries and regions previously neglected. While this is the main driving force behind the AKP’s new foreign policy, it is also true that the sentiments of the public, and the Islamic public in particular, are too evident in some of the choices made by the government. The author demonstrates these dynamics by looking at Turkey’s ties to Armenia, Israel, Syria and Iran. Thus, for example, Turkey’s growing ties with Iran are extremely popular among the AKP’s Islamic supporters, who admire the Iranian President Ahmedinejad. Ankara’s dealing with Iran’s nuclear pretentions has eventually left Turkey seriously at odds with the US and other Western allies. The author concludes that, while more democratic input in foreign policy administration may be positive in principle, political populism and opportunism can also change the orientation of countries and raise serious questions about where they are headed.
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