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202. Serbia After Djindjic: Can Invigorated Reforms Be Sustained?
- Author:
- Vladimir Matic
- Publication Date:
- 10-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Public International Law Policy Group
- Abstract:
- The assassinated prime minister of Serbia, Zoran Djindjic, appears to have won in death much of what he could not achieve in life. His concept of Serbia's way out of the domestic political and economic crisis through reform and membership in a democratic Europe has prevailed over one representing the past; Serbia is finally open to cooperation with the world. But the national consensus he was dreaming about does not yet exist. The prevalence and reach of networks of organized crime and corruption limit prospects for significant further structural change and more serious consolidation of the rule of law. The Serbian people have put aside for the moment their infatuation with radical nationalism rather than exorcising it from their society and intellectual culture. The success of such reform as has been implemented is far from secured. For the time being the joint efforts of the leading pro-democratization parties of Serbia and Montenegro have brought about the beginning of long-postponed changes in the army and initiated far-reaching reforms. This allows continuation of reforms in Serbian services and strengthening of the basic institutions of democracy. If continued, expanded and intensified, this course will take both Serbia and Montenegro irrespective of the final destiny of their Union closer to democracy and to the European Union and the United States.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Serbia
203. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: How the US-EU Battle over Article 98 Played Out in Croatia and Macedonia
- Author:
- Kristina Balalovska and Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski
- Publication Date:
- 09-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Wilson Center
- Abstract:
- In the first half of 2003, postcommunist East European countries became pawns in two disputes between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). The first, broadly covered by the Western media, was the clash over the US-led invasion of Iraq. The second was over the jurisdiction of the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the latter skirmish was less noticed in the wider world, it was in many ways the more significant of the two. In both cases, the small states of East and Central Europe were forced to choose between the conflicting demands of the EU and US. Unlike the battle over the Iraq war, EU member states were united on the point of not granting the US immunity in the ICC. Moreover, it was impossible to walk a tightrope between Europe and the US in the ICC case because it required decisive action, whereas on the question of whether or not to invade Iraqi, some postcommunist countries were able to lend tacit support to both sides. Finally, a lot more was at stake in the ICC issue, since both the US and the EU threatened defecting countries with concrete sanctions.
- Topic:
- Government, International Organization, Politics, War, and Sanctions
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Europe, and Macedonia
204. War in Iraq: Managing Humanitarian Relief
- Publication Date:
- 03-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- The impassioned controversy that surrounded the decision to invade Iraq had the unfortunate consequence of impeding coordination of humanitarian relief operations. Now that the war has begun, it is important to deal with the urgent task of meeting the needs of the Iraqi people. That will require steps by those who were opposed to the war, in particular European governments and NGOs, to agree to work in close coordination with the United States and put their plans and their funding on the table. And it will require steps by the United States to eschew a dominant role in the post-conflict humanitarian effort and hand coordination over to the United Nations.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Human Welfare, Non-Governmental Organization, Politics, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Europe, and Arabia
205. Georgia: What Now?
- Publication Date:
- 12-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Georgia's political crisis, which climaxed in the forced resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze on 23 November 2003, is not over yet and could still lead to violence and the country's disintegration. Georgia, in other words, is still pre-conflict, not post- conflict, and exceptional international action is required to contain the potential for chaos. Washington, which quietly supported what U.S. media called the “Rose Revolution”, has promised aid for organisation of the presidential election on 4 January 2004, as has the European Union; other donors should follow suit, and the international community should maintain this support through the equally important and potentially more contentious legislative elections in the spring.
- Topic:
- Government, Human Rights, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Washington, and Georgia
206. Moldova: No Quick Fix
- Publication Date:
- 08-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- The conflict in the Transdniestrian region of the Republic of Moldova is not as charged with ethnic hatred and ancient grievances as others in the area of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and it is more conducive to a sustainable settlement. However, a "quick fix" in 2003, as envisaged by the Dutch Chairmanship of the OSCE, is also unlikely. To reach the sustainable agreement that is required if the forthcoming European Union (EU) enlargement is not to be compromised by a nearly open border with international crime and serious poverty, a comprehensive approach is needed that takes into account the root causes of the original conflict and the factors that have blocked the settlement process since 1992.
