Post-communist EU Member States Research Articles

Institutions or ideology? Cross-party and cross-country analysis of factors contributing to the election of women to the European Parliament

Abstract The article examines the key factors influencing women’s electoral success in European Parliament (EP) elections. We present a new conceptual approach and a novel model that simultaneously incorporates trends in party characteristics, institutional and socio-economic factors and cross-country trends in women’s representation. The model provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationships between party-level and Member State-level factors and the election of women to the EP. The study is based on an original dataset of 450 observations on national political parties from all Member States, spanning four European elections from 2004 to 2019. Our results show that party characteristics such as incumbency rates, party size and ideological orientations (i.e. the party’s position on the GAL-TAN scale or its attitude towards European integration) play a key role in shaping women’s representation. This article provides novel insights into the unique features of Central and Eastern Europe, elucidating divergent patterns of women’s electoral prospects in conservative and progressive parties in Western democracies and Central and Eastern European post-communist EU Member States.

Between Stale Stability and Dynamic Contestation

Abstract This article uses national survey data, quantitative party system indicators, as well as manifesto data to assess the proposition whether the Croatian party system is indeed one of the most stable systems among post-communist EU member states. The analysis spans three decades and focuses on changes after EU accession and confirms long-term stability of the Croatian party system. However, after the 2015 election, there was a decline in the popularity of the two major parties – Christian Democrats (hdz) and Social Democrats (sdp), and an emergence of several challenger parties – the center-right populist Bridge, which favors institutional reform and decentralization, the Eurosceptic, populist, and nationalist Homeland Movement, and We Can!, a green-left coalition of academics and environmentalists. In addition, the observed party system change was accompanied by a rise in civic referendum initiatives around bioethical issues such as sex education and same-sex marriage.

Mlékárenský průmysl v Evropské unii: Skupinové shlukování zemí v období před a po zrušení mléčných kvót

The European Union dairy processing sector has an important position and role in processing food and drinks in EU28 concerning the share of turnover, value-added, and employment. Its products belong to the most imported and exported items, mainly in EU countries. The article aims to evaluate the competitiveness of the EU milk market with respect to pre- and post-milk quota elimination periods. In addition, the paper identifies similar characteristics of the EU dairy sector, including milk production and processing. Eurostat and FAOstat data from 2008-2018 were used. Based on the clustering of k-means, five groups of EU countries were distinguished. The clustering analysis reveals that the post-communist EU member states are characterised by similar levels of dairy processing industry characteristics. In addition, the article shows that the competitiveness of the dairy processing industry is higher in the old EU member states (Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom). The results indicate that the abolishment of the milk quota has not induced visible changes in the clustering of characteristics of the dairy processing industry in EU countries.

Corruption, Taxation and the Impact on the Shadow Economy

While assessing the economic impacts of corruption, the corruption-related transmission channels which influence taxation as such have to be duly considered. Taking the example of the Czech Republic, this article aims to evaluate the impacts corruption has on the size of the shadow economy as well as on the individual sources of long-term economic growth, making use of a transmission channel through which corruption affects the tax burden components. Using the method of an extended DSGE model, it confirms the initial assumption that an increase in perceived corruption supports the shadow economy’s growth, but at the same time, it demonstrates that corruption and especially its perception has a significantly different effect on two key areas—the capital accumulation and the labour force size. It further identifies another sector of the economy representing taxes which are prone to tax evasion while asserting that corruption has a much more destructive effect on this sector of the economy, offering generalized implications for other post-communist EU member states in a similar situation.

Distributional effects of foreign versus domestic investment: Evidence from post-communist EU member states

The paper provides insight into the relationship between foreign and domestic investment, and its effect on income distribution in the post-communist EU member states. The analysis is conducted using the general method of moment (GMM) estimator on panel data of the 10 Central and Eastern European (CEE) new member states from 1993-2017. The results reveal that a greater level of foreign direct investments (FDI) contributed to eliminating the negative effects of domestic investment on income distribution, particularly mass layoffs and the transfer of wealth into the hands of a small economic and political elite. It leads to the conclusion that FDI has played a significant role in reducing income inequality and rebuilding the middle class in the post-communist EU member states.

