Rebuilding Leviathan

Rebuilding Leviathan PDF Author: Anna Grzymala-Busse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464922
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 5

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Book Description
Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behaviour and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behaviour and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition.

Rebuilding Leviathan

Rebuilding Leviathan PDF Author: Anna Grzymala-Busse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464922
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 5

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behaviour and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behaviour and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition.

Liberal Leviathan

Liberal Leviathan PDF Author: G. John Ikenberry
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691156174
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
In the second half of the twentieth century, the United States engaged in the most ambitious and far-reaching liberal order building the world had yet seen. This liberal international order has been one of the most successful in providing security and prosperity to more people, but in the last decade the American-led order has been troubled. Some argue that the Bush administration undermined it. Others argue that we are witnessing he end of the American era. In Liberal Leviathan G. John Ikenberry argues that the crisis that besets the American-led order is a crisis of authority. The forces that have triggered this crisis have resulted from the successful functioning and expansion of the postwar liberal order, not its breakdown.

After Authoritarianism

After Authoritarianism PDF Author: Monika Nalepa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009075349
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Transitional justice – the act of reckoning with a former authoritarian regime after it has ceased to exist – has direct implications for democratic processes. Mechanisms of transitional justice have the power to influence who decides to go into politics, can shape politicians' behavior while in office, and can affect how politicians delegate policy decisions. However, these mechanisms are not all alike: some, known as transparency mechanisms, uncover authoritarian collaborators who did their work in secret while others, known as purges, fire open collaborators of the old regime. After Authoritarianism analyzes this distinction in order to uncover the contrasting effects these mechanisms have on sustaining and shaping the qualities of democratic processes. Using a highly disaggregated global transitional justice dataset, the book shows that mechanisms of transitional justice are far from being the epilogue of an outgoing authoritarian regime, and instead represent the crucial first chapter in a country's democratic story.

Public Finance and Post-Communist Party Development

Public Finance and Post-Communist Party Development PDF Author: Janis Ikstens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351907786
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
This key volume explores how party and campaign finance in post-communist countries have influenced the development of the party system. Based on an analysis of nine case studies, the work examines how the implementation of public finance affects the pattern of party competition and the role of money in elections. One of the lessons from the post-communist experience is that, no matter how well-designed, public finance systems are subject to constant revision as parties, politicians and business elites exploit loopholes which can undermine the integrity of the entire system. Party and campaign finance systems must therefore be considered in a larger discussion involving party regulation and electoral rules.

Creating Kosovo

Creating Kosovo PDF Author: Elton Skendaj
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 080147017X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In shaping the institutions of a new country, what interventions from international actors lead to success and failure? Elton Skendaj’s investigation into Kosovo, based on national survey data, interviews, and focus groups conducted over ten months of fieldwork, leads to some surprising answers. Creating Kosovo highlights efforts to build the police force, the central government, courts, and a customs service. Skendaj finds that central administration and the courts, which had been developed under local authority, succumbed to cronyism and corruption, challenging the premise that local "ownership" leads to more effective state bureaucracies. The police force and customs service, directly managed by international actors, were held to a meritocratic standard, fulfilling their missions and winning public respect. On the other hand, local participation and contestation supported democratic institutions. When international actors supported the demobilization of popular movements, they undermined the ability of the public to hold elected officials accountable.

Corruption as a Last Resort

Corruption as a Last Resort PDF Author: Kelly M. McMann
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801454905
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Why do ordinary people engage in corruption? Kelly M. McMann contends that bureaucrats, poverty, and culture do not force individuals in Central Asia to pay bribes, use connections, or sell political support. Rather, corruption is a last resort when relatives, groups in society, the market, and formal government programs cannot provide essential goods and services. Using evidence from her long-term research in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, McMann shows that Islamic institutions, secular charities, entrepreneurs, and banks cannot provide the jobs and credit people need. This drives individuals to illicitly seek employment and loans from government officials.A leading cause of this resource scarcity is market reform, as demonstrated by McMann's analysis of these countries as well as of Uzbekistan and global data. Market reform without supporting institutions, such as credit registries and antimonopoly measures, limits the resources available from the market and societal groups. McMann finds that in these circumstances only those individuals who have affluent relatives have an alternative to corruption.By focusing on ordinary people, McMann offers a new understanding of corruption. Previously, our knowledge was largely restricted to government officials' role in illicit exchanges. From her novel approach comes a useful policy insight: supplying ordinary people with alternatives to corruption is a fundamental and important anticorruption strategy.

