Martin Brusis

Electoral landslides, corruption scandals, mass protests, a declining satisfaction with democracy and weakened democratic accountability in Hungary and Poland pose questions about where East-Central European democracies are heading and how their paths are related to the crisis of European integration. I argue that the crises of economic and European integration have discredited the nexus between economic integration and prosperity and made responsive and responsible government more incongruent. Multi-dimensional policy spaces facilitated the growth of anti-establishment parties in the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Higher performance expectations of citizens, the mixed electoral system, and missing institutional safeguards of societal-political pluralism rendered Hungary ’ s democracy more vulnerable.

Page 1. 86 Martin Brusis Vertikale Gewaltenteilung: zentralisierte und dezentralisierte Staaten Martin Brusis 1 Einleitung Nach dem Scheitern des Staatssozialismus existieren keine legitimierbaren Alternativen zur liberalen Demokratie als Modell politischer Herrschaft. ...

ABSTRACT http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/academic/politics/structure/democracy/9780199562978.do The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe analyses the state of play of democracy at the subnational level in the 27 member states of the EU plus Norway and Switzerland. It places subnational democracy in the context of the distinctive Anglo, the French, the German and Scandinavian state traditions in Europe asking to what extent these are still relevant today. The Handbook adapts Lijphart's theory of democracy and applies it to the subnational levels in all the country chapters. A key theoretical issue is whether subnational (regional and local) democracy is derived from national democracy or whether it is legitimate in its own right. Besides these theoretical concerns it focuses on the practice of democracy: the roles of political parties and interest groups and also how subnational political institutions relate to the ordinary citizen. This can take the form of local referendums or other mechanisms of participation. The Handbook reveals a wide variety of practices across Europe in this regard. Local financial systems also reveal a great variety. Finally, each chapter examines the challenges facing subnational democracy but also the opportunities available to them to enhance their democratic systems. Among the challenges identified are: Europeanization, globalization, but also citizens disaffection and switch-off from politics. Some countries have confronted these challenges more successfully than others but all countries face them. An important aspect of the Handbook is the inclusion of all the countries of East and Central Europe plus Cyprus and Malta, who joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. This is the first time they have been examined alongside the countries of Western Europe from the angle of subnational democracy.

This article examines the relationship between the configuration of core executive institutions, with a particular focus on the position of the prime minister and finance minister, and fiscal performance, defined in terms of the maintenance of aggregate fiscal discipline and the predictability of the budgetary process. The study covers post-communist Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. The first wave

... European University Institute Working Paper (Florence, Italy: European University Institute, 2001), 5. 5.James Hughes, Gwendolyn Sasse, and ... 19. Radaelli, “The Europeanization of Public Policy”; and Christoph Knill and Dirk Lehmkuhl, “The National Impact of European Union ...

... the rule of law, implementing the transition to a market economy and preparing for membership ... the internal dynamics of executives.2 The broader literature on postsocialist transition and EU ... The second three sections study changes in the executives along the three dimensions. ...

The paper traces the evolution of administrative-territorial units in Czechoslovakia since the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and relates them to the process of state formation. Debates on Czechoslovakia's political-administrative organization are resumed, beginning from the Czech lands and Slovakia in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, to the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-38), the Communist period (1948-89) and the developments after 1989.

Political legitimacy has become a scarce resource in Russia and other post-Soviet states in Eurasia. Their capacity to deliver prosperity has suffered from economic crisis, the conflict in Ukraine and the ensuing confrontation with the West. Will nationalism and repression enable political regimes to survive? This book investigates the politics of legitimation in post-Soviet countries, focusing on how political and intellectual elites exploit different modes of legitimation. Its chapters combine cross-national comparisons and country case studies, covering state-economy relations, pro-presidential parties, courts, ideas of nationhood, historical and literary narratives. The main conclusions are that weak economic performance, evidence of electoral fraud, unresponsive government and the waning authority of presidents continue to jeopardize institutional legitimacy. Incumbent elites have been able to shift between legitimation modes, but shifts towards nationalism, artificial charisma and traditionalism will not be sufficient in the long term to keep elites in power.