- Topic:
- Politics, Regional Cooperation, and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Moldova, and Eastern Europe
207. Bosnia's Nationalist Governments: Paddy Ashdown And The Paradoxes Of State Building
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- The return of the nationalist parties to power after the October 2002 general elections in Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH) was widely assessed as a calamity. Some observers went so far as to claim that it signified the failure of the international peace-building mission over the previous seven years. But the new High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, refused to be downcast. Not only was the nationalists' victory narrow, but he was confident he could work with them if they proved faithful to their pre-election pledges to embrace the reform agenda he had been charting since taking office in May 2002. This agenda seeks to make up for lost time: implementing the economic, legal and governance reforms required both to make BiH a prosperous, lawful and peaceable state and to set the country on track for European integration. Lord Ashdown aims to put himself out of a job by putting BiH on the road to the EU.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Eastern Europe
208. Thessaloniki And After III: The EU And Serbia, Montenegro, And Kosovo
- Publication Date:
- 06-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Since the fall of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000, the steady normalisation of Serbia's relations with the international community has significantly enhanced the prospects for longterm peace and stability. The European Union (EU) rose to the challenge, providing resources for reconstruction and reforms in Serbia itself, as well as in Montenegro and Kosovo. As part of this assistance effort, it included the three entities in the Stabilisation and Association process (SAp) that it established to build security in the Western Balkans and open perspectives for eventual membership.
- Topic:
- Development and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro
209. Thessaloniki And After II: The EU And Bosnia
- Publication Date:
- 06-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Afflicted still by the physical, psychological and political wounds of war, and encumbered by the flawed structures imposed by the international community to implement peace, Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter: Bosnia) is not yet capable of plotting a strategy or undertaking the measures likely to win it membership in the European Union (EU). Yet the government announced on 10 April 2003 that its major policy goal is to join the EU in 2009, in the blind faith that the processes of European integration will themselves provide Bosnia with remedies for its wartime and post-war enfeeblement. The Thessaloniki summit meeting between the heads of state or government of the EU members and the Western Balkan states to be held on 21 June is likely to throw some cold water on their ambitions.
- Topic:
- Development and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Eastern Europe, and Balkans
210. Thessaloniki And After I: The EU's Balkan Agenda
- Publication Date:
- 06-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- The EU-Western Balkans Summit to be held in Thessaloniki on 21 June runs a real risk of discouraging reformers and increasing alienation in the Balkans, unless European policies towards the region are substantially enriched.
- Topic:
- Development and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, and Balkans
211. Executive Leadership and the Role of “Veto Players” in the United States and Germany
- Author:
- Ludger Helms
- Publication Date:
- 10-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- In recent comparative works on the constitutional structures of contemporary liberal democracies, the United States and Germany have been grouped together as examples of democratic systems with an exceptionally high degree of “institutional pluralism”. In other typologies both countries have even been classified as “semisovereign democracies”. Whereas such classifications are of some use, especially in the field of public policy research, they fail to pay reasonable attention to the fundamental difference between parliamentary and presidential government that dominated the older literature on comparative political systems. As the comparative assessments offered in this paper suggest, the difference between parliamentary government and presidential government does not only constitute very different conditions of executive leadership in the core executive territory and at the level of executive-legislative relations, but has also a strong impact on the role and performance of the various “veto players” that characterize the political systems of the United States and Germany, and which are at the center of this paper.
