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While many histories of the Balkans have been published, some very good and others poor, there is as yet no history of institutions in the Balkans. This is what the contributors to Ottomans into European offer the reader: a history of the most salient political institutions of the region: bureaucracies, judiciaries, democratic elections, free media, local and central government - and their frequently strained relations with traditional institutions. They also examine the selection, evolution, and performance of institutions in the post-Ottoman Balkans, and try to account for variations throughout the region. In writing this institutional history of the Balkans the contributors set themselves two key questions: did the post-Ottoman wave of Europeanization and Western-type institution building fail in the Balkans, and does this explain the region's continuing political fragility? And if this is the case, are there underlying structural determinants explaining that failure which might manifest themselves again in present attempts to re-integrate the region, from Turkey to Albania?
This article studies comparatively the property restitution policies of Eastern and Western Balkan countries, focusing mostly on internal and external constraints to a permanent solution. The role of the European Court of Human Rights is analyzed in depth, as well as the subtle shift of policy of the EU institutions from the earlier Eastern Balkan accession to the Western Balkans one. While the situation of property restitution in South-Eastern Europe provides clear evidence that Europeanization helps transformation, particularly if the EU openly assumes the role of a transformation agent, it also highlights the limits of its power.
While many histories of the Balkans have been published, some very good and others poor, there is as yet no history of institutions in the Balkans. This is what the contributors to Ottomans into European offer the reader: a history of the most salient political institutions of the region: bureaucracies, judiciaries, democratic elections, free media, local and central government – and their frequently strained relations with traditional institutions. They also examine the selection, evolution, and performance of institutions in the post-Ottoman Balkans, and try to account for variations throughout the region. In writing this institutional history of the Balkans the contributors set themselves two key questions: did the post-Ottoman wave of Europeanization and Western-type institution building fail in the Balkans, and does this explain the region’s continuing political fragility? And if this is the case, are there underlying structural determinants explaining that failure which might manifest themselves again in present attempts to re-integrate the region, from Turkey to Albania?
The interest of social science, media, and policymakers for corruption has exploded after 1990 due to increasing evidence that corruption is accountable for poor growth and chronic underdevelopment. This had impressive policy consequences: by 2012, no less than 161 state parties had adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which was put into force on 14 December 2005. This article discusses the various conceptualizations of corruption as an individual behavior as well as a governance regime (particularism), the evolution of Western thought until the adoption of ethical universalism as universal governance norm (with UNCAC) and the performance of countries in establishing control of
corruption in historical and contemporary times.
Why do some societies manage to control corruption so that it manifests itself only occasionally, while other societies remain systemically corrupt? This book is about how societies reach that point when integrity becomes the norm and corruption the exception in regard to how public affairs are run and public resources are allocated. It primarily asks what lessons we have learned from historical and contemporary experiences in developing corruption control, which can aid policy-makers and civil societies in steering and expediting this process. Few states now remain without either an anticorruption agency or an Ombudsman, yet no statistical evidence can be found that they actually induce progress. Using both historical and contemporary studies and easy to understand statistics, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi looks at how to diagnose, measure and change governance so that those entrusted with power and authority manage to defend public resources.
The Quest for Good Governance presents a comprehensive empirical theory of governance unifying important disparate contributions in the areas of corruption, quality of government and rule of law and is the first attempt to directly answer the big question of what explains virtuous circles in good governance. It features research and policy tools to diagnose and build contextualized national strategies.
The Anticorruption Frontline
(2014)
From Turkey to Egypt, Bulgaria to Ukraine, and Brazil to India, we witness the rise of an angry urban middle class protesting against what they see as fundamental corruption of their political regimes, perceived as predatory and inefficient. Corruption is near the top of all global protesters’ list of grievances – from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring. Their countries have benefited to varying degrees from globalization, but their regimes have all failed to evolve politically to meet their expectations. Corruption has become the main explanation for failures in government performance, for networks of patrons and clients subverting fair competition, and for billions of Euro in disappearing public funds, national or foreign assistance income. The economic crisis exposed the hypocrisy of rich countries which control corruption at home but use it to advance their economic interests abroad. The rise in the last two decades of an international anti-corruption regime only raised awareness but failed so far to diminish corruption.
There is increasing demand for good governance resulting in quality education and health systems, and denunciation of sheer bread and circus populism.
Volume 2 of the ANTICORRP Anticorruption Report tackles these issues across key cases and developments. The report is grouped into three parts:
1. The frontline reports, tracing developments in Ukraine and Bulgaria, where people rebelled against corrupt leaders, plus Rwanda and Qatar, who advanced in good governance charts, but find themselves accused of sponsoring wars across borders or bribing FIFA officials;
2. The methodology to move beyond perception-based corruption indicators, in the form of a three-country study on procurement data which reveals how EU funds increase the risk of corruption in Central Europe;
3. The empirical evidence on why control of corruption works when it does, and does not work for the most part, in the shortened version of ANTICORRP’s first milestone report.
A non-fiction book about the social engineering operated in rural Eastern Europe by the Communist regime, based on the history of two villages in Romania. One of the two villages is the birthplace of Nicolae Ceausescu, the former Communist dictator, Scornicesti, which received massive investment during communist years and was turned into a mixture of underdeveloped village and industrial town. The other is Nucsoara, the Carpathian cradle of peasants' resistance against Communism, where half the village was executed or imprisoned and their lands divided between the other half. The state intervention failed in both villages to attain the planned objectives, but it nevertheless changed fundamentally the life of villagers. This book is mostly about the consequences of unlimited state power over people and communities.
There are two radically different versions of the postcommunist narrative. One tells the triumphal tale of the only world region in which the reforms recommended by the “Washington consensus” worked. The other and more realistic account speaks of a historic window of opportunity that lasted for only a quarter-century, during which efforts by the West and patriotic elites of Central and Eastern Europe managed to drag the region into Europe proper, leaving Europe and Russia pitted against each other along the old “civilizational” border between them. This essay argues that while Institutional choices matter in the postcommunist world, geopolitical and civilizational boundaries still set the horizons of political possibility.
Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy in the new member states but failed in promoting good governance? This essay seeks to answer this question first by distinguishing governance from political regimes, and second by exploring to what extent national governance—which is defined as the set of formal and informal institutions that determine who gets what in a given country—is susceptible to being improved by external pressure or intervention. It concludes that improving governance remains a challenge even for the democratic character of the European project.
Control of corruption in a society is an equilibrium between resources and costs which either empowers or constraints elites predatory behavior. While most research and practice focuses on legal constraints, this paper investigates normative constraints, deemed to be more important, especially civil society and the press. Fresh evidence—both historical and statistical—is found to support Tocqueville’s assertions regarding the importance of collective action and the joint action of media and associations in not only creating a democratic society, but controlling corruption as well. However, little is known on how to build normative constraints.