The (Positive) Design Environment as a Prerequisite of Design Orientation

Design is a human-centered activity. Every design project starts with the analysis of user needs and preferences. This means that design orientation of a company should also be positively related to company’s business results. However, in most transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs), design environment is not supported, there is no clear national design policy, design implementation in companies varies, and there is no constant measurement of design impact. The main interest of this paper is to research the level of design implementation in Croatian companies related to the managerial approach and business results, because such research is usually undertaken in more developed countries. The study focuses on the perception of management. This quantitative research has been carried out using an Internet survey to examine managers and CEOs from Croatian companies in different industries. The results show positive relations between design environment and design orientation of a company and a significant impact of management.

Administrative Justice in the Transitional States

This chapter surveys the state of academic knowledge, conceptual consistency, and theoretical debate relevant for two subtopics of administrative justice narrative: the legal treatment of administrative silence and the alternative dispute resolution tools. The legal fictions associated with administrative silence and the interplay between the two avenues of dispute solving—administrative and judicial—are a persistent preoccupation of the administrative law discourse in modern times. This is even more significant in transitional countries, where the legal tradition was interrupted by political changes and restarted decades later. The chapter seeks to identify and provide a survey of these recurring themes in administrative justice research from the perspective of transitional (former Communist) democracies from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), taken as a case study. It identifies the challenges posed by the administrative silence and by the adoption of ADR tools meant to alleviate the burden from the courts. The chapter concludes that the success of different (sometimes competing) approaches is highly dependent on the legal culture of the system in which they are implemented.

Is It Possible to Tackle Youth Needs with Agricultural and Rural Development Policies?

Rural youth are influenced by a wide range of uncertainties regarding their personal and professional development. Rural youth and in particular rural NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training) are especially vulnerable and face higher risks of labour market, social and economic exclusion. This paper aims to analyse the determinants of the dynamics of rural NEETs in three post-transitional countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia) compared to the EU-28 average and to Ireland as an example of an established EU member state with over 50% of its population living in rural areas that can act as a benchmark for effective policy implementation to address challenges of marginalized youth, during the 2009–2019 period. The dynamics of rural NEET status and the efficiency/adaptability of regional development policies are revealed through analysis of macro and socioeconomic factors as well as specific employment-related indicators disaggregated by gender and degree of urbanisation. The comparative analysis indicates deficiencies in regional development policies among post-transitional countries and the potential to adapt modern European practices and policies for improving the rural NEETs’ position.

Determinants of health expenditure from global perspective: A panel data analysis

A prominent enhancement in health expenditure is a severe apprehension for the whole world because of the increasing cost of health. Consideration of various aspects that are playing role in the increase of health expenditure need to be considered. Health is one of the significant parts of the world, therefore, improvement in health status has become the main objective of the nations and a top leading goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The main goal of the present study is to investigate the worldwide, and income-based categorized countries (developed, developing, and transitional countries) macroeconomic determinants of health expenditure. The aim is to estimate the health expenditures, and its impact on demographic, economic, and environmental determinants. For the empirical analysis, the data was retrieved from the World Bank, covering the time span 2000-2016 for developed, developing, and transitional countries. The results of the study concluded that macroeconomic variables significantly affect health expenditures. Moreover, personal remittances have a dual effect on health expenditure, i.e. a positive impact on transitional economies, while a negative impact on developing economies. In the same way, CO2 emission has a negative impact on worldwide, developed countries.

The European Green Capital Award—Is It a Dream or Reality for Belgrade (Serbia)?

An agreement of cooperation and transmission of knowledge regarding the nomination for the European Green Capital Award (EGCA) was signed between the mayors of Belgrade and Ljubljana (EGCA 2016 winner) in September 2018. The candidacy of Belgrade was finally realized in October 2019. Great hope was placed in this endeavour because internationally recognized awards, such as the EGCA, represent enormous capital for both the city and the state. The EGCA requires serious preparation and significant fulfilment of preconditions. Many economically strong and environmentally responsible cities competed for the award, but did not win. On the other hand, the capital of Serbia does not appear to be an obvious winning candidate, especially as it is differentiated from the previous winners by being a non-EU city and by the fact that it is still undergoing an intense urban transformation, characteristic of transitional countries. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to present a review of the current state of Belgrade’s environmental qualities and its comparison with the EGCA criteria and with Grenoble as one of the winning competitors. The article gives a full overview of the EGCA requirements with certain details on required indicators, gives relevant insight into the procedure, which could be of use for any future candidacy, and discusses potential benefits for winners, losers and repeat candidacies.

A liberal narrative

This chapter unpacks a liberal narrative of democracy. It grounds and locates the ways that many aid workers in Myanmar understood and communicated about democracy. The chapter outlines three elements of this narrative. First, most international aid workers involved in the research pointed toward the challenge of ethnic and religious divisions in the country. These aid workers described how divisions in Myanmar were perpetuated by a personalised political culture where formal institutions of democracy were insufficiently embedded. Second, aid agency representatives often expressed a vision of a formal procedure-based democracy supported by liberal values of human rights, pluralism and the protection of minorities. This vision also had a future orientation, where proponents of this narrative saw Myanmar’s democratisation as being set within the context of other transitional countries around the world – moving away from traditional systems toward a democratic future. Third, many aid workers emphasised a strategy of government and civil society capacity building led by international aid agencies.

Biometric National Identification

Fifty-five percent of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa lack any official identification documentation and this has created a hug identity gap. African countries are using biometric technology to pilot multimillion-dollar national identification projects aimed at narrowing the identity gaps. However, there has been little evidence published on the extent this technology has led to economic development and to narrowing the identity gap in sub-Saharan Africa. Using a narrative review, this chapter explores the role of the emerging biometric national identification technology in narrowing the identity gap and contributing to economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter is of significance in that it informs governments in developing and transitional countries especially in Africa on lessons learned from the pilot projects and suggests better ways of narrowing the identity gap using the emerging biometric national identification technology.

State capture: Case of South Africa

"Grand corruption" and "state capture" are two intertwined concepts of corruption that have become systemic and institutionalized in many transitional countries around the world. "State capture" can simply be defined as "the payment of bribes at high levels of government in order to extract or plunder significant amounts of money from the state". The following paper will argue that when state capture occurs in transitional countries, it runs the risk of becoming socially embedded and institutionalized, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain the principles of democracy and threatens the overall stability of a country in transition. South Africa makes for a useful case study because it clearly represents how corruption in the form of state capture has infiltrated the political landscape of a country in transition, thereby rendering all state institutions redundant and threatening the principles of democracy. The paper will research what the dangers of state capture means for the countries in transition with the aim of proposing recommendations of minimizing state capture in order to reduce the negative consequences for security, peace and democracy. One corruption scandal that occurred in South Africa will be described which became known as "state capture". The paper was prepared based on the analysis of documents, academic and media articles that focus on state capture and the corruption in transitional countries. The paper will conclude that governmental corruption has become socially embedded in the "logics" of negotiation and interaction, thereby indicating that it has become institutionalized and culturally embedded within South Africa.