TACKLING INFORMAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE: FROM A DETERRENCE TO PREVENTATIVE APPROACH

2021 ◽  
pp. 2050024
Author(s):  
COLIN C. WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
Informal Entrepreneurship ◽  
East Central European ◽  
Preventative Approach

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of two contrasting policy approaches in tackling informal sector entrepreneurship. The dominant deterrence approach theorizes entrepreneurs as rational economic actors who operate in the informal sector when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. The resultant policy focus is upon deterring participation by increasing the costs of operating in the informal sector through increased penalties and probability of being caught. Recently, a more preventative approach has emerged theorizing entrepreneurs as social actors operating in the informal sector when there is a lack of vertical trust (in government) and horizontal trust (in others). The consequent policy focus is upon improving entrepreneurs’ vertical trust (in the state) and horizontal trust (in each other). To evaluate these approaches, evidence is reported from a 2019 Eurobarometer survey in six East-Central European countries (Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia). The finding is that participation in informal entrepreneurship is not significantly associated with the deterrent measures of raising the penalties and probability of being caught but is significantly associated with the preventative measures of improving vertical and horizontal trust. The implications for theory and policy are discussed.

scholarly journals The Emergence of East Central Europe in a Welfare Regime Typology

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-112
Author(s):  
Ágnes Orosz
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Regime ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
State Regime ◽  
East Central European ◽  
Over Time

The paper contributes to the welfare state regime literature by assessing the existence of the East-Central European welfare state regime. The article empirically tests whether East-Central European countries constitute a distinct welfare regime or they can be classified into existing regimes by using hierarchical cluster analysis. The paper defines clusters for two distinct time periods, in order to shed light on the changes over time. The research provides two substantive contributions. First, welfare states in East-Central Europe constitute a distinct welfare state regime only for the period of 2014-2016, and they might be subdivided into two groups: (1) Visegrad countries and (2) Balkan and Baltic countries together. Second, countries within the East-Central European welfare regime has become more similar over time.

Peculiarities of the Translation and Adaptation of the Concept of Nation in East-Central Europe

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-101
Author(s):  
Victor Neumann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Controversial Issue ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Political Cultures ◽  
East Central European

This article explores the controversial issue of concepts defining the East-Central European Romanian and Hungarian identities (nem, neam, popor, nép). It specifically focuses on the translation and adaptation of the German concept of nation by examining the inclusive or exclusive meanings this concept acquired in these two languages and political cultures during the first half of the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Examining Illiberal Trends and Anti-EU Politics in East Central Europe from a Domestic Perspective: State of Research and Outline of the Book

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Lisa H. Anders ◽  
Astrid Lorenz
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
East Central European

Abstract This opening chapter introduces the subject matter and objectives of the book. It first explains central terms and provides an overview of the different illiberal trends in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It then sketches recent conflicts between EU actors and the four East Central European states and explains why these conflicts are of a new quality. Next, it summarises the state of research on illiberal backsliding and on the EU’s tools against it and identifies shortcomings and gaps in the literature. Finally, it outlines the aims as well as the overall structure of the book and provides an overview of the contributions.

Deconsolidation of Democracy in East Central Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 431-436
Author(s):  
Attila Ágh
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
European Studies ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Conceptual Frame ◽  
State Capture ◽  
East Central European

In the early 1990s consolidation was the key term and conceptual frame in the democratization theories of the East Central European (ECE) states. However, this concept has been more and more questioned and finally rejected by the 2010s and the term deconsolidation has been introduced instead. Nowadays, there is an age of uncertainty in democracy studies that necessitates the reconceptualization of both European studies and democratic theory. In the recent deconsolidation process the trend towards ‘transitions to authoritarian rule’ has been observed in the ECE states in general and in Poland and Hungary in particular, where state capture has been extended to full-fledged ‘democracy capture’. Poland and Hungary will serve in this chapter as exemplary cases of deconsolidation of democracy.

scholarly journals East-Central Europe in the Writing of James Clarence Mangan

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-26
Author(s):  
Sinéad Sturgeon
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
East European ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The One ◽  
East Central European

