Around the Bloc: Ukrainian Premier to Step Aside
Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s replacement will inherit a battered economy, rising violence in the Donbas.
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Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s replacement will inherit a battered economy, rising violence in the Donbas.
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Turkey faces a tremendous pressure for adjusting its governance structure to the EU accession requirements. The challenge seems to touch upon some core aspects of political transformation such as the emergence and self-organising power of an autonomous civil society, and the mobilisation of societal actors beyond the national boundaries on European level. The European impact on the governmental logic also corresponds with an extremely fragile process of consolidation of democracy in Turkey. However, Turkish democracy is still fragile and far from being consolidated. In this context, the paper argues that a successful process of consolidation of democracy is conditioned by three factors: (1) a moderation of the demands of the social forces in the country; (2) a governmental strategy based on the accommodation of these demands with a tolerant political perspective; and (3) a serious engagement by the leading circles with the problems of governance in the country both in the centre and on the periphery.
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The paper examines four different cases in which performance measurement has been applied within a process of policy reform. The cases will demonstrate that a large variety of mechanisms may underlie the use of performance measurement instruments, ranging from institutional imitation to political pressures. They show that it is insufficient to study performance measurement problems merely from the classical principal-agent perspective, simply because governance systems frequently lack an institutionalised principal-agent relationship. One must travel down new avenues of research to understand this phenomenon more fully, a journey for which this paper provides some preliminary directions.
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The key issue in this paper is the success rate for local governments relating to drawing up policies pertaining to socially controversial issues that live up to the expectations of the central government. The question will be focused on an example of a socially controversial issue: the establishment of brothels. The paper presets results of a research into the policies drawn up by the municipal bodies during the last three years with respect to the establishment of brothels. A number of general conclusions are drawn concerning the manner in which the central government can provide guidance for the decentralisation of policy development for socially controversial issues.
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The unity of the people is a constitutional attribute that in most of the constitutions of the world has been given to the president, as the head of state. In order for the unity of the people to exist,and then to be represented by the president: a number of criteria or preconditions must be met. The paper addresses some aspects and preconditions that must be met by the president in representing the unity of the people. In principle, the unity of the people as the constitutional attribute of the president cannot be represented if it does not exist; therefore, the fulfillment of certain preconditions such as the legitimacy, personality, leadership and political impartiality of the president greatly strengthen the unity of the people and cultivate its representation.
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Informal institutions such as culture, trust, social relations, norms or values have a strong effect on countries’ development patterns, their role being enhanced in those states where formal institutions are poorly regulated. Therefore, in order to foster economic development, institutional change remains one of the core issues, and differs depending on the levels of social analysis. The current paper aims at outlining a general perspective regarding the relation between institutional efficiency and economic development within the European Union, with a specific focus on the Eastern member states of the European Union. These new members have similar development patterns and structural challenges, considering their shared communist past and inheritance which have left strong imprints on Eastern European societies and welfare. Overall, the paper argues that institutional efficiency is closely linked to the countries’ levels of prosperity, and consequently, to the manner in which their governments focus on development policies, especially in those countries that are economically and spatially more peripheral.
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The present paper explores the electoral geographies in the city of Cluj-Napoca atparliamentary election between 1992-2016. Using spatial statistics, the electoral geographic patternsare analyzed at a global level (the entire city) and at a local level (neighborhoods). The longitudinalperspective is placed in a context of political, economic and social changes experienced by ClujNapoca during the two and a half decades. The results show stable and consistent patterns throughoutthe entire period. However, there are also significant geographic realignments and shifting patterns ata local level. The results also depict a strong correlation between the political, economic and socialchanges and the urban electoral geographies of Cluj-Napoca.
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India is a country experiencing tremendous economic growth while its political ambitions are aiming higher and higher as well. The country is trying to increase its global power using resources and instruments of soft power. India is learning this art anew, using its rich culture and reaching back to its past traditions. References made to religious diversity and democracy are another powerful tool in the state arsenal. There has been a reorientation in foreign policy as well, which refocused on supporting the state’s economic development by seeking and maintaining good relations with foreign countries. Soft power instruments have grown in importance, especially as concerns culture and values, which combined with peaceful policies made for a truly great opportunity of using soft power.
