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The current brief is based on the results of the National Study on Domestic and Gender Based Violence (DGBV) and Elaboration of Victims Support Model (VSM), developed under Programme Area 29, BG12: Domestic and Gender Based Violence, Measure 3: Research and data collection of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. The study focused on four main thematic areas connected with DGBV phenomena: factors and causes, scales and prevalence, consequences, and public response. The study revealed that DGBV victimisation is caused by the simultaneous action of three types of factors: factors representing a conflict, violent conflict-resolution models that the perpetrators follow, and lack or blocking of deterrent mechanisms. DGBV re-victimisation occurs when the victims lack both internal and external resources to counteract. The reporting of DGBV prevalence depends on three factors: real occurrence of DGBV, awareness that the experienced acts represent DGBV, and readiness to share this experience with authorities, help providers or researchers.
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Freedom from violence, regardless of its form, is every human being’s fundamental right. The rights to life, liberty and security of person have been regulated in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights. The purpose of the Victims Support Model is to provide information and to present the currently existing activities, services and departments, which operate in the area of domestic and gender-based violence. The proposed Model accepts that the strong prevalence of the phenomena and the consequences thereof necessitate that it is treated as a public health issue. For this reason, an approach is being proposed, which defines and outlines the roots and the consequences of this problem in Bulgaria, identifies the risk and protective factors, and proposes strategies for effective resolution, including activities on prevention, timely reaction, and follow-up.
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There was a deeply held assumption that, when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined NATO and the European Union in 2004, these countries would continue their positive democratic and economic transformation. Yet more than a decade later, the region has experienced a steady decline in democratic standards and governance practices at the same time that Russia’s economic engagement with the region expanded significantly. Regional political movements and figures have increasingly sought to align themselves with the Kremlin and with illiberalism. Central European governments have adopted ambiguous—if not outright pro-Russian—policy stances that have raised questions about their transatlantic orientation and produced tensions within Western institutions. The Center for the Study of Democracy, in partnership with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recently concluded a 16-month study to understand the nature of Russian influence in five case countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Serbia. This research determined the extent of the Russian economic footprint in the domestic economy, which has ranged between 11% and 22% on average from 2004 to 2014. The report also presented evidence of how Russia has leveraged its economic presence to cultivate an opaque web of economic and political patronage across the region that the Kremlin uses to influence and direct decisionmaking. This web resembles a network-flow model—or “unvirtuous circle”—which the Kremlin can use to influence (if not control) critical state institutions, bodies, and economies, as well as shape national policies and decisions that serve its interests while actively discrediting the Western liberal democratic system. To exploit the governance loopholes, Russia’s strategy has been to capture powerful local brokers through providing them with government sponsored business opportunities at premium returns infiltrating them in state-owned companies, national agencies including in the security sector. Another common way is to use former security officials with significant influence over parties, businesses and institutions to act as intermediaries boosting Moscow’s interests where necessary. The reverse has also been happening in the region when local powerful economic groups use their Russian links to secure capital and political backing to acquire assets and invest in large projects. Sometimes domestic interests have vied for and received the economic and political support from Russian companies or politicians to engage in rent seeking with the local government, exploiting lack of oversight and lack rule of law. In exchange for providing their brand name or capital, Russian companies have taken nominal share in lucrative domestic businesses, gained access to a strategic asset in telecommunications, finance and most often in energy.
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Publication looks over the situation of drug users in two European countries – Norway, known for its social and welfare-oriented state, and Bulgaria, which since the beginning of the transition from totalitarism to democracy lacks sustainable policies on prisons and drugs. The aim of this work is to comparatively present the penal policy towards drug users and the measures taken for convicted people addicted to narcotic substances, to identify those features which can be transferable and can assist Bulgarian authorities to improve the situation of drug users in and outside the prison. Finally, this research will try to propose concrete measures to be taken both within the penitentiary system and as crime prevention efforts among drug users.