- Topic:
- Government and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Germany
212. European Corporate Governance Reform and the German Party Paradox
- Author:
- Martin Höpner
- Publication Date:
- 08-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This paper addresses the current discussion on links between party politics and production regimes. Why do German Social Democrats opt for more corporate governance liberalization than the CDU although, in terms of the distributional outcomes of such reforms, one would expect the situation to be reversed? I divide my analysis into three stages. First, I use the European Parliament's crucial vote on the European takeover directive in July 2001 as a test case to show that the left-right dimension does indeed matter in corporate governance reform, beside cross-class and cross-party nation-based interests. In a second step, by analyzing the party positions in the main German corporate governance reforms in the 1990s, I show that the SPD and the CDU behave “paradoxically” in the sense that the SPD favored more corporate governance liberalization than the CDU, which protected the institutions of “Rhenish,” “organized” capitalism. This constellation occurred in the discussions on company disclosure, management accountability, the power of banks, network dissolution, and takeover regulation. Third, I offer two explanations for this paradoxical party behavior. The first explanation concerns the historical conversion of ideas. I show that trade unions and Social Democrats favored a high degree of capital organization in the Weimar Republic, but this ideological position was driven in new directions at two watersheds: one in the late 1940s, the other in the late 1950s. My second explanation lies in the importance of conflicts over managerial control, in which both employees and minority shareholders oppose managers, and in which increased shareholder power strengthens the position of works councils.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Germany
213. Elements for a Structural Constructivist Theory of Politics and of European Integration
- Author:
- Niilo Kauppi
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Pierre Bourdieu's structural constructivist theory of politics offers powerful instruments for a critical analysis of political power. In this paper, I explore structural constructivism as a theory of politics and of European integration. By structural constructivism I refer to a mostly French research tradition that develops some of Bourdieu's theoretical tools. In European studies, social constructivism has provided an alternative to traditional approaches such as intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism. Structural constructivism remedies some of the weaknesses of most versions of social constructivism, such as their diffuse conception of power and ideational notion of culture. This paper develops a structural constructivist approach that examines the European Union as a multileveled and polycentric emerging political field.
- Topic:
- International Organization and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
214. Does the process really matter? Some reflections on the "legitimating effect" of the European Convention
- Author:
- Paul Magnette
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The European Convention, set up by the Heads of state and governments during the Laeken Summit of December 2001, was presented by its initiators as a means of strengthening the legitimacy of the EU. Is this a rhetorical argument of politicians, which could be explained by the intense electoral cycle of 2002- 2004? Or is there something, in the process of the Convention, that could change the nature of the EU constitution?
- Topic:
- International Organization and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
215. Portugese Ministers, 1851-1999: Social Background and Paths to Power
- Author:
- Pedro Tavares de Almeida and António Costa Pinto
- Publication Date:
- 05-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of regime changes in the composition and patterns of recruitment of the Portuguese ministerial elite throughout the last 150 years. The 'out-of-type', violent nature of most regime transformations accounts for the purges in and the extensive replacements of the political personnel, namely of the uppermost officeholders. In the case of Cabinet members, such discontinuities did not imply, however, radical changes in their social profile. Although there were some significant variations, a series of salient characteristics have persisted over time. The typical Portuguese minister is a male in his midforties, of middle-class origin and predominantly urban-born, highly educated and with a state servant background. The two main occupational contingents have been university professors - except for the First Republic (1910-26) - and the military, the latter having only recently been eclipsed with the consolidation of contemporary democracy. As regards career pathways, the most striking feature is the secular trend for the declining role of parliamentary experience, which the democratic regime did not clearly reverse. In this period, a technocratic background rather than political experience has been indeed the privileged credential for a significant proportion of ministers.
- Topic:
- Government and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
216. Ministerial Elites in Greece, 1843-2001: A Synthesis of Old Sources and New Data
- Author:
- Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos and Dimitris Bourikos
- Publication Date:
- 05-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The study of Greek political elites used to be concentrated on parliamentary deputies. Ministerial elites were rarely studied. In this paper, we take a long-term view of the Greek ministerial elites, studying their socio-political profile from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. We find that this profile does not change so much with regime change, but instead follows political developments at certain time points within specific regime periods. At these points, new political leaders were ushered into power. Examples were Eleftherios Venizelos in 1911 and Andreas Papandreou in 1981. Changes in personnel were not accompanied by changes in geographical origin or professional outlook, which took much longer to effect. In the nineteenth century mainly landowners and state officials dominated cabinets. After the beginning of the twentieth century, however, liberal professions, particularly lawyers, were overrepresented among ministers. This pattern continued throughout the twentieth century. Both the predominance of lawyers and the changes in the profile of ministers over time are attributed to the type of state built in modern Greece, a clientelist, overcentralized and legalistic state which only recently has started its transformation, requiring a different, more modern type of politician.
