scholarly journals Recent Attacks on Judicial Independence: The Vulgar, the Systemic, and the Insidious

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1159-1191
Author(s):  
James E. Moliterno ◽  
Peter Čuroš

AbstractThis article offers an opening to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) situation and attacks against the judiciary in this region since 2010. The focus is not primarily on historical path dependence like the rest of this issue. Instead, the focus aims at the nature of attacks on the judiciary. Such attacks have appeared in CEE and the US in recent years. Its interest lies in explaining similar patterns visible in the judiciaries of CEE. Particularly, it looks at the current conditions in the Czech judiciary, political interventions in Poland since 2015 and in Hungary since 2010, and undermining of trust towards judiciary in the U.S., where attempts for delegitimizing the judiciary have happened since 2016. The article draws on similarities of attacks of authoritarian governments and responses of judiciaries. The authors highlight similarities and diversities of CEE countries 30 years after the fall of the communist regime and a path of these resemblances and varieties.

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 1431-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morag Goodwin

North Carolina has, like most American states, played its (not always positive) part in the struggle against what Clinton, back in 1997 when the U.S. had more domestic concerns on its mind, called “America's constant curse”. But racial discrimination is not, of course, simply America's curse. Europe, for all its self-righteousness of late, has certainly not escaped it. Despite the prevalence of racial discrimination right across the geographic expression of Europe, this paper shall concentrate on a particular set of countries – those termed Central and Eastern Europe – and on a particular group – the Roma, widely acknowledged as the most marginalised and discriminated in Europe today.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (338) ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Sandris Ancans

AbstractThe economy of Latvia lags behind economically developed nations approximately fourfold in terms of labour productivity in the tradable sector, which is the key constituent of a modern economy, thereby affecting future sustainable development in the entire country, including the rural areas. The economic backwardness is characteristic of the entire Central and Eastern Europe. This is the heritage of a communist regime that lasted for about half a century and the economic system termed a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy. However, such a term for the communist-period economy is not correct, as it does not represent the purpose it was created for. Accordingly, the paper aims to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU. A planned economy that existed in all communist countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, was not introduced to contribute to prosperity. It was intended for confrontation or even warfare by the communist countries under the guidance of the USSR against other countries where no communism regime existed, mostly Western world nations with their market economies. For this reason, it is not correct to term it a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy; the right term is a mobilised (war) economy. An extrapolation of a geometric progression for GDP revealed that during the half a century, Latvia as part of the USSR was forced to spend on confrontation with the West not less than EUR 17 bln. (2011 prices) or approximately one gross domestic product of 2011. The research aim of the paper is to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU.


2020 ◽  
pp. 174804852091849
Author(s):  
Alexander Dhoest

Jasbir Puar introduced the notion of ‘homonationalism’ to describe the increasing acceptance of sexual minorities in Western nations, leading to their incorporation in the national in-group which is increasingly opposed to homophobic ‘others’. While Muslims constitute the main out-group, other groups and nations are also targeted, in particular Russia and related countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Such discourses create a binary opposition between two homogenized parties, the uniformly LGBTQ-friendly in-group versus the uniformly homophobic ‘other’. While the literature on homonationalism mostly discusses politics in the U.S. and a number of other nation-states, this article explores homonationalism in a smaller sub-national region in Western Europe, Flanders, focusing on the press as a tool for spreading homonationalist discourse. Exploring three months of Flemish newspapers, this article identifies some instances of explicit homonationalism but more implicit homonationalism which does not explicitly mention the in-group but does paint a one-sided picture of Russia and related countries as homophobic.


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hamilton

This article examines the changing security, economic and diplomatic components of the transatlantic link, with a particular focus on Washington’s approach and implications for Central and Eastern Europe. The United States continues to play an essential role as security underwriter in the region, but the military dimension of the transatlantic relationship is transforming and will result in greater burdens on Europeans. Economic links between the U.S. and Central Europe are developing more strongly than generally understood, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is likely to drive both political and economic ties. Unconventional gas developments are enhancing U.S. engagement in European energy markets. Finally, the U.S. remains keen to engage its European partners on a broad agenda of global and regional issues and retains its own interests in working particularly with Central and Eastern European countries to lend stability to ‘wider Europe’.


Author(s):  
Richard Robinson ◽  
Michael M. Stanciu

During the last 20 years of the Communist regime in Romania, the road network was allowed to fall into decline. But since 1993 Romania’s plans for accession to the European Union have led to an increased emphasis on effectiveness and efficiency of the road transport system, and plans have been prepared and implemented for restructuring the road sector. Progress in the restructuring is charted in the areas of road sector financing, management, and regulatory and institutional development. Efficiencies have resulted from greater specificity of operations and increased use of competition. There have been remarkably few losses resulting from this process. The approach adopted in Romania provides a simple framework that has potential for application throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and perhaps more widely, for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of road network management arrangements.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-175
Author(s):  
Piotr Maszczyk

AbstractThis article analyzes the institutional architecture and the level of similarity between the social protection system in 11 new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe and chosen Western European countries, representing four different models of capitalism identified by Amable. In the selected institutional area, a comparative analysis was performed, and based on it, similarity hexagons were created. They serve the purpose of comparing Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with Western European countries of reference. The dynamic approach adopted in this study—two different time periods were compared—allows an analysis of path dependence and the evolution of institutional architecture over time. The analysis indicates that in 2014, in the area of social protection, almost all CEE countries, apart from Latvia and Romania, were most comparable to the Continental model of capitalism represented by Germany. Nevertheless, the variety of results for the individual variables (especially input and output variables) and substantial changes between 2005 and 2014 also show that the model of capitalism prevailing in Central and Eastern Europe in the area of the social protection system is evolving constantly at a very fast pace and thus currently may be called a hybrid or even patchwork capitalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Renata Duda

The article aims to present the driving forces, defined as the path dependence approach, shaping systemic changes in the Central and Eastern Europe. It will also consider the usefulness of this concept for explaining the different results of the political and economic transformation.


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