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This is the seventh consecutive Corruption Assessment Report providing an overview of the state and dynamics of corruption in Bulgaria and Bulgarian anti-corruption policy. It analyzes the main opportunities and challenges of the anti-corruption process in the context of Bulgaria’s approaching accession to the EU. The report builds on regular monitoring of the spread of corruption, its trends, evaluations of the anti-corruption efforts and initiatives implemented by government institutions and by civil society, as well as a number of suggestions and ecommendations on anti-corruption measures. 2005 marked a reversal of the positive trend in the decline of corruption since 1998, while still emaining at half the level of seven years ago. This development suggests that “soft” anti-corruption measures have exhausted their potential and more effective approaches to counteract and prevent corruption must be found, especially at the administrative and political levels. These should be supported through a corruption monitoring and assessment by civil society of the public sector, articularly the agencies administering EU’s structural funds. The report also refers to external risks which could emerge after Bulgaria’s accssion to the EU.
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This educational manual is designed for the elaboration and carrying out of specialized courses and programs in Bulgarian universities and schools as well as for everyone who is interested in these scope of issues. Learning about the ombudsman institution's origin, evolution, powers, efficiency and forms would be a necessity for students of law, political sciences and sociology, experts in public administration, individuals studying the mechanisms for human rights protection in the country, etc. The knowledge about the ombudsman institution would also increase the opportunities of individual citizens to defend their rights against omissions, illegal or inappropriate actions, or abuse of power on the part of public administration as well as local self-government authorities and local administration.
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Freedom from violence, regardless of its form, is every human being’s fundamental right. The rights to life, liberty and security of person have been regulated in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights. The purpose of the Victims Support Model is to provide information and to present the currently existing activities, services and departments, which operate in the area of domestic and gender-based violence. The proposed Model accepts that the strong prevalence of the phenomena and the consequences thereof necessitate that it is treated as a public health issue. For this reason, an approach is being proposed, which defines and outlines the roots and the consequences of this problem in Bulgaria, identifies the risk and protective factors, and proposes strategies for effective resolution, including activities on prevention, timely reaction, and follow-up.
More...
The current brief is based on the results of the National Study on Domestic and Gender Based Violence (DGBV) and Elaboration of Victims Support Model (VSM), developed under Programme Area 29, BG12: Domestic and Gender Based Violence, Measure 3: Research and data collection of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. The study focused on four main thematic areas connected with DGBV phenomena: factors and causes, scales and prevalence, consequences, and public response. The study revealed that DGBV victimisation is caused by the simultaneous action of three types of factors: factors representing a conflict, violent conflict-resolution models that the perpetrators follow, and lack or blocking of deterrent mechanisms. DGBV re-victimisation occurs when the victims lack both internal and external resources to counteract. The reporting of DGBV prevalence depends on three factors: real occurrence of DGBV, awareness that the experienced acts represent DGBV, and readiness to share this experience with authorities, help providers or researchers.
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In the tenth Corruption Assessment Report, the Center for the Study of Democracy provides an overview of the state of corruption and anticorruption in Bulgaria in 2013 – 2014. The report is produced within the framework of the Southeast Europe Leadership for Development and Integrity initiative (SELDI), which provides a comparative perspective for nine countries in Southeast Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey). The report’s findings are based on the state-of-the-art Corruption Monitoring System, and are complemented with recommendations on anti-corruption policies. The report argues that Bulgaria needs bold institutional anti-corruption reforms and personal commitment at the highest level in the judiciary and the executive to tackle state capture and wide-spread administrative corruption.
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Macedonia features in many discussions as a country with high hidden economy. The European Commission has repeatedly voiced its concerns in its regular country reports about the size and proliferation of hidden economy practices. Hidden employment or undeclared work in Macedonia is of particular concern to the authorities, provided the very high and stubborn levels of official unemployment and low employment levels. However, most studies and research on the matter involve a high level of ambiguity, as they refer to specific narrow outcomes of the hidden economy, usually towards a specific point in time, with dynamics being difficult to trace. The current report, prepared jointly by the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) and the Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM), Macedonia proposes a methodology that would allow the tracing of the dynamics of the hidden economy and its components (e.g. hidden turnover, hidden employment, etc.) over time. This would make possible for the Macedonian government and its European partners to follow the impact and assess the effectiveness of their policies for tackling the hidden economy. Estimates suggest that the hidden economy size in Macedonia ranges from 24% to 47% of its GDP according to different measurement methods. The current report indicates that the percentage of hidden salaries remains the most acute concern, with the employment income of some 40% of Macedonian employees being at least partially undeclared. Moreover, 7% of all Macedonian employees work without a contract, and are not being paid any social security contributions whatsoever. The interviewed business representatives confirmed wide scale violations of the Labour Code. Over half of those respondents claimed that signing contracts with ‘hidden clauses’ (not accounting for the full remuneration paid out) were commonplace in their sector. Moreover, large-scale tax evasion seems to continue to pose a serious problem for the Macedonian economy and social system as the government tries to adjust them in order to be compatible with the principles of the market economy without imposing too extensive erosion of the social fabric and the existing social benefits. Tax avoidance is especially widespread among the poorest members of the society, which makes the underprivileged especially vulnerable as they may find themselves being criminally prosecuted for unpaid taxes or charged with paying large penalties. VAT returns are provided back to companies with significant time lags and represent additional burden for companies which are part of the formal economy. The issuance of cash register receipts also remains an issue, as only less than a half of the respondents claimed that they always received receipts when buying groceries. The situation is similar with the purchase of services.