- Topic:
- Government, Nationalism, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Greece
217. What Ever Happened to Portuguese Euroscepticism? The Depolicitization of Europe and its Consequences
- Author:
- Pedro C. Magalhães
- Publication Date:
- 11-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- In the following sections, I will argue that although opinions about Portuguese membership in the EU have ceased to play a crucial role both in party appeals and electoral behavior, that is not the case in what concerns their impact on other forms of political behavior and attitudes. More specifically, I will suggest that the decline in electoral turnout currently experienced in Portugal, particularly since 1995, cannot be fully understood with exploring the combination between resilient Euroscepticism among a minority of the population and the depoliticization of Europe at the level of political élites. Furthermore, I will also suggest that, under the present conditions, anti-Europeanism may have developed into a more permanent and disturbing set of political attitudes of mistrust in, and disengagement from, domestic political institutions.
- Topic:
- Political Economy and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Portugal
218. Analyser les modes de représentation des intérêts dans l'Union européenne : construction d'une problématique
- Author:
- Sabine Saurugger
- Publication Date:
- 06-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- This article presents conceptual tools to analyse interest representation in the European Union. On the European level, no formal system of representation can be found, but rather a patchwork of representation modes. These modes are influenced by forms of political exchange specific for each country and each political domain, which interact with opportunity structures at the European level. Analysing interest representation in a system of governance, either national, European or international requires taking into account the relations which link interest groups with political and bureaucratic actors at the national level, acknowledging the changes in these relations and to insert all that in a system of governance where actors must find solutions to problems in the management of public policies and not to forget political power games and hierarchies amongst actors. The first part of the article analyses briefly the development of interest group studies in comparative politics as well as in international relations and presents the attempts to systematize these studies undertaken since the 1990. In the second part, I analyse more specifically the network approach, which allows to overcome the cleavage between pluralism and neocorporatism in the study of the relationships between interest groups and state actors. In presenting a critical analysis of the general ideas of the network approach, I propose specific conceptual instruments helping to structure research on interest groups in the European Union.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Development, Politics, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
- Political Geography:
- Europe
219. CERI: New Perspectives on EU-Member State Relationships
- Author:
- Simon Bulmer and Christian Lequesne
- Publication Date:
- 01-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- This paper aims to review the "state of the art" for examining EU-member state relations. It recognises first of all that EU-member state relationships are interactive. Member states are key actors in making EU policy, and their role in this process is central to policy-making studies. However, European integration has an important impact upon the member states: the phenomenon that has come to be termed Europeanization. We review the literatures concerned with these two directions of flow: the analytical issues raised and the theoretical perspectives deployed. We then turn to the empirical literature on EU-member state relationships, and how it operationalises the theoretical literatures (if at all). This empirical literature tends to be organised in two ways: individual or comparative studies of member states' relationships with the EU; or studies of the impact of the EU on types of political actor/institution or on policy areas/sectors. We review both these literatures. On the basis of the identified strengths and weaknesses in the different literatures examined, we suggest a research agenda for future theoretical and empirical work.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Politics, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
- Political Geography:
- Europe
220. National-Cultural Autonomies and Interethnic Relations in the Kaliningrad Oblast
- Author:
- Priit Järve
- Publication Date:
- 03-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues
- Abstract:
- This workshop was organized and fully sponsored by ECMI in collaboration with the Kaliningrad Oblast Duma as a follow-up of the ECMI Roundtable meeting “Migration and Forced Migration in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia”, which took place in Flensburg from 22 to 23 June 2001.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe