Deals with political science.

Informal relations have been one of the major research topics of the social sciences since the 1990s. In order to allow for meaningful comparisons between different combinations of the positive and negative effects of informal relations on democratic representation, this book focuses on post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe as a particular region where formal democratic rules have been established, but competing informal rules are still strong. A broad spectrum of related analytical concepts is discussed from different perspectives and from different academic disciplines, then empirical cases of the relationship between informal relations and democratic representation are analyzed. The contributions span the whole continuum, as we perceive it, from civil society networks seen as supporting democratic representation to the perversion of democratic representation through political corruption. The final part of the book takes a closer look at corruption through four case studies from Russia.

This book is a comprehensive collection of key scholarship on informality from the whole post-socialist region. From Bosnia to Central Asia, passing through Russia and Azerbaijan, the contributions to this volume illustrate the multi-faceted and complex nature of informality, while demonstrating the growing scholarly and policy debates that have developed around the understanding of informality. In contrast to approaches which tend to classify informality as ‘bad’ or ‘transitional’ – meaning that modernity will make it disappear – this edited volume concentrates on dynamics and mechanisms to understand and explain informality, while also debating its relationship with the market and society. The authors seek to explain informality beyond a mere monetaristic/economistic approach, rediscovering its interconnection with social phenomena to propose a more holistic interpretation of the meaning of informality and its influence in various spheres of life. They do this by exploring the evolving role of informal practices in the post-socialist region, and by focusing on informality as a social organisation determinant but also looking at the way it reshapes emergent social resistance against symbolic and real political order(s). This book was originally published as two special issues, of Caucasus Survey and the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe.

This book contains collection of articles which provide policy implications related to the problem of achieving substantive reform on the basis of harmonising legislation in Western Balkan (WB) countries with the standards of the European Union (EU). While WB states have generally been successful in adopting legal reforms that make up a part of EU conditionality, many laws remain unenforced, amounting to "empty shells." In the space between law, as it is written, and practices as they are engaged in everyday life, exists a gap, characterized by informality, clientelism, and exchange often based on strong tie relationships. Some instances of informality undermine the goal of establishing rule law and contribute to corruption. Others offer valuable solutions to persistent social problems or represent traditional vehicles of social cohesion that should be promoted. The recommendations in this book seek to address both constructive and damaging instances of informality, and to identify policy measures that can help to harmonise not only legislation, but existing informal practices on the ground.

This book offers a fascinating, thought-provoking and ground-breaking study of post-communist political life. It is one of the first full-length academic works to explore the question of how informal structures, headed by bosses, godfathers and oligarchs, affect formal party politics and democracy.

What is the relationship between democracy and political culture in countries undergoing major systemic change? Have subjective political orientations of citizens been important in shaping the development of democracy in central and eastern Europe after the fall of communism? These core questions are tackled by an impressive range of twenty political scientists, sixteen of which are based in the central and eastern European countries covered in this essential new book. Their analyses draw on a unique set of data collected and processed by the contributors to this volume within the framework of the World Values Survey project. This data enables these authors to establish similarities and differences in support of democracy between a large number of countries with different cultural and structural conditions as well as historical legacies. The macro-level findings of the book tend to support the proposition that support of democracy declines the further east one goes. In contrast, micro-level relationships have been found to be astonishingly similar. For example, support of democracy is always positively related to higher levels of education – no matter where an individual citizen happens to live. This new book builds a clear understanding of what makes democracies strong and resistant to autocratic temptation.

This timely comparative analysis explores the evolution of governance in Central and Eastern Europe. The book considers post-communist leaders' key challenge: the development of central government institutions capable of coordinating, integrating, and steering the policymaking process. Building on a broad range of primary sources and extensive field research, the distinguished authors analyze the processes and outcomes of institution-building in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria since the late 1980s. They examine in detail the organization and inner workings of central executives; explain differences in executive trajectories across time and countries by considering the influence of institutional legacies, the impact of evolving party systems, and the role of crises in spurring institutional change; and show the effects of executive institutions on patterns of public policy, especially the budgetary process. Through a rigorous application of the core-executive framework, this study offers nuanced conceptual and analytical insights that will enhance understanding of both the evolving institutions of Central and Eastern Europe and the more stable West European systems. The in-depth analysis of the development of national executive institutions casts a distinctive new light on debates about EU enlargement, Europeanization, and patterns of governance.