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The current report, prepared by the Southeast European Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI) — the largest indigenous good governance initiative in SEE — makes an important contribution to the regional approach to anticorruption. It provides a civil society view of the state of corruption and comes in the wake of the 2014 SELDI comprehensive assessment of the various aspects of the legal and institutional anticorruption environments of nine SEE countries. In 2016, SELDI followed up on these assessments with an update of corruption monitoring and a special focus on state capture in the energy sector and the corruption–hidden economy nexus. The report underscores the need for broader political action for reform, which seems blocked or narrowing across the region. Inside pressure for such action has been suffocated by economic necessity and/or ethnic divisions, and the ossification of political and economic establishments. Outside pressure, delivered mostly by the European Union has been seen as wanting in relation to the size of the problems in the past couple of years due to a succession of internal and external crises. The authors underline that in none of the countries in the region has there been a clear sustained policy breakthrough in anticorruption though efforts to deliver technical solutions and to improve the functioning of the law enforcement institutions, mostly with support from the EU, have continued and even intensified in some cases. This has led to further slow decline in administrative corruption levels but at the expense of waning public support for reforms and of declining trust in national and European institutions.
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The 6th International Conference Innovation Management, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (IMES 2018) took place on May 31 – June 1, 2018 at the University of Economics, Prague. The conference was organised by the Department of Entrepreneurship of the University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic in cooperation with other partners. Sound keynote speakers – Roy Thurik (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Ute Stephan (Aston Business School), Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), Stefan Schaltegger (Leuphana University Lüneburg), Marina Dabič (University of Zagreb and Nottingham Trent University), Martin Srholec (CERGE-EI) and Jiří Hnilica (University of Economics, Prague), discussed the trends in the fields of innovation management, entrepreneurship and sustainability. The conference aimed to achieve academic excellence in a regional context and to establish a platform for mutual collaboration, exchange and dissemination of ideas among researchers and professionals. These conference proceedings contain contributions of the conference participants presented during both days of the conference. Authors of papers come from 30 countries all over the world, namely from Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, USA, Vietnam. All these contributions have successfully passed the doubleblind peer-review process.