New Politics of Morality in Central and Eastern Europe : Actors, Discourse, and Context

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have recently witnessed a surge in protest, mobilisation, and debates about marriage, abortion, gender, and feminism. This politics of morality has been notably more successful in the East than in the West of Europe: Most CEE countries have legally or even constitutionally precluded any chance of adopting same-sex marriage, some have rejected the Istanbul agreement, and many parliaments have debated “gender” in a hostile manner. The rising conservative voice in politics appears to signal a sort of illiberal, conservative turn in post-Communist EU member states. This article intends aims to explore the phenomenon of morality politics in itself, that is looking at the actors, strategies, discourse, and the contexts of individual types of mobilisations. Identifying contextual and transnational factors of the relative success of morality politics in CEE allows to avoid the sole perspective of a culturalist explanation and to analyse the instrumental nature of morality mobilisations.

A free lunch from the EU? Public perceptions of corruption in cohesion policy expenditure in post-communist EU member states

ABSTRACT Under the EU’s cohesion policy, post-communist member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are amongst the largest recipients of European Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds. This article focuses on popular narratives of corruption and abuse in the allocation of the funds in the ‘new’ member states. Specifically, it aims to investigate how citizens perceive and evaluate the origins and motivations of the EU for providing the funds, the abuse affecting these resources, and who they blame for the misuse, relying on focus group discussions in Hungary, Romania and Slovenia. Popular narratives indicate that citizens perceive cohesion policy implementation as intertwined with grand corruption. While national political elites are considered as the main culprit, EU institutions are also seen as failing in their duties. These findings are significant because perceived EU inaction against grand corruption undermines notions of European solidarity and damages the EU’s credibility and legitimacy.

The Influence of Contextual and Individual Factors on Entrepreneurial Intentions among Youth in Transitional Rural Slovakia

The reduction of out-migration and supporting new job creation are important goals for regional and rural development policies among post-communist EU member states, including Slovakia. Hence, policy makers and educators are interested in studies targeting factors that influence entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and activity in rural areas. This study reveals (i) some of the factors influencing EI among final-year students in a high school environment and (ii) the possible implementation of our results in educational policy. Data were collected in high schools located in three rural Slovakian regions: Banská Bystrica, Prešov, and Žilina. The main findings are that former policy discouraging entrepreneurship left a post-communist generation almost without an entrepreneurial background, and this was reflected in the lack of importance given to creativity and living in an entrepreneurial environment in relation to the EI of Slovakian youth. This could be caused by necessity-driven EI whereby financial motives for self-employment dominate individual interests and preferences. On the other hand, leadership and proactive personality as career anchors, and perceived support from family and friends, are prominent factors explaining EI among these young people. These factors, together with supporting and building a desire for autonomy and creativity, should be developed principally within entrepreneurship education for pupils at high schools in the Slovakian regions investigated.

On Innovative Activities in Europe’s Post-Communist Countries

The post-Communist EU member states are mainly sites for gathering old technologies while new technologies are mainly used in Western European countries. The deficit of new technologies is even more severe in Eastern Partnership states and the Russia Federation.

Scientific publication performance in post-communist countries: still lagging far behind

We present a bibliometric comparison of publication performance in 226 scientific disciplines in the Web of Science (WoS) for six post-communist EU member states relative to six EU-15 countries of a comparable size. We compare not only overall country-level publication counts, but also high quality publication output where publication quality is inferred from the journal Article Influence Scores. As of 2010---2014, post-communist countries are still lagging far behind their EU counterparts, with the exception of a few scientific disciplines mainly in Slovenia. Moreover, research in post-communist countries tends to focus relatively more on quantity rather than quality. The relative publication performance of post-communist countries in the WoS is strongest in natural sciences and engineering. Future research is needed to reveal the underlying causes of these performance differences, which may include funding and productivity gaps, the historical legacy of the communist ideology, and Web of Science coverage differences.

EU accession and party competition in post-communist Romania

This paper examines the impact of the EU on party competition in post-communist Romania by testing Robert Ladrech’s model for the Europeanization of Central and East European party systems. It argues that, although it certainly holds true for a variety of post-communist cases, Ladrech’s model has a very limited explanatory power in the Romanian case after accession, for two reasons. First, the post-accession period has seen further institutionalization of the party system through the gradual disappearance of the extreme-right from within the ranks of parliamentary parties, and through increased competition between established parties on the centre-left and the centre-right of the political spectrum. Second, there has been little change in parties’ stances on European integration. Thus, Romanian formations’ consensus on the benefits of EU membership has continued to exist in the period after accession, while conflicts over the EU’s socio-economic acquis, such as those emerging in Poland and the Czech Republic, have failed to materialize. The main explanation for this situation is the fact that Romania continues to be subject to monitoring in the form of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, which has essentially extended the EU’s conditionality into the post-accession period. Given continued monitoring by the European Commission, the distinction between the impact of the EU before and after accession is therefore less clear-cut in Romania’s case than in the case of other post-communist EU member states.