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Performing public tasks as part of multi-level governance, municipal governments in Germany play the most vital role in the network system. As state bodies, they initiate and change the forms of coordination of collective actions. The main issue addressed in this paper is the use of a conceptual grid applied in the deconcentrated structure of public administration in Anglo-Saxon countries for the description of multilevel governance in decentralized forms of public administration. The main aim of this paper is to present how the concept of multi-level governance has been adapted to the specific character of German municipal government and what its essence is. The following research questions are asked to achieve the main aim: What is the difference in the genesis of governance in Germany in comparison to the tradition of Anglo-Saxon countries? How are public tasks performed within the framework of multi-level governance in Germany? What are the organizational and legal forms of performing public tasks? The paper was prepared following the assumptions of the new institutionalism. In order to present ways of performing public tasks in the concept of multi-level governance the functional method was used. This enabled the selection of those tasks that can be implemented by both local government units and self-governing business institutions. Additionally, the institutional method was used to show the specificity of cooperation between municipal governments and other public and private entities. The research on multi-level governance in Germany resulted in three conclusions providing the framework for this paper. Firstly, the emergence of multi-level governance in Germany has been based on top-down activities which occur between the federal states and municipalities. The creation of network systems results from the conviction of the state authorities that the implementation of public tasks is more effective in cooperation with private organizations which are moderated by regulatory entities. Secondly, before implementing multi-level governance on the local level, regional governance has been established at the level of the Lands, allowing the concept of governance to be adjusted to the specific requirements of a federal state. Thirdly, multi-level governance has been embedded in the structure of local government through a specific type of public task (Gemeinschaftsaufgaben).
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In the past few years in many countries people have experienced the erosion of trust in the main pillars of democracy, the voting and election systems. Many authors envisage the blockchain technology as a tool for restoration of trust (Tapscott 2016; Swislow 2016; Shin 2016). Our research is aimed at the potential use of blockchain technology in social systems for enhancing trust and increasing participation. We aim to explore whether the blockchain technology is suitable for voting or elections in large communities and the issues to be addressed for real world applications to leverage democratic rights. Our final conclusion is that there are both theoretical and practical obstacles in the way of such direct applications.
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The National Academic Exchange Agency (NAWA) is a government agency whose subjectmatter is the implementation of tasks defined by the laws for the system of science and highereducation. It has legal personality, and in international relations uses the name "Polish NationalAgency for Academic Exchange".Programs for the implementation of NAWA tasks are set by its Director. Such programs maybe participated by a natural person or legal entity, located in the broadly understood system ofscience and higher education. The principal right of these entities is applying for financing orco-financing the implementation of NAWA programs. The allocation of funds for the implementationof these programs takes place in an administrative procedure concluded with thedecision of the Agency Director. This procedure is preceded by a competition to select the bestoffer, which is subject to formal and substantive evaluation by independent experts of NAWA.For this purpose, a ranking list is established, and the entity located at the top of the rankinglist becomes the winner and, at the same time, the beneficiary of financial resources.The decision to grant or refuse to allocate funds for financing or co-financing the implementationof NAWA programs is a subject to verification by the means of remediation or a courtadministrativecomplaint. In the procedure for financing or co-financing programs implementingthe NAWA tasks, the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure are not applied. This proceeding is therefore placed in the circle of specific – declassified administrative proceedings.
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In interwar Romania, non-political institutions played a decisive role in the process of containing the expansion of totalitarian ideologies. The two major colliding ideological forces, National Socialism and Communism, rapidly reshaped the European sociopolitical profile after World War I and caused an unprecedented long-term deterioration of various intergovernmental relations. The Banat region was systematically exposed to external ideological factors due to the fact that its heterogeneous ethno-cultural profile allowed a rapid proliferation of political ideas and programs.
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In democratic regimes, the participation of citizens in the enforcement of political power constitutes the keystone of the legitimacy of sovereignty. Allowing and valuing the popular will in the political management of a country is necessary for the continuation of the legitimacy of sovereignty. Hence, political systems are still exploring the methods of establishing direct democracy in parallel to representative democracy. Referendum is a form of establishing direct democracy that is based on public votes on political and legal affairs. The legal organization of different kinds of direct democracy is explained in the constitutions. Among the methods of direct democracy, only referendums on the amendment of the constitution, political referendums, and legislative referendums have been recognized in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although a referendum on the establishment of the Islamic Republic political system and a referendum on the amendment of the Constitution have been held in the legal history of Iran, no legislative referendum has been conducted so far. Senior state officials may propose a referendum and referendums can be held on special and critically important occasions. Regarding the theocratic nature of the Iranian political system, the validity of referendums is contingent upon non-contradiction between the subject of the referendum and the principles of Islamic law. This article explores the legal dimensions of conducting referendums in the Iranian constitutional context with a descriptive-analytical approach.