Structural Origins of Post-Yugoslav Regimes

Structural Origins of Post-Yugoslav Regimes PDF Author: Valentina Petrović
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040129749
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This analysis of the Yugoslav democratisation process explains the variation of regime outcomes within a structuralist framework. Focusing on the post‐socialist world, it goes beyond ethnicity and elite agency to bring the role of class and the state into discussions of third wave democracies. Offering an in‐depth study of four post‐Yugoslav cases and relying on extensive field work, it examines how civil society, state structures and elite agency influence the trajectories of Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia after the end of socialism. The analysis also considers the impact of the European Union on domestic conditions. The author argues that no single factor explains the occurrence of democracy. It is instead the result of the combination of an autonomous civil society, a non‐captured state and ruling elites willing to implement democratic reforms. Concomitant with this, the analysis provides evidence that the only sufficient condition for the occurrence of democracy is non‐captured state structures. State capacity, therefore, plays a central role in democratisation. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, the EU and democratisation, as well as to policymakers and nongovernmental organisations.

State Erosion

State Erosion PDF Author: Lawrence P. Markowitz
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801469465
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
State failure is a central challenge to international peace and security in the post-Cold War era. Yet theorizing on the causes of state failure remains surprisingly limited. In State Erosion, Lawrence P. Markowitz draws on his extensive fieldwork in two Central Asian republics—Tajikistan, where state institutions fragmented into a five-year civil war from 1992 through 1997, and Uzbekistan, which constructed one of the largest state security apparatuses in post-Soviet Eurasia—to advance a theory of state failure focused on unlootable resources, rent seeking, and unruly elites. In Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and other countries with low capital mobility—where resources cannot be extracted, concealed, or transported to market without state intervention—local elites may control resources, but they depend on patrons to convert their resources into rents. Markowitz argues that different rent-seeking opportunities either promote the cooptation of local elites to the regime or incite competition over rents, which in turn lead to either cohesion or fragmentation. Markowitz distinguishes between weak states and failed states, challenges the assumption that state failure in a country begins at the center and radiates outward, and expands the “resource curse” argument to include cash crop economies, where mechanisms of state failure differ from those involved in fossil fuels and minerals. Broadening his argument to weak states in the Middle East (Syria and Lebanon) and Africa (Zimbabwe and Somalia), Markowitz shows how the distinct patterns of state failure in weak states with immobile capital can inform our understanding of regime change, ethnic violence, and security sector reform.

Central and Eastern Europe After Transition

Central and Eastern Europe After Transition PDF Author: Wojciech Sadurski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131716900X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
How have national identities changed, developed and reacted in the wake of transition from communism to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe? Central and Eastern Europe After Transition defines and examines new autonomous differences adopted at the state and the supranational level in the post-transitional phase of the post-Communist area, and considers their impact on constitutions, democracy and legal culture. With representative contributions from older and newer EU members, the book provides a broad set of cultural points for reference. Its comparative and interdisciplinary approach includes a useful selection of bibliographical resources specifically devoted to the Central Eastern European countries' transitions.

The Governance Cycle in Parliamentary Democracies

The Governance Cycle in Parliamentary Democracies PDF Author: Scott de Marchi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009315463
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Parliamentary democracy involves a never-ending cycle of elections, government formations, and the need for governments to survive in potentially hostile environments. These conditions require members of any government to make decisions on a large number of issues, some of which sharply divide them. Officials resolve these divisions by 'logrolling'– conceding on issues they care less about, in exchange for reciprocal concessions on issues to which they attach more importance. Though realistically modeling this 'governance cycle' is beyond the scope of traditional formal analysis, this book attacks the problem computationally in two ways. Firstly, it models the behavior of “functionally rational” senior politicians who use informal decision heuristics to navigate their complex high stakes setting. Secondly, by applying computational methods to traditional game theory, it uses artificial intelligence to model how hyper-rational politicians might find strategies that are close to optimal.