A Success Story? Happiness in the New Post-Communist EU Member States

Ten of the post-communist countries managed to integrate into EU. Which are the subjective outcomes of socio-economic transformations in these countries? Did they manage to increase their citizens’ happiness in this process? To give an answer to these questions I used data from Candidate Countries Eurobarometer (2001-2004), Standard Eurobarometers (2005-2007), and World Bank Development Indicators. Developments in average national happiness have been compared with the economic (GDP, optimism concerning the level of living) and political (satisfaction with democracy) trends on the same time span. In all the studied societies, trends were positive after 2001. Eastern European countries showed higher increases in GNI per capita and also life satisfaction than in the rest of European Union. Those who started with lower levels increased more, strongly suggesting a possibility of convergence. A non-economic factor, satisfaction with democracy, mediates the influence of GNI on life satisfaction. Overall, access of Eastern European countries in European Union seems to be a success story, from both economic and non-economic points of view. However, the economic crisis may change the prognosis, raising the issue of sustainability of growth in happiness levels.

National determinants of international preferences in post-communist Europe: The case of Slovakia in the European Union

This paper shows that the dominant theory of European integration, the liberal inter-governmentalism, contains several assumptions about the process and character of national preference formation that may not be fully met in the post-communist EU member states. It argues that the primacy of economic and societal interests in influencing positions of national governments should not be taken for granted. Using Slovakia as an example, it demonstrates the autonomy of political and bureaucratic actors and importance of their preferences. It is also argued that ideational and exogenous factors should not be left out in constructing a realistic framework of national preference formation.

European Integration of Postcommunist States: Safe Future or Evolutionary Trap?

The article discusses the complexities of postcommunist transformation of Central and Eastern European states and their further development in the European Union. First of all, the author considers the phenomenon of postcommunist transformation, its internal logic and causes that determined different paths of postcommunist countries' development. Later the attention is focused on the development of postcommunist states that have entered the EU. The most important challenges for these countries that have chosen the path of European integration are singled out. It is evaluated how these challenges have been dealt with since the entry to the EU. Although the main focus of article is the whole region, the situation of Lithuania is analyzed in more detail. Judging from the present trends, one may conclude that the latter country (along with some other postcommunist EU member states) may remain in an economic periphery of Europe distinguished by political instability, distrust of political institutions and increasing "social deficit."

Post-Communist EU Member States, Parties and Party Systems by Susanne Jungerstam-Mulders (review)