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Monografia poświęcona badaniom cyklu życia produktu turystycznego w polskich miastach na przykładzie Poznania. Na kształtowanie się funkcji turystycznej miasta i tym samym cyklu życia produktu miasta wpływ mają czynniki polityczne, gospodarcze i stan świadomości społecznej. Polskie miasta przez ponad 40 lat działały w warunkach wynikających z ograniczonego prawa obywateli do własności i podejmowania decyzji gospodarczych, a także silnego scentralizowania tych decyzji (ubezwłasnowolnieni byli nie tylko obywatele, ale także samorządy). Autorzy, dążąc do celów metodycznych i poznawczych, zadawali sobie następujące pytania. Czy i jak można wobec powyższego mierzyć cykl życia produktu turystycznego w polskim mieście w długim okresie, np. 60 lat? Co utrudnia taki pomiar? Jakie czynniki polityczne, ekonomiczne i społeczne wpływają na kształtowanie się cyklu życia w odmiennych uwarunkowaniach ustrojowych i czy w związku z tym możemy mówić o uniwersalnym charakterze teorii cyklu życia produktu? Przyjmując, że transformacja ustroju społeczno-ekonomicznego w Polsce ma charakter trwały – jak w nowych uwarunkowaniach można mierzyć poziom natężenia, dynamikę rozwoju funkcji turystycznej miasta? Czy jest możliwe porównanie rozwoju funkcji turystycznej Poznania z innymi miastami w ujęciu dynamicznym? Zakładając, że sposoby oddziaływania samorządu na rozwój turystyki uzależnione są od poziomu funkcji turystycznej – w jaki sposób oceniać oddziaływanie samorządu na rozwój funkcji turystycznej Poznania i jak umożliwić wczesną diagnozę popełnianych błędów? Rozwój turystyki w mieście uzależniony jest także od jego mieszkańców. W jaki sposób badać i jak interpretować ocenę rozwoju funkcji turystycznej Poznania przez jego mieszkańców? Jeżeli w warunkach gospodarki rynkowej można mówić o regularnych zmianach faz cyklu życia produktu zgodnie z koncepcją R. Butlera, to celem nadrzędnym opracowania jest określenie sposobu oddziaływania władz miasta na rozwój turystyki w fazie, w której obecnie znajduje się Poznań.
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The Western Balkans have become one of the regions, in which Russia has increasingly sought to (re)assert its presence in the past decade. In attempt to improve the understanding of the impact of the interplay between existing governance gaps and the inflow of authoritarian capital in the region, the Center for the Study of Democracy developed an assessment of the Russian economic footprint in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although in absolute numbers Russian investment in the region has increased by more than EUR 3 billion, Russia’s economic footprint as share of the total economy in the Western Balkans has shrunk or stagnated in the wake international sanctions over the annexation of Crimea. Because Russian businesses are concentrated in a small number of strategic sectors however – such as banking, energy, metallurgy and real estate – the four small, energy-dependent countries assessed in this report remain vulnerable to Russian pressure. An overreliance on Russian imports, coupled with an expansion of Russian capital, has made the governments of the Western Balkans particularly susceptible to pressures on strategic decisions related not only to energy market diversification and liberalization, but also to Russian sanctions, and NATO and EU expansion.
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The Black Sea region has been subject to increasing pressure and uncertainty, following Russia’s occupation of parts of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine in 2014, and the continuing military stand-off to NATO in the Black Sea and beyond after the intervention in Syria in 2015. These developments have demonstrated Moscow’s determination to revise the post-Cold War order by applying pressure through hard- and softpower instruments on both members and associate partners of the EU and NATO in order to undermine Euro-Atlantic cohesion and unity. A particularly prominently deployed weapon of choice of the Kremlin has been media propaganda and disinformation. The report examines Russia’s presence and tactics in the media sectors of five Black Sea countries, by assessing the relationship between the Kremlin’s corporate and financial footprint in the media outlets of these states and the dissemination of pro-Russian and anti-Western propaganda content. It confirms that the patterns of ownership, economic dependency and (in)formal political links of media outlets in the countries under investigation to pro-Russian groups and interests are correlated with and reflected into corresponding trends of employing Russia-originating propaganda narratives.
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The 2020 Bulgarian Organised Crime Threat Assessment is the third in a series of studies which, on an annual basis, canvasses the state, volume and structure of the major criminal markets. The report also captures the trends related to organised crime over the period 2017–2019. The present assessment relies on data for 2019 covering fourteen criminal markets which can be grouped under three basic headings: Traditional organised criminal markets – human trafficking and the market for sexual services, human smuggling, automobile theft, extortion racketeering and usury. Excise duty and VAT crimes – illegal trade in tobacco products and in fuels, as well as VAT fraud. Emerging criminal markets – EU funds fraud, illegal trade in pharmaceuticals, cybercrime, electronic payment systems fraud, telephone fraud and illegal logging. The study reviews the key trends in recent years as well as the structure of each criminal market, and describes the major schemes used by organised criminal groups. Researchers have attempted to gauge the damages that organised criminal groups inflict to individual victims and to society as a whole, as well as to calculate the volume of criminal revenues. Based on data and expert opinion analysis, the report outlines the possible developments of the criminal market and the relevant responses to them, and lists a number of recommendations designed to minimise the damages from organised criminal activity.
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