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The relationship between Islam and democracy has always been discussed, it has become one of the subjects that are at the centre of a very wide interest not only in terms of science but also ideologically. Approaching to the issue, highlighted / desired to be highlighted features of democracy, it showed differences depending on the exhibited characteristics of Islam, thus, a very abundant democracy-Islam relation literature has been formed with different implicit assessments. In this literature, besides valuable studies, due to the sensitivity of the issue and being very convenient to the ideological exploitation, undoubtedly, quite superficial and sloganic studies also occupied a considerable place. Comparisons were also made on these issues and it is outside the subject of this article. According to us, while scrutinising islam and democracy relation, democracy, mostly, only a form, reduced to a form of management, its relation to modernity owing to its existence in its present sense, more precisely the projection feature of modernity in the political sphere is neglected. This neglect seems to be the biggest handicap for putting healthy ground the speech about the İslam and democracyTherefore, in this article, we will try to make this indispensable connection between modernity-democracy a comparison between Islam and democracy.
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In this article we aim to capture some resemblances and differences between European democratic monarchies and parliamentary republics, resorting to the comparative method of their Constitutions, in the case of Spain, a parliamentary monarchy, and of Italy, a parliamentary republic. As we know, in European states characterized by a parliamentary political regime, monarchies or republics, considerable importance is granted to the Parliament, and the head of state, the Monarch, is appointed by hereditary criteria and the President is, as a rule, elected by the Parliament. In most cases, the Parliament is bicameral in order to ensure a counterbalance aimed at ensuring the balance within the legislative power, and the Government is headed by a prime minister and is accountable to Parliament, which can withdraw the confidence it has vested in, if it assesses that he does not fulfill the mandate. Out of the constitutional elements under analysis, we will notice a series of characteristics common to states with a parliamentary regime, regardless of their form of government, monarchy or republic, but also some differences of substance or only hue, generated by historical, traditional or cultural considerations, which, of course, could be highlighted in more detail by extending the law-based analysis, without being limited to it. Moreover, like all European constitutional democracies, the analysed states have their constitutional text based on the values, principles and standards common to the European Administrative Space, recognized in the doctrine as “an evolutionary process of convergence.”
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Decentralisation seems to be the least controversial of all the post-Maidan reforms in Ukraine. Yet it is one that has directly affected a large number of citizens.
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The tax procedure comprises all the legal norms governing the activity of tax authorities and tax debtors in the revenue collection process. The tax obligation is a sum of money owed by a taxpayer that turns into revenue to the general government budget. In the field of the extinction of tax receivables, the general rule is voluntary extinction, the debtor making the payments. If, however, he fails to meet his tax obligations in the amount and within the period prescribed by the law, the creditor may resort to the means provided by law to force the debtor to execute his debt. In the forced execution procedure, the following subjects are involved: the state, as the creditor, the holder of some debt rights represented by the competent tax authorities; tax debtors, represented by a natural or legal person, as taxpayers; the payer of the tax obligation, a person who has the obligation stipulated by law to withhold and pay the obligation on behalf of the debtor. The ways of realizing the tax receivables in the forced execution process are: forced execution through indemnity; forced execution of movable goods; forced execution of immovable property (goods); forced execution of a set of goods; the forced execution of unruly fruits and crops harvested by roots. Tax authorities may use simultaneously or separately any of the above-mentioned execution modalities for the collection of funds to the state’s consolidated general budget.
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The purpose of the article is to explore the current state of the Romanian party system and its main parties in order to obtain a better understanding of Romania’s relevance within the EU as well as the positions it expresses on some of the main topics of the EU’s agenda. Based on classical approaches in literature on parties and party systems, such as Sartori’s taxonomy and indicators like electoral volatility or effective number of parties, the author provides an outlook on the evolution of the Romanian party system focused on the legislative changes that shaped the current dynamic. These factors had a direct impact on the outcome of the recent elections for the European Parliament in May 2019 and, foreseeably, on the results of the upcoming presidential elections in November 2019 as well as of the local and national elections in 2020. Romania is undergoing frequent changes in the legislation, often contradictory in nature. Therefore the future of the party system, as well as the faith in upcoming elections, remains uncertain.
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Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union in 2007. For both of them, the taking over of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union has represented a crucial moment. Two former communist countries, east-central countries, have been in charge of the Council of the European Union. The article attempts to present some perception of the French press on the presidencies of these two countries, which has engendered a series of results indicating a subjectively different approach towards the Romanian and the Bulgarian presidencies of the Council of the EU. While the former has been regarded from a critical standpoint in the light of the internal political context, a more constructive view has been adopted in the case of the latter.
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The general objective pursued through this research is to map out the main perspectives on the future of the European Union in the new legislature elected following the May 2019 elections, with regard to the main attitudes and preferences shaping the European citizens’ agenda for the 2019 EU elections. We aim to illustrate and interpret the main trends at European and national level, providing a better understanding of how citizens relate to the main challenges faced by the European Union. The secondary objective of the research is to highlight the impact of the rise of populism and extremism on the results of the elections organized in the 28 Member States.
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