l68 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2OO9 rather than seeking to replicate or copy Western models, and this clearly appealed also to Civilizationists. Tsygannkov concludes his book by arguing that Putin's Great Power Pragmatism has been farmore successful than the approaches taken by his immediate predecessors in providing positive outcomes in the four realms noted above. A final chapter summarizes the findings of the book and offers some 'lessons' both forRussia and the West. An excellent book. Political Science Peter Shearman Universityof Melbourne Jungerstam-Mulders, Susanne (ed.). Post-Communist EU Member States,Parties and PartySystems. Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2006. xiii + 257 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. ?50.00. Thanks to its association with a central organ of the Communist state, the very word party was shunned by some of the leading political actors in the heady days of 1989-1991. Indeed, a number of key political groupings were labelled movements or forums eschewing use of the 'p'word. Nonetheless, as the states of Central and Eastern Europe began to tackle the challenges of post-Communism these broad-based anti-regime groupings soon fractured and were pushed to the edge of the political stage by newly created political parties. Nearly two decades after the 1989 revolutions and following accession into theEU, what is the state of party politics inCentral and Eastern Europe? How are parties organized? What are themajor dividing lines of politics? Moreover, how does party politics in the new EU Member states compare and contrast to themore established democracies in Western Europe? To address these questions Susanne Jungerstam-Mulders has assembled an impressive team of scholars, blending together both more established academ ics such as Zsolt Enyedi and Aleks Szczerbiak with rising stars such asMarek Rybaf. Sandwiched between a region-wide introduction and conclusion, Post-Communist EU Member States,Parties and Party Systemscontains a series of country chapters devoted to each of the 2004 EU entrants fromCentral and Eastern Europe. The volume highlights some strikingdifferences across the region.Whereas in Latvia, for instance, almost every election has been marked by a new party emerging from almost nowhere to claim a significant slice of the vote only todisintegrate tovirtually nothing by the time of the subsequent election, the story of party politics inHungary since 1989 can largely be told with reference to the names of just seven parties. Nonetheless, there are also striking similarities. Parties across the region tend to be anchored weakly in society. Indeed, weak linksbetween parties and their electorates appear to be a key factor in explaining high electoral volatility, party instability and low turnout.Moreover, in a book devoted to new EU Member States it isnotice able that in all of these cases European integration has not been a major issue divide, largely because the overwhelming majority of significant political parties agreed on the goal of entry. REVIEWS 169 Much of the interestingdiscussion in the book centres on the issueswhich divide and animate politics. In contrast tomany of the predictions made by comparative political scientists in the mid-1990s that socio-economic issues would come to dominate, they have turned out to have been secondary to a historical-cultural divide. Indeed, in Poland, Hungary and many other states in the region theCommunist past appears to remain at the heart of political divisions. In the Lithuanian case, for instance, Ramonaite asserts that the 'main explanatory factor of voting behaviour' is 'thevoters' evaluation of the Soviet past' (p. 77).Nonetheless, Kopecky's contribution highlights the salience of socio-economic issues in Czech party politics. Although not explicitly mentioned by the contributors, the explanation for the difference between the Czech Republic on the one hand and Poland and Hungary on the othermay have much to do with the countries' different exits fromCommunism. This last point highlights the biggest weakness of the volume. Despite the impressive array of analysis and data in the country-chapters there is a lack of comparative analysis seeking to explain how and why individual cases are similar or different to others. Rybaf, for example, raises some fascinating points about old and new parties in Slovakia showing how they are not just organized differently,but have also developed contrasting strategies,with the former...

Learning from the West? Policy Transfer and Programmatic Change in the Communist Successor Parties of Eastern and Central Europe by D. Hough , W. E. Paterson , J. Sloam (review)

REVIEWS 169 Much of the interestingdiscussion in the book centres on the issueswhich divide and animate politics. In contrast tomany of the predictions made by comparative political scientists in the mid-1990s that socio-economic issues would come to dominate, they have turned out to have been secondary to a historical-cultural divide. Indeed, in Poland, Hungary and many other states in the region theCommunist past appears to remain at the heart of political divisions. In the Lithuanian case, for instance, Ramonaite asserts that the 'main explanatory factor of voting behaviour' is 'thevoters' evaluation of the Soviet past' (p. 77).Nonetheless, Kopecky's contribution highlights the salience of socio-economic issues in Czech party politics. Although not explicitly mentioned by the contributors, the explanation for the difference between the Czech Republic on the one hand and Poland and Hungary on the othermay have much to do with the countries' different exits fromCommunism. This last point highlights the biggest weakness of the volume. Despite the impressive array of analysis and data in the country-chapters there is a lack of comparative analysis seeking to explain how and why individual cases are similar or different to others. Rybaf, for example, raises some fascinating points about old and new parties in Slovakia showing how they are not just organized differently,but have also developed contrasting strategies,with the former concentrating on party building and the latteron vote seeking.He sees this outcome as the result of genetic rather than developmental factors. But towhat extent is the Slovak case unique? Do the old and new parties in the Baltic States, for instance, resemble or differ from their counterparts in Slovakia? The book contains much of the raw material for comparative analysis, but largely leaves itup to the reader to undertake the comparative analysis him/herself. Nevertheless, itwould be churlish to dwell too much on this criticism. Containing a cornucopia of useful data and analysis, the publication of Post-Communist EU Member States,Parties and Party Systems is very much to be welcomed. Centre for Russian andEast European Studies T. Haughton European Research Institute, Universityof Birmingham Hough, D., Paterson, W. E. and Sloam, J. (eds). Learning from the West? Policy Transfer and Programmatic Change in theCommunistSuccessorParties ofEastern and CentralEurope. Routledge, London and New York, 2006. 176 pp. Tables. Notes. Index. ?65.00. Communist successor parties (CSPs) are among themost widely studied groups of actors in the region of East Central Europe. Learning from the West? is an attempt to enrich further the existing scholarship by studying the program matic development of these parties in a broader framework that also accom modates concepts from policy transfer literature, and includes examination of external actors, primarily the established West European social democratic parties and the transnational party organizations. 170 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2OO9 The main aim of the volume is to establish where CSPs gained inspiration for their programmatic renewal and how the domestic opportunity structure influenced the adoption of external inspiration by the CSPs. The introduc tory chapters delineate the conceptual and methodological design of the volume. While Hough reviews the concept of policy transfer,Paterson and Sloam make a strong case for a qualitative analysis of party programmes that is,as they argue, better suited for analysis of short-termchanges in the policy programmes than party manifesto content analysis. Two other contributions elucidate the role of international factors in the post-Communist transition and describe stances of various CSPs towards the European integration. Country studies comply to a large extentwith the conceptual and analytical framework of the volume. Reliance on elite interviews is, however, perhaps too excessive in the chapter on the Slovak SDE. This chapter mentions two potentially important findings that unfortunately remain unexplored: The claim that the Socialist International prevented the unification of the traditional and the Communist successor left in early 1990s, and that the Austrian Social Democrats had the strongest influence on the programmatic evolution of the SDE. Both claims are potentially very important for assessing the role of external forces but remain unsupported by other relevant sources. Of major West European social democratic parties, it was theGerman SPD thatbecame themajor source of policy transferfor theCSPs, due to its inter est...