Abstract This study explores the significance of East-Central Europe in a range of James Clarence Mangan’s poetry and prose from 1838–1847, focusing particularly on his depiction of Biedermeier Vienna (in the short story “The Man in the Cloak”), revolutionary uprisings in Poland and Albania (in the poems “Siberia” and “Song of the Albanian”), and his translations from the work of Bohemian-born Viennese poet Joseph Christian Freiherr von Zedlitz (1790–1862). I argue that Mangan’s interest in this region is twofold. On the one hand, it stems from the amenability of East-Central European culture and writing to the themes and tropes of the gothic, a genre central to Mangan’s imagination; on the other, from an underlying affinity in the historical position of the Irish and East-European poet in negotiating complex and contested politics of identity. While Mangan is a poet keenly conscious of “the importance of elsewhere,” and closely engaged in contemporary continental politics, I suggest that these European elsewheres also function as Foucauldian heterotopias, mythopoetic mirrors that enable the poet both to participate in Irish cultural nationalism and to register his dissent and distance from it.

Varieties of Capitalist Democracy: What Difference Does East-Central Europe Make?

2004 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAIN McMENAMIN
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
Capitalist Democracies ◽  
East Central European

The establishment of capitalist democracies in East-Central Europe raises the question of whether existing accounts of varieties of capitalist democracy need to be revised. This article provides a systematic quantitative comparison of varieties of capitalist democracy in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland with 19 other OECD countries. It finds that the East-Central European cases constitute a distinctive cluster; that they have much in common with Greece, Iberia and Ireland and that they are closer to the continental European than the liberal variety of capitalist democracy. These results have important implications for the internal politics of the European Union, prospects of an East-Central European repeat of the relative success of Ireland and the Mediterranean in the European Union, and debates about the influence of neo-liberalism on public policy.

Embattled executives: Prime ministerial weakness in East Central Europe

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Baylis
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Elite Recruitment ◽  
East Central European

In a period in which ‘‘strong’’ and even ‘‘presidential’’ prime ministers have arguably become more the rule than the exception in the major states of Western Europe, most prime ministers in the new democracies of East Central Europe appear to have been relatively weak figures. This article investigates the reasons for that relative weakness in the ten East Central European countries, which together have had 87 prime ministers in the 16 years since the fall of Communism. It evaluates several possible explanations: party system weakness, the institutional structure, elite recruitment patterns, and policy constraints. It then seeks to explain several notable exceptions to the prime ministerial weakness rule.

Some Reflections on the Habsburg Empire and Its Legacy in the Nationalities Question

1997 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 131-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solomon Wank
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Positive Statements ◽  
History Of ◽  
East Central European

The startling events of the last five years in Eastern Europe have led to a surprising nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and Emperor Francis Joseph in the lands of the former Habsburg Empire. Politicians and journalists in Europe and America now compare the old empire to the disoriented East Central Europe of today and hold up the former as a positive model for a supranational organization. The current wave of nostalgia has been helped along by some recent historical works that certainly were not written for that purpose, but that contain generous assessments of the monarchy's positive qualities. For example, István Deák, in his highly acclaimed book,Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918, strongly recommends that the “Habsburg experiment” in supranational organization be reexamined: “I am convinced that we can find here a positive lesson while the post-1918 history of the central and east central European nation-states can only show US what to avoid.” Similar positive statements can be found in the recently published works of Alan Sked, Barbara Jelavich, and F. R. Bridge.

Jenseits von Ostmitteleuropa? Zur Aporie einer deutschen Nischenforschung

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-63
Author(s):  
Markus Krzoska ◽  
Kolja Lichy ◽  
Konstantin Rometsch
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
East Central European

Ostmitteleuropaforschung - Beyond East Central Europe? The Aporiae of a Niche Research Interest in Germany The article discusses some crucial problems of area studies drawing on the example of East Central European studies in Germany today. Against the backdrop of persistent methodological imperatives stemming from the 19th and early 20th century, we argue that general definitions of space, time or structure are of little use even in relation to a constructed region. Instead, we call for a praxeological approach that takes into consideration specific situational entanglements and their actors. In the context of global, European, imperial or transnational turns in historical cultural studies, a non-hierarchical, spatial and temporal perspective becomes essential. This article seeks to encourage discussion about the chances and risks that current developments in historical area studies in Germany entail, while also providing an impulse to think about possible future ramifications.

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