Trajectories of Entropy and “the Labour Question”: The Political Economy of Post-communist Migration in the New Europe

This article begins by outlining the global historical context of contingent neoliberalism which has emerged in the late twentieth century as the dominant alternative economic trajectory to that of corporatist liberal welfare capitalism. Our analysis connects contemporary dimensions of labour migration and the challenges of economic development. It is relevant to the understanding of contemporary developments in Central and Eastern Europe in that we locate a case study of labour migration from the Baltic State of Latvia as an outcome of the application of the trajectory of neoliberalism that more widely now threatens to dismantle Jacques Delors’ “Social Europe” model. We argue that in the new post-communist EU member states such as Latvia, such socioeconomic prescriptions based on a “low road” of poor labour standards fail to deliver sustainable development for those who have adopted this path.

Post-Communist EU Member States: Parties and Party Systems. Ed. Susanne Jungerstam-Mulders. Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2006. xiii, 257 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. $99.95, hard bound.

Post-Communist EU Member States: Parties and Party Systems. Ed. Susanne Jungerstam-Mulders. Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2006. xiii, 257 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. $99.95, hard bound.

Kyoto flexibility mechanisms in EU accession countries: will they make a difference?

What potential effect do flexible mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol have on energy efficiency, fuel switching and the development of renewable energy sources for the eight post-communist EU Member States that accessed in 2004? These countries are chief candidates for hosting Joint Implementation (JI) projects and for participating in international emission trading, which may assist the implementation and financing of projects in these target areas. The potentials and barriers to Joint Implementation are reviewed, as well as the conditions under which international emission trading can influence the energy use of the selling country. Different strategies adopted by the host countries towards the application of these instruments, and their impact on sustainable energy development, are examined. The article concludes that the Kyoto flexibility mechanisms may play a positive, but rather limited, role in the sustainable energy development of the region, but the barriers to Joint Implementation may shift the emphasis towards transactions under the framework of international emission trading. If innovative mechanisms are tied to sustainable development goals, this may mobilize the energyefficiency potentials of these countries. An attractive opportunity exists to achieve energy efficiency and emission reductions, utilizing the revenues from allowance sales through ‘green investment’ schemes.

The Institutionalisation of Post-Communist Parliaments: Hungary and Romania in Comparative Perspective

The main contribution of the paper to the field of legislative studies consists in redefining the concept of legislative institutionalisation so that it can account for the impact of EU institutions and policies on the parliaments of post-communist EU member states and candidate countries. The paper analyses legislative institutionalisation in the Hungarian and Romanian parliaments by focusing on six dimensions: EU policies and institutions, constitutional frameworks and the consolidation of party systems (all part of the external environment shaping legislative institutionalisation); the existence of a core group of experienced MPs, party cohesion and discipline and committee structures (grouped together as the internal characteristics of legislatures). The paper concludes that, despite differences on three of these dimensions, both countries' parliaments have reached a relatively high degree of institutionalisation since the first free and fair